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Kevin Brown and His Qing-era Map of China
64 Plays7 years ago
The founder of Geographicus Rare Antique Maps goes into detail about a big, blue, Qing-era map of the empire's tribute system: a network of cities, tribes, and nations that extended as far as Europe.
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Transcript
Smurfs Collection and eBay Success
00:00:00
Speaker
Like many people in the 70s, I had a large collection of Smurfs, which I sold on eBay, and some of them were selling for shocking amounts of money, hundreds of them, you know, in the multiple hundreds of dollars each.
00:00:14
Speaker
And it was enough for a while for me to make my way in the world.
00:00:18
Speaker
By selling collectibles on eBay?
00:00:20
Speaker
Selling Smurfs on eBay, mostly.
Introduction to the Podcast 'Curious Objects'
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:31
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I'm your host, Ben Miller.
00:00:33
Speaker
First, I'd like to thank our sponsors, Freeman's Auction House and Rinalda House Museum of American Art.
Freeman's Auction House Legacy
00:00:38
Speaker
Our first sponsor is Freeman's Auction House in Center City, Philadelphia.
00:00:42
Speaker
Whether you're collecting or consigning, you want to deal with an auction house with a sterling reputation.
00:00:47
Speaker
Try Freeman's.
00:00:49
Speaker
Freeman's is the oldest auction house in America, dating to 1805.
00:00:53
Speaker
In my day job, I deal in silver and jewelry.
00:00:56
Speaker
We've bought dozens of pieces at Freeman's, ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.
00:01:01
Speaker
But it's not just silver and jewelry.
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Speaker
Their specialists offer one-on-one service and expertise across all areas.
00:01:07
Speaker
Freeman's specialists have worked with generations of private collectors, institutions, advisors, estates, and museums.
00:01:14
Speaker
Their spring sale season this year offered 14 successful auctions, including eight significant private collections and four world auction records.
00:01:23
Speaker
Upcoming fall and winter auctions include an impressive list of subjects, Asian arts, fine jewelry, books, maps and manuscripts, Americana, British and European furniture and decorative arts, as well as 20th century design and American art and Pennsylvania Impressionists.
00:01:39
Speaker
Freeman's is inviting new consignments right now.
00:01:41
Speaker
Want to find out more?
00:01:43
Speaker
Go to freemansauction.com.
Engaging with 'My Curious Object' Campaign
00:01:46
Speaker
Before we get started, I want to give a quick shout out to the My Curious Object Instagram campaign.
00:01:51
Speaker
Last episode, I mentioned that the magazine Antiques was launching a campaign to ask you all to post your own curious objects to Instagram.
00:01:58
Speaker
We're going to pick a few of these pieces and feature them in the podcast.
00:02:01
Speaker
I've been honestly so impressed at not just the number of posts you've made, but also at how interesting and even downright bizarre the objects have been.
00:02:10
Speaker
And it's not too late to participate.
00:02:12
Speaker
Post a picture of your curious object to Instagram with the hashtag mycuriousobject and tag the magazine Antiques.
00:02:20
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Their handle is at antiquesmag.
00:02:23
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You can also tag me directly.
00:02:25
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My handle is at objectiveinterest.
00:02:28
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I can't wait to see your objects.
00:02:30
Speaker
Again, that's hashtag my curious object, tag antiquesmag and objective interest.
Meet Kevin Brown: Antique Maps Specialist
00:02:38
Speaker
Okay, my guest today is the owner of Geographicus Rare Antique Maps.
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His name is Kevin Brown.
00:02:45
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Kevin was actually the very first person I ever worked with in the antiques industry.
00:02:50
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I had a longstanding interest in maps, and Kevin and I are both in Brooklyn, so before I even knew I wanted to be an antique dealer, I did a little research for Kevin, and he gave me my first introduction to the world of buying and selling antiques.
00:03:04
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So it was an obvious choice to ask Kevin to join me on Curious Objects.
00:03:07
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His company, Geographicus, has an impressively wide-ranging inventory.
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And unlike a lot of antiques dealers, his website is actually easy to navigate.
00:03:17
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And it has not only high-res photos, but also very extensive research on each map, even the less expensive ones.
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So it's worth taking a look.
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The site is geographicus.com.
00:03:28
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And as always, you can find images of today's curious object and related materials at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
Exploring a 200-Year-Old Chinese Map
00:03:35
Speaker
Today, we're talking about a 200-year-old Chinese map that challenges some of the basic ideas about what a map is supposed to represent and achieve.
00:03:44
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Kevin is fastidious about his research, and I think he'll really enjoy learning about this map.
00:03:51
Speaker
He also talked with me about his own very unusual start into the antiques business, as you might have guessed from the Smurfs in the intro quote.
00:03:59
Speaker
But we also managed to touch on such disparate subjects as Amazonian tribes and Donald Rumsfeld.
00:04:07
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So with that teaser, I hope you're excited to hear from Kevin Brown.
00:04:11
Speaker
So Kevin Brown, thanks for joining me on the podcast.
00:04:14
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Thank you.
00:04:15
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Pleasure.
00:04:15
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Now, you're a dealer in rare and antique maps, and that is such an overwhelmingly large field because there are maps from all periods, from all parts of the world.
00:04:27
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There are real maps and imaginary maps.
00:04:29
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There are maps that show places and maps that show ideas.
00:04:34
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What kind of map do you typically deal in?
00:04:38
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Well, we are, in fact, generalists.
00:04:40
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So you're right.
00:04:41
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We throw a wide net.
00:04:43
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Our earliest maps date to the 1400s.
00:04:45
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Our most recent maps probably date to as late as say 1970 or so.
00:04:52
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In general, they are rare maps.
00:04:54
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So as part of our moniker or business name, it is accurate.
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So we do focus on unusual rare items.
00:05:04
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It's more what we don't do than what we do do.
00:05:07
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Like jazz.
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I suppose.
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So we don't compete excessively with the European market.
00:05:14
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So you won't find our site full of maps of different provinces in France, English counties or German provinces.
00:05:25
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We do have a strong European content, but it's more general than that.
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So we might have a map of Italy, but not a map of Florence, although we do have maps of Florence.
00:05:37
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But maybe no, you know, the second day of the Battle of Waterloo or... No, something like that.
00:05:42
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We probably would not have...
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We also don't generally have strong content in South America.
00:05:49
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Otherwise, we get everything.
00:05:52
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And the map that I wanted to talk to you about today is a map of, well, it's a map of China, but it's kind of also a map of the world.
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And I find this thing completely fascinating and not to mention visually very impressive.
00:06:08
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So let's dive into talking about this Qing Dynasty map.
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And I should say for listeners, the scale of this thing is massive.
00:06:16
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I mean, it's, what is it, four feet by six feet?
00:06:19
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It's about 55 by 98 inches.
00:06:22
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This is an expansive map.
00:06:24
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It was issued in 1811 in China.
00:06:28
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And as we mentioned, it's about 98 inches wide, which for a map is quite large.
00:06:35
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It's meant to cover an entire wall or as it may have appeared in China on a screen.
00:06:40
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It is often called printed in negative, although that is not precisely true.
00:06:44
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But the map is a striking, resonant, deep blue.
00:06:49
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And the seas around it are a lighter, almost iridescent blue.
00:06:54
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The color was very, very significant in Chinese art.
00:06:59
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not only social and political thinking, but also kind of mystical thinking.
00:07:04
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The blue is somewhat obvious.
00:07:08
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The Chinese character for blue, at least the color blue that's used here, is in fact the same as the character that is part of the term Qing.
00:07:19
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Oh, really?
00:07:20
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Or at least Great Qing.
00:07:23
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So there's probably a bit of a play going on.
00:07:27
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that the artisan would have been aware of when choosing to make it in this intense color combination.
00:07:33
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So was blue an important color for the Qing Dynasty more generally?
00:07:37
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So in traditional Chinese iconography, blue references immortality,
00:07:41
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underscoring the everlasting nature of the Qing Empire, which is in fact part of the title of the map in translation.
00:07:48
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Oh, I didn't realize it had a title.
00:07:50
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It does.
Symbolism and Significance of the Qing Dynasty Map
00:07:51
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The translation of the title would be All Under Heaven Complete Map of the Everlasting Unified Qing Empire.
00:07:58
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Oh, is that all?
00:07:59
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That's quite an ambitious headline.
00:08:01
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Yes, well...
00:08:02
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It was made for the emperor.
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And of course, the mapmaker would have wanted the emperor to be impressed with the map.
00:08:10
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And all of the geographical features and annotations, they appear in white.
00:08:16
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So it is extremely vibrant and striking to observe.
00:08:23
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And you can see, of course, land and sea, and you can see some geographical features.
00:08:29
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There are quite a few rivers, including a couple of prominent rivers.
00:08:32
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Are those the Yangtze and the Yellow River?
00:08:36
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That's right.
00:08:36
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The two dominant rivers that flow through the map are the Yangtze and the Yellow River, which are gigantic snake-like white bands that run deep into the map.
00:08:47
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But the overwhelming feature over the surface of the map is actually Chinese characters.
00:08:54
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Well, yes.
00:08:55
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And symbols.
00:08:56
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This was an administrative map, if it could be called anything.
00:09:02
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And so as such, it was made for the emperor.
00:09:05
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And if you were the emperor, you would look at this map.
00:09:07
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And by looking at it, you would understand the tax and tribute system throughout your entire empire.
00:09:13
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And notably, there are no borders.
00:09:15
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The Qing saw their domain as extending everywhere where a tribute was paid to them.
00:09:22
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And various kinds of tributes flowed into the empire from various sorts of...
00:09:28
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officials, magistrates, foreign embassies, etc., etc.
00:09:34
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So if someone had brought a tribute to the emperor, their country is most likely represented on this map.
00:09:40
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So there are quite a few countries on the map that from initially looking at it, you would not suspect.
00:09:46
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Nor is this map really a map as it would be understood from the Western or European countries.
00:09:52
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mindset.
00:09:53
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So it's not printed or designed on a scale of distance.
00:09:57
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It's designed on a scale of significance to the Qing emperor.
00:10:02
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So tell me a bit about the representations of lands outside of China, because we have the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers running across really the majority of the map.
00:10:14
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And then all of what appears to be Africa and Europe condense into a very small, almost a margin on the left side.
00:10:23
Speaker
Is it clear or is it delineated exactly what regions of the rest of the world are represented?
00:10:31
Speaker
Somewhat.
00:10:32
Speaker
The map includes definitely England, includes Holland, includes Southeast Asia and Africa.
00:10:41
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There's a possibility that it also includes Portugal, but some of the terminology is obvious.
00:10:50
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So the map uses extremely Chinese, if you will, terminology to describe various places.
00:10:58
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Holland is the land of red beards and Portugal is the land of the Great Western Sea.
00:11:06
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Italy is possibly on it.
00:11:08
Speaker
The Atlantic itself is the Great Western Sea.
00:11:12
Speaker
Arabia appears on the map as the homeland of Islam.
00:11:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:15
Speaker
That's sensible enough.
00:11:17
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It is, yes.
00:11:18
Speaker
And Africa, curiously, has an interesting term, the land of black ghosts.
00:11:23
Speaker
Black ghosts.
00:11:24
Speaker
Black ghosts.
00:11:26
Speaker
What they actually meant by this is not...
00:11:29
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100% clear, but yeah.
00:11:30
Speaker
I'm sure whatever it was is terribly politically incorrect.
00:11:33
Speaker
I'm sure, I'm sure.
00:11:35
Speaker
Or maybe not.
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, maybe it's just an odd translation or an archaic usage that doesn't apply today.
00:11:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:43
Speaker
So it's interesting to me that you describe it as an administrative map.
00:11:46
Speaker
And I would typically think that an administrative map, you would want it to be accurate in some sense.
00:11:52
Speaker
You would want it to be useful as a representation of the distances between places.
00:11:57
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And if you look at, you know, European maps in this time period, you know, they're arriving at the point of being quite accurate from the perspective of, you know, representing the physical shape and size of bodies of land and water.
00:12:12
Speaker
This map is not like that.
00:12:14
Speaker
As you say, the proportions are, they're representative not of physical scale, but of political prominence.
00:12:21
Speaker
What use was that really?
00:12:24
Speaker
What good was it to have a map that showed the world not as it exists physically, but as it exists from a kind of egocentric perspective?
00:12:34
Speaker
Well, you have to start with the basic understanding that the Qing were a nomadic warrior people.
00:12:40
Speaker
They were the Manchus from North China.
00:12:44
Speaker
Correct, yes.
00:12:45
Speaker
So they did not see themselves bound or limited by
00:12:50
Speaker
physical barriers or distances in the way that a European king may have considered their empire.
00:12:56
Speaker
So the Qing really didn't care how far it extended or how big it was.
00:13:02
Speaker
They cared that it was big, but it was more about the tributes that came in and
00:13:08
Speaker
So the map, if you look at it with detailed care, there are little symbols on it.
00:13:13
Speaker
There are circles and squares and squares with triangles over it and diamonds and other symbols.
00:13:19
Speaker
All these refer to various functionaries within the empire that would deliver a different kind of tribute.
00:13:25
Speaker
So some symbols might represent a major city.
00:13:29
Speaker
Others might represent a regional sub-magistrate.
00:13:32
Speaker
Others might represent an indigenous...
00:13:36
Speaker
chief tan or something who pays tribute to to the emperor so so when the emperor looked at this what he saw is he saw his tax income he's like oh i'm receiving a certain level of tax from this regional magistrate in guangzhou province good and so he was able to see the extent of his empire he was able to see where the money was coming from where it wasn't coming from he perhaps might
00:14:04
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say, well, I think we can get more money out of this area over here, send out the armies, or more likely, send out a million Han settlers to repopulate this region and develop it so that I will have more income from the region.
00:14:21
Speaker
And in fact, potentially one of the reasons that this map was made in 1811 was because of a massive
00:14:28
Speaker
resettlement of Han Chinese farther to the west that redistributed the wealth of the empire.
00:14:34
Speaker
Oh, I see.
00:14:35
Speaker
So tell me about the history of this particular map, because it was issued in 1811, but that wasn't the first printing of this map, right?
00:14:43
Speaker
No.
00:14:43
Speaker
So this is part of a series of maps called the Tianxia Kuantu.
00:14:48
Speaker
They are based upon the cartography of a fellow named Huang Zhongji,
00:14:55
Speaker
That pronunciation may be a little bit off, but... I'm certainly not going to correct you.
00:14:59
Speaker
Thank you.
00:15:00
Speaker
It's close.
00:15:02
Speaker
And he initially made the map sometime in the late 1600s.
00:15:07
Speaker
That map is lost.
00:15:08
Speaker
We have no record of it.
00:15:09
Speaker
It has not survived yet.
00:15:12
Speaker
The earliest example was probably produced by his son.
00:15:18
Speaker
And the earliest known example is a manuscript version of the map that is held in the National Archives in China.
00:15:26
Speaker
That dates to 1800.
00:15:27
Speaker
And by manuscript version, you mean it was drawn by hand?
00:15:32
Speaker
That's right.
00:15:32
Speaker
It's hand-drawn.
00:15:34
Speaker
After that, printed versions start appearing and they would be reissued at various times, significant points in the empire's history.
00:15:40
Speaker
This map is not 100% clear why it was issued in 1811.
00:15:46
Speaker
It may have been because of the massive redistribution of Han Chinese that we mentioned earlier.
00:15:51
Speaker
It may have been because of the suppression of several rebellions which occurred in that year.
00:15:54
Speaker
It's not clear, but in general, it was not the best year for the Qing, but they did issue this map in that year.
00:16:03
Speaker
And this is the only example of it to be issued, as people say, in negative.
00:16:09
Speaker
And in fact, it's not really issued in negative.
00:16:11
Speaker
It's a rubbing.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's not a printing.
00:16:13
Speaker
It's a rubbing, which is a Chinese process, very traditional.
00:16:17
Speaker
Large pieces of cloth in strips would be laid down on a stone block and it'd be wetted.
00:16:25
Speaker
And then...
00:16:26
Speaker
the inks would be applied with a pounding ink block and that yielded the intense blue.
00:16:34
Speaker
And in fact, the white areas are not printed areas, rather they are lack of printing.
00:16:39
Speaker
And so that gives it the intense physical and visual appearance that it has.
00:16:45
Speaker
So the white areas would have been carved out of the base stone.
00:16:48
Speaker
That's right.
00:16:49
Speaker
So that the ink would not have shown up on those spots.
00:16:51
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:16:53
Speaker
I want to dwell a little more on the political significance of it.
00:16:57
Speaker
Would copies of this map have also been used as propaganda material or as decorative works?
00:17:06
Speaker
Or would there have been other purposes besides the emperor sitting around on his settee and gloating over the amount of taxes coming in from various provinces?
00:17:17
Speaker
It's not clear how distributed it was within China at the time.
00:17:21
Speaker
It was probably...
00:17:22
Speaker
maintained mostly within the central governance circles.
00:17:26
Speaker
Did Chinese map making change dramatically when the Qing took power?
00:17:33
Speaker
As you say, they were a nomadic people.
00:17:34
Speaker
They might have had a different idea of what a map represents and how it ought to be oriented.
00:17:41
Speaker
Are earlier Chinese maps more representational?
00:17:45
Speaker
Well, like many things related to China, especially the historical development of China and technology,
00:17:52
Speaker
It is incredible how complex and advanced Chinese cartography actually was by any measure.
00:18:02
Speaker
So we have maps dating, well, we don't have them, but we are aware there are historical references and examples of maps dating into extreme antiquity that are mind-bogglingly accurate on a rigid grid system that show detailed descriptions of all of the rivers and waterways throughout China,
00:18:24
Speaker
And so these exist.
00:18:27
Speaker
So when you ask, did the Qing change the way the Chinese saw their empire?
00:18:32
Speaker
Potentially.
00:18:34
Speaker
Or potentially,
00:18:36
Speaker
The mapping of China simply changed to suit their own vision of the world.
00:18:41
Speaker
The model that this map has, however, where distant provinces and kingdoms and empires are represented in a minor, tiny scale as kind of a minutiae at the border of the map, that is a common theme.
00:18:58
Speaker
Through Chinese maps from the 1600s all the way up into the early 19th century, or I wouldn't even say mid-19th century, when...
00:19:10
Speaker
greater exposure to European maps changed the outlook somewhat.
00:19:17
Speaker
There are also other interesting Chinese maps that exist and we know of.
00:19:21
Speaker
For example, there's the Selden map.
00:19:23
Speaker
It was probably made for a merchant.
00:19:26
Speaker
And in contrast to almost all other Chinese maps, it's actually a fairly accurate map showing the Chinese coast and all of Southeast Asia down through Malaysia and part of the
00:19:38
Speaker
East India islands.
00:19:40
Speaker
So it defies, in a sense, this kind of cartography.
00:19:44
Speaker
It shows that there's a lot more there than we're clearly aware of.
00:19:47
Speaker
The Chinese had a great deal of awareness of the world around them that didn't necessarily manifest itself clearly in maps as we understand them in the Western world.
Podcast Interaction and Listener Engagement
00:20:05
Speaker
We're going to take a short break before hearing from Kevin about his truly off the beaten path entree into the business of antique maps.
00:20:12
Speaker
As usual, I want to take a minute to thank you sincerely for listening.
00:20:16
Speaker
If you enjoyed the podcast and want to help us reach more people, the easiest thing to do is leave a rating and review on iTunes.
00:20:23
Speaker
And if you have a friend or colleague who maybe watches Storage Wars or Antiques for a Show, clue them into curious objects.
00:20:31
Speaker
I'm so grateful to you for helping spread the word.
00:20:34
Speaker
I'm also grateful for your feedback, and I've been receiving some really great helpful comments lately.
00:20:39
Speaker
As always, you can email me at podcast at themagazineantiques.com, and you can also find me on Instagram at Objective Interest.
00:20:47
Speaker
Give me your thoughts, your ideas for future guests.
00:20:50
Speaker
I really do want to hear it all.
00:20:56
Speaker
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That's going to be an important part of my visit.
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They also have a brand new app you can download called Rinalda Revealed, which takes you on a virtual tour of the museum and grounds.
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That's R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-A dot org.
00:22:01
Speaker
The world of antiques dealers tends to be dominated by old family businesses, firms that have been passed down for generations and that have shops on fancy streets in Paris and London and New York.
Kevin Brown's Journey into Antique Maps
00:22:17
Speaker
But you are a counterexample to that norm because you've built your business from scratch.
00:22:26
Speaker
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're generally self-educated when it comes to antique maps.
00:22:31
Speaker
And I'm really interested in learning a little bit about...
00:22:36
Speaker
Well, first of all, where your interest started and then how you started to learn and how you started to figure out how to buy and sell maps and make a living that way.
00:22:46
Speaker
So can you take me on a little journey through the professional life of Kevin Brown?
00:22:52
Speaker
I suppose I graduated from college with degrees in philosophy and history with a focus in medieval pilgrimage.
00:22:59
Speaker
I had a bias against earning money.
00:23:01
Speaker
I'm sorry, you had a focus in medieval pilgrimage.
00:23:03
Speaker
I did.
00:23:04
Speaker
So it's not unrelated to maps.
00:23:05
Speaker
I focused on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
00:23:08
Speaker
Really?
00:23:08
Speaker
Which I hiked twice as part of my academic research.
00:23:12
Speaker
My sister finished that two days ago.
00:23:13
Speaker
Oh, well, congratulations.
00:23:15
Speaker
It's an incredible experience.
00:23:17
Speaker
And part of that was seeing the world in a different way, thinking about your life and what your values are.
00:23:23
Speaker
And my own values, I quickly decided that would not allow me to work for money.
00:23:30
Speaker
They would allow me to work for, to earn money, of course, and everyone needs to earn money, but not for my time.
00:23:37
Speaker
I was willing to sell my knowledge, my experience, but I was not willing to sell my time.
00:23:43
Speaker
Unfortunately, with degrees in philosophy and history, I did not have marketable knowledge or experience.
00:23:47
Speaker
I've been there.
00:23:48
Speaker
But nonetheless, we progress.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I moved to New York City and was staying with a friend.
00:23:56
Speaker
And eBay at the time was just getting rolling.
00:23:59
Speaker
It was very early on in eBay's history.
00:24:03
Speaker
And a lot of things... This is what, late 90s?
00:24:05
Speaker
I would say early 90s.
00:24:07
Speaker
Early 90s, okay.
00:24:09
Speaker
eBay was just getting rolling.
00:24:11
Speaker
And a lot of things happened with eBay at that point.
00:24:14
Speaker
Things that were not really rare attained a fairly high value because there was a perception of rarity.
00:24:22
Speaker
For example, as a child, like many people in the 70s, I had a large collection of Smurfs.
00:24:28
Speaker
which I sold on eBay, and some of them were selling for shocking amounts of money, hundreds of them, some of them in the multiple hundreds of dollars each.
00:24:41
Speaker
And it was enough for a while for me to make my way in the world.
00:24:46
Speaker
So you were paying your rent by selling collectibles on eBay?
00:24:49
Speaker
Selling Smurfs on eBay, mostly.
00:24:51
Speaker
My childhood toys.
00:24:53
Speaker
Then it occurred to me that I needed to resupply.
00:24:57
Speaker
And I would hit flea markets, drive up to Connecticut and anywhere I could, and look for odds and ends that I could sell.
00:25:03
Speaker
And I did okay with that and paid some bills.
00:25:06
Speaker
But I certainly wasn't getting rich.
00:25:09
Speaker
And when my housing situation went
00:25:13
Speaker
As it does in New York.
00:25:15
Speaker
As it does.
00:25:16
Speaker
I found myself in rather dire straits.
00:25:20
Speaker
I did not have a establishable income.
00:25:24
Speaker
I had an amount of experience in the world that did not qualify to me to become a burger and fry chef at McDonald's.
00:25:31
Speaker
And I had rather high aspirations for my lifestyle.
00:25:35
Speaker
So all of these were rather problematic.
Adventures and Mentorship in Venezuela
00:25:39
Speaker
But I saw an alternative.
00:25:40
Speaker
It was better to burn out than fade away.
00:25:42
Speaker
So I went to Venezuela, which at the time was the cheapest place to fly to in South America.
00:25:49
Speaker
And I had this vision that I was going to live with indigenous tribes.
00:25:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:25:54
Speaker
And just have a different kind of non-monetary lifestyle.
00:26:00
Speaker
And so I worked my way into the southern reaches of Amazonas province in Venezuela.
00:26:06
Speaker
And I did meet some tribes and I did briefly stay with them.
00:26:12
Speaker
But I...
00:26:13
Speaker
Pretty early on, I figured out that the tribal lifestyle was not for me.
00:26:18
Speaker
What was it that tipped you off to that?
00:26:21
Speaker
There were a lot of details that are probably not appropriate for a podcast.
00:26:25
Speaker
I'll pass on that one question if you don't mind.
00:26:28
Speaker
Okay, fair enough.
00:26:29
Speaker
But nonetheless, a few weeks later, I packed up my bags and I was returning home to New York City.
00:26:36
Speaker
At the time, I was staying with a friend.
00:26:40
Speaker
And I put all these items on eBay, which is something I knew how to do
00:26:44
Speaker
Not all of them, most of them.
00:26:46
Speaker
And one fellow bought them who happened to live very close to where I was staying.
00:26:50
Speaker
I dropped them off at his place and he was a prominent tribal art dealer.
00:26:54
Speaker
And he called me a few weeks later.
00:26:57
Speaker
He said, well, Kevin, I appreciate the things you sold me, but I really wasn't interested in them.
00:27:02
Speaker
I was interested in meeting someone like you who has an interest in this kind of work and tribal art.
00:27:06
Speaker
I'm old.
00:27:08
Speaker
I have a sickness that's making life very difficult for me.
00:27:12
Speaker
But I would like to stay in the business and I kind of need someone to be my legs and to...
00:27:18
Speaker
pick up where I can't live off.
00:27:19
Speaker
And in turn, I'll introduce you to this incredible business that will be a great way of life.
00:27:24
Speaker
Wow.
00:27:25
Speaker
So he introduced me to buying and selling at auction to the kind of the higher levels of the art and antiques market.
00:27:34
Speaker
He was a great person.
00:27:35
Speaker
He helped me learn pretty much everything that I knew when I started the antique map business.
00:27:42
Speaker
So when he finally decided that he wanted to
00:27:46
Speaker
wind things down, I decided also that I was not going to be a tribal art dealer.
00:27:51
Speaker
And at the meantime, I had built up a small collection of antique maps, which had always been something that I gravitated to.
00:27:57
Speaker
And I decided that this would be where I wanted to go and how I wanted to develop myself as a dealer.
00:28:04
Speaker
How old were you?
00:28:06
Speaker
At this time, I was in my late 20s.
00:28:07
Speaker
And
00:28:10
Speaker
It's been good ever since then.
00:28:12
Speaker
Not that there haven't been hard times.
00:28:14
Speaker
Being an antique dealer is hard.
00:28:15
Speaker
It's very easy to become cash strapped because it's a cash intensive business.
00:28:19
Speaker
Every day someone's calling you and offering you something you can't refuse for $50,000.
00:28:25
Speaker
And then you're like, oh boy.
00:28:30
Speaker
But you build up your capital reserves, you build up your business, you build up your client base.
00:28:35
Speaker
So eventually you can grow your business in this way.
00:28:38
Speaker
And
00:28:39
Speaker
It's not an easy road, but it is a road that you can follow.
00:28:43
Speaker
And we did, and it turned out to be pretty well.
00:28:46
Speaker
We're at this point fairly well established.
00:28:48
Speaker
We're one of the larger dealers in terms of volume and antique maps probably anywhere in the world.
00:28:54
Speaker
And we often get a really exciting material that's inspiring to find.
00:29:00
Speaker
And every day is a treasure hunt, even if it's a treasure hunt within your own inventory.
00:29:05
Speaker
And then oftentimes, you know, you get to go out and travel the world and meet other dealers.
00:29:10
Speaker
There aren't very many of us, so we're a close-knit group of, I would say, friends mostly.
00:29:16
Speaker
So it's a wonderful business.
00:29:18
Speaker
So that's a fascinating entree into the field.
00:29:22
Speaker
And you're in an enviable position now.
00:29:25
Speaker
But there's a middle part that you wave your hands over a little, which is how you went from having a small collection of, you know, personal collection of antique maps.
Challenges in the Antique Maps Business
00:29:35
Speaker
to having a really impressive inventory with objects like this Qing map of China.
00:29:43
Speaker
And that's a process that I think for a lot of people who are considering a career in the antiques world is really intimidating because you have to not only find, you not only have to educate yourself about the material and become an expert and prepare yourself to make mistakes, but
00:30:04
Speaker
But you also have to build up a clientele and find people who are willing to trust you and take a risk with you when you're not yet very well established.
00:30:14
Speaker
I mean, the middle ground, I did gloss over it.
00:30:16
Speaker
And it's mostly because it's not pretty.
00:30:19
Speaker
It's hard.
00:30:21
Speaker
One should rightly be intimidated.
00:30:24
Speaker
I remember times when my bank account was
00:30:27
Speaker
was at zero.
00:30:28
Speaker
I would go for a month without making a single sale.
00:30:30
Speaker
I was broke.
00:30:31
Speaker
And yet persistence with anything, you stick to it.
00:30:35
Speaker
Grit.
00:30:37
Speaker
You make it happen.
00:30:38
Speaker
You sell something for less than you want so that you can buy something else, so that you can make money on it, or just pay your rent.
00:30:49
Speaker
You try to find things in innovative ways.
00:30:52
Speaker
Somebody
00:30:54
Speaker
Once told me something which I liked a great deal and I think is quite smart.
00:31:00
Speaker
There are two things, actually, I can say that I think are quite smart that helped us grow our businesses.
00:31:05
Speaker
One was an accountant I was working with told me this, and he was comparing me with the gentleman who introduced me to tribal art.
00:31:16
Speaker
And what he said was, I said, well, he needs to make about 70 cents on every dollar.
00:31:22
Speaker
You need to make about $5 on every dollar.
00:31:26
Speaker
But certainly, you know, as you grow, that that's a transition that helps.
00:31:33
Speaker
The other thing I would say, which this is something I've only heard recently.
00:31:38
Speaker
One of my clients, in fact, was giving a lecture on his collection and he used...
00:31:45
Speaker
Rumsfeldi interns to describe how he collects.
00:31:48
Speaker
But also I realized when I heard that this is also how we buy.
00:31:52
Speaker
So they're the known knowns.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
Right.
00:31:55
Speaker
So this is an item that has an established history that you know how much you're going to pay for it.
00:32:02
Speaker
You know how much you can sell it for.
00:32:04
Speaker
And the market is fairly known.
00:32:05
Speaker
So a good example of this in the antique map world might be an Artelius map of the world.
00:32:11
Speaker
Now, this is a major mapmaker.
00:32:14
Speaker
There are many examples of it out there.
00:32:16
Speaker
They have a strong auction history and people either want it or they don't.
00:32:22
Speaker
But you pretty much know you can sell it and you know roughly at what price you can sell it.
00:32:25
Speaker
That's a known known.
00:32:26
Speaker
And then there's the known unknowns.
00:32:32
Speaker
So there are things that you know are out there, but you haven't seen or found.
00:32:35
Speaker
This is a little more desirable.
00:32:36
Speaker
So early on as a dealer, I would not really focus on known knowns because everyone knows what it is and you're not going to make that much money.
00:32:43
Speaker
Now, known unknowns, that's great because you, if you have a lot of knowledge, then you can say, aha, I have...
00:32:52
Speaker
I know what this is, and maybe this other person who's selling it is a little antique shop in Wichita doesn't know what it is.
00:32:59
Speaker
You can buy it, you can mark it up, and you can make some money, you can introduce it to the market.
00:33:05
Speaker
And that's an area where, not to sidetrack us, but it seems like the internet is really kind of compressing what fits into that category.
00:33:15
Speaker
Because now that little dealer in Wichita might actually Google.
00:33:22
Speaker
what he's got and find find out what it is not might will they will google it and but they won't this is this is why it's a known unknown right so they will they will probably google it they will probably not find anything so the the typical process if someone doesn't know anything about a specialty item
00:33:42
Speaker
If they find it at a, maybe they're a picker, they buy it at a house sale, they'll Google it.
00:33:47
Speaker
And if they find it, they're like, aha, they'll take the most expensive price they see online and they'll say, okay, that's what it's worth.
00:33:56
Speaker
That's what I'm going to get for it.
00:33:57
Speaker
And then they'll start calling up everybody they could think of saying, hey, I got this.
00:34:03
Speaker
I'd be willing to sell it for 10% less than this most expensive price I've ever seen.
00:34:08
Speaker
And then they quickly realize they're not going to sell it.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
And the other thing that happens is they Google it and they find absolutely nothing.
00:34:17
Speaker
And they're like, oh, it's a piece of junk.
00:34:19
Speaker
No one knows anything about it.
00:34:20
Speaker
And they put a price of whatever their gut instinct is.
00:34:25
Speaker
And it could be outrageously high.
00:34:27
Speaker
Sure.
00:34:27
Speaker
Or it could be outrageously low.
A Unique Japanese Map from 1904
00:34:30
Speaker
And then going back to the Rumsfeldian argument, there's the unknown unknowns.
00:34:36
Speaker
And these are just things that you stumble across that nobody knows about.
00:34:40
Speaker
No one knows what they are.
00:34:41
Speaker
And you have to figure out what they are.
00:34:44
Speaker
And through experience and instinct and knowledge and historical information and comparable data that you might have in the back of your mind, maybe you can figure out what it is or at least place it as something that may have value.
00:34:56
Speaker
And then you can buy something and you can probably make good money.
00:34:59
Speaker
Can you give me an example of a sexy unknown unknown?
00:35:03
Speaker
So a recent unknown unknown that we discovered is a map I have in front of me right now.
00:35:09
Speaker
And I'll just describe it for your audience.
00:35:13
Speaker
It's a Japanese map.
00:35:14
Speaker
A lot of the text is in Japanese, but its actual coverage extends all the way from Japan to England.
00:35:23
Speaker
The map is dominated by a giant tree which fills the entire center of the map.
00:35:30
Speaker
It's weeping.
00:35:31
Speaker
It has a big nose.
00:35:33
Speaker
It's kind of looking towards Japan.
00:35:36
Speaker
And its root system extends all throughout Europe and Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
00:35:44
Speaker
Now, this giant tree is representative of Russia.
00:35:49
Speaker
This map was issued in 1904, which was the right at the end of the Russo-Japanese War in which Russia kind of got their asses kicked.
00:36:02
Speaker
Can't say that, can I?
00:36:03
Speaker
You can say that.
00:36:03
Speaker
All right.
00:36:04
Speaker
So Russia kind of got their asses kicked by Japan.
00:36:07
Speaker
And the map, it's mostly in Japanese, but it's also in English.
00:36:14
Speaker
There's an English title, which I will translate.
00:36:17
Speaker
I will read literally.
00:36:19
Speaker
Humor, reproach, condition, map of Europa and Asia.
00:36:25
Speaker
So the English is not that good.
00:36:26
Speaker
It can't really make sense of that.
00:36:27
Speaker
And there's also an English text block, which I will not attempt to read because it is, for all intent and purposes, gibberish.
00:36:38
Speaker
But I mean, there are real words there, but they don't.
00:36:42
Speaker
They don't make sense.
00:36:44
Speaker
There is a Japanese text block as well, which is much easier to read.
00:36:48
Speaker
And it describes how all of the world is celebrating for Japan's great defeat of Russia, who is intimidating all of Europe.
00:36:56
Speaker
Wow.
00:36:56
Speaker
Which at the time, one could arguably say it was.
00:37:00
Speaker
So you could say this is a political map.
00:37:03
Speaker
It's a very political map.
00:37:04
Speaker
The fact that it's in both English and Japanese suggests something very interesting.
00:37:09
Speaker
And the fact that Japan is on one end and England is at the other.
00:37:12
Speaker
They're wearing the same color coats.
00:37:14
Speaker
England is holding a Japanese flag.
00:37:16
Speaker
And the message here is we are partners.
00:37:21
Speaker
Let's join together to fight this common enemy who's horrible and is dominating the world.
00:37:28
Speaker
This kind of map emerged first in Europe, but the Japanese were very quick to embrace it.
00:37:34
Speaker
And they issued several maps regarding the Russo-Japanese War, four that I'm aware of.
00:37:40
Speaker
And this map is previously unknown.
00:37:43
Speaker
There's the only known example anywhere.
00:37:46
Speaker
There are no references to it.
00:37:48
Speaker
It is a perfect unknown unknown.
00:37:52
Speaker
Did you know what it was as soon as you saw it?
00:37:55
Speaker
I knew what it...
00:37:56
Speaker
had to be in the sense that I knew it was a Japanese map.
00:38:02
Speaker
I knew it was in the model that is known as a serial comic map where cartoonish figures represent different countries.
00:38:09
Speaker
I know from the date what it was covering and from the iconography on the map, for example, Japan wields an axe and is chopping off Russia's legs.
00:38:19
Speaker
I recognize that as relating to, say, the siege of Port Arthur and other events associated with the Russo-Japanese War.
00:38:26
Speaker
I also know because I haven't seen it, that it must be exceedingly rare or unheard of, which in fact it is.
00:38:34
Speaker
So all of these things together
00:38:37
Speaker
enabled me to make a decision on this map about my own desire to represent it and place it within the context of other similar maps, even though I had never actually seen the map itself before.
00:38:50
Speaker
Fabulous.
00:38:52
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like our listeners to know about you and about your world of maps?
00:38:58
Speaker
Only that, you know, we are Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, www.geographicus.com.
00:39:05
Speaker
We exhibited shows all over the world.
00:39:07
Speaker
And if you're interested in buying an antique map or just learning more about antique maps, I hope you'll check out our site or sign up for our mailing list.
00:39:14
Speaker
All right.
00:39:14
Speaker
Well, thanks so much, Kevin.
00:39:16
Speaker
Thank you.
00:39:25
Speaker
That's a wrap on today's episode.
00:39:27
Speaker
I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned a thing or two.
00:39:30
Speaker
Don't forget to rate us on iTunes and send your feedback to me at podcast at themagazineantiques.com or on Instagram at objectiveinterest.
00:39:40
Speaker
And one more reminder to post your own curious object on Instagram with the mycuriousobject hashtag tagging antiquesmag.
00:39:48
Speaker
Today's episode was produced and edited by Sammy Dilotti.
00:39:51
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:39:53
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller and I'll see you next time.