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  • RICK: Hey, how's it going?

  • Good.

  • How are you? - Good.

  • What do we got here?

  • Well, this would be a Henry Roberts map.

  • It exhibits the discoveries made by the British

  • explorer Captain James Cook.

  • RICK: OK.

  • Captain Cook was a really remarkable guy.

  • Just imagine 1775.

  • I mean, these were explorers finding new things.

  • So Captain Cook went all around the world and documented

  • everything, came back with drawings of the crazy animals,

  • like platypuses and things like that.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • RICK: Which people thought had to be BS.

  • [BOTH LAUGH]

  • DYLAN: I'm here at the pawn shop today

  • to sell a 1785 James Cook discoveries chart.

  • My neighbor, he gifted the map to me.

  • He found the map in his attic when he was

  • running new electrical wire.

  • I'm asking $15,000.

  • RICK: This is really cool.

  • I really do love old maps like this.

  • Captain Cook, he was arguably one

  • of the first, like, scientific rockstars.

  • It was a huge problem about sailing back then.

  • It was really easy to figure out how north or south you were.

  • So basically, if you were going somewhere,

  • you would just go down to that latitude,

  • and just sail east or west.

  • And literally, sometimes you wouldn't know if it's 2,000

  • miles away or 100 miles away.

  • You just run into what you're going to.

  • But east and west is a different story.

  • So him and some other people in England

  • actually developed a system to figure out longitude.

  • I believe he was the first one to map Australia,

  • map New Zealand.

  • And he discovered the Sandwich Isles, which is Hawaii.

  • Yeah, the Sandwich Islands.

  • DYLAN: The names and spelling are interesting.

  • RICK: Yeah, that's another thing.

  • It really wasn't up till the 1700s

  • that there was a way to spell things.

  • As long as it sounded right, it was cool.

  • It fascinates me that they could have

  • this much detailed knowledge.

  • DYLAN: Yeah.

  • It's something to appreciate.

  • "From the 1785 edition."

  • So in 1784, a series of books came out with everywhere

  • he had been in the world.

  • And it described his voyages, had

  • some charts and maps in them.

  • There was three books and an atlas.

  • Of all those books, you have the coolest page of all the books.

  • [BOTH LAUGH]

  • It does have some condition issues.

  • This is absolutely terrible.

  • Someone glued this whole thing right here.

  • DYLAN: I know.

  • And this is a nasty little stain there.

  • But this was laid paper from 1780s.

  • The dates are right on the paper.

  • I just want to make sure it's a first edition.

  • So, I mean, it's really cool.

  • I'd like to have my buddy take a look at it.

  • I just want to make sure this is the map from those books.

  • All righty.

  • Not a problem.

  • MARK: Ooh.

  • RICK: Yes, we have "a general chart exhibiting

  • the discoveries made by Captain James Cook in his two

  • preceding voyages with the tracks of the ships

  • under his command."

  • MARK: Very nice.

  • Captain Cook was amazing.

  • He was the one who went around the world three times.

  • He was attempting to claim parts of the world for England,

  • places like New Albion here.

  • New Albion is California.

  • But this was England claiming that part of North America,

  • even though I don't think the Spanish would

  • have agreed at that point.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • This is from the 1785 edition.

  • This map is one of the ones from the second printing

  • of the voyages.

  • There were three volumes that were the descriptive volumes,

  • and then an oversized volume that had the maps in them.

  • And this was the major map.

  • It's a wonderful chart.

  • It's often the one that people like.

  • But it's got some condition issues that are fairly major.

  • You've got some breakage at the fold.

  • You can see a lot of discoloration in here.

  • Um-- ugh.

  • This is bad.

  • The fact that somebody glued this label on here.

  • You'd want to have a conservator take a look at it,

  • and that's going to have some expense involved in it.

  • But it's a collectible map.

  • It's a beautiful piece.

  • Thanks, man.

  • I really appreciate it. - Not a problem.

  • - Thank you, sir. - Very interesting piece.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you.

  • So how much you want for this thing?

  • Well, I'm asking 15,000.

  • OK, that number is, like, astronomical.

  • Just last year, the four-volume set--

  • Mm-hm.

  • The 1784 first edition with all the maps sold for 18,000.

  • OK.

  • But you have the coolest page out of all the books,

  • but there's just no way it would ever go for $15,000,

  • especially being so damaged.

  • I mean, completely restored, I could

  • probably get 2 grand out of it.

  • OK.

  • I'd give you, like, 400 bucks for it.

  • Whoa.

  • I mean, I'm definitely interested in getting

  • a good number for it.

  • You know, nothing around $400 I would take.

  • OK.

  • Well, shop around.

  • If you change your mind, come back and see me.

  • MARK: Not a problem. Thanks, Rick.

  • It's pretty good.

  • MARK: I was pretty surprised to hear the value of the map.

  • I was hoping to get $15,000 for this map,

  • but I guess the ship has sailed.

RICK: Hey, how's it going?

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