Oldest map of NYC could fetch $10M

The map was created by a Genoese cartographer named Vesconte Maggiolo in 1531 and it is one of the first depictions of America’s eastern seaboard, according to Bloomberg. It’s also the first map still in existence to show New York Harbor.

“It’s one of the oldest to depict Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage,” Crouch said of the Portuguese explorer whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe. “The map depicts the whole world.”

An English collector bought the map off a Swiss aristocrat in 1983. Crouch is now offering the map for $10 million at New York’s TEFAF art fair, which opens to the public on Oct. 22. [Bloomberg] –Christopher Cameron