Railwayana Advice Needed

Hello All,

Once again I find myself in a quandary, so once again I am turning to you amazing folk.

I have a bit of a thing for maps, so when I saw this I had to have it. I've been sitting on it for a few years now, and I have to figure out what to do with it.

I have been presented with 3 options.

The first is just to sell it as it is. Searching around the internet I have not been able to find anything that resembles this little gem. Dating from the Golden Age of railways, and the Golden Age of the Empire, it is an amazing historical document. In real terms the staples are starting to oxidize and are discolouring the paper.

The other option would be to conserve it. Through my work I have connections to paper restorers and binders. The basic conservation would be to replace the staples with non reactive ones. Additional steps would be cleaning, and ultimately de-acidification.

The third option is to piece the thing out. The front cover is a beautiful map of area serviced by the railroad. Inside are guides to various tourist sites, hotel advertising, menus, tour prices and layouts of the various passenger cars. Doing this would allow me to clean and stablise the important pages.

What would you, fellow Antiquers, do?

 

Do you have a known year on this?

 

KingofThings, I'm with you on wanting to know a date (or at least a "decade"). I did notice that the advertisement for the hotel said "incandescent gas" for lighting but, unfortunately, that in and of itself may not be definitive.

 

Cool! I'd keep it together. Perhaps it can be dated by the history of the hotel? The full page on it seems to imply that the hotel is brand new when this was printed.

 

I don't like it when such things are printed that way. In this way the booklet is always 'new' but things change and then how does one know whether or not the one you have to choose your trip from is updated.

 

Believe the hotel opened in 1958 but you should confirm.

Debora

 

I think this must be earlier than that, Debora. Given the reference to "automobiles, elephants and carriages" I'd think more like 19teens (but before WWI broke out.)

I tried looking for historic hotels in Jaipur and got overwhelmed by hotel ads.

 

It also talks about being near "The Residency" which means it had to be before Indian Independence in 1947 or so?

 

According to this Wikipedia article, the Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway was merged with another railway on 5 November 1951 and the name was changed to Western Railway. So this should date from before that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay,_Baroda_and_Central_India_Railway

I agree with yourturntoloveit's earlier post that the use of the phrase "incandescent gas" in the hotel does sound like it might have been earlier than that --- but also, that it's not definitive.

 

The seller I bought the item from claimed it was from 1920, but that is certainly wrong.

I have searched the book for copyright or any explicit date, and have not found anything.

The only solid date mentioned anywhere is in a blurb about one of the tourist destinations. The write up refers to a visit by HRH The Prince of Wales in 1921. Edward VIII, as Prince of Wales, toured India and Burma in 1921.

Given that they refer to Edward as Prince of Wales, as opposed to Duke of Windsor, or at all (given the abdication and NAZI stuff), would put it before 1937 when Edward ascended to the throne.

My feeling is that it is mid 20s.

 

Short of a museum somewhere 'over there' I can't imagine who would really want it short of anyone who a actually had anything to do with those lines. At least not anyone willing to pay well for it.
However 'rail fans' can be eclectic and someone may have built one of these lines as a model railway.

 

I will look more into the history of that hotel. There is a Maharaja Hotel in Jaipur, so I will have to look at it all more closely.

 

I agree with you, it is pre-independence for sure. I just found the HRH PoW reference which puts it pre 1937.

 

Given the new information you've provided about the 1921 royal tour, I think your mid-20's dating is right on, PDP.

 

I suspect you may be right about finding a buyer for it.

I have a bit of a map fetish, so I automatically wanted it because of the map on the cover.

I suspect that this will become part of my growing personal collection.

 

Kinky!

 

When my daughter and family spent a month in India with her in-laws, they rode on elephants and carriages so that may not be indicative of the era!

Being a purist, I'd want to keep it intact, but I know this type of thing sells well piece by piece.