Dear Lee,

Everyone who collects tells stories about a “great find” or a “big bargain.” A few talk about “the one that got away.” Even fewer fess up to the fakes that fooled them, to overpriced purchases, or to sad family stories about great, inherited family treasures. Our family is no different. Terry’s mother had a collection of very old maps dating from the 16th century on. She gave some matted and framed maps to your sister, Kim. The best was a 17th-century map of Italy. So when Kim saw that the Miami International Map Fair was hosting dealers from all over the world, she decided to take her family treasure to an expert. Maps at the fair that looked similar to hers were selling for thousands of dollars. The family map is in color with gold-leaf dots marking important cities. Rivers are blue and mountains gold, and there are insets with cornucopias, scrolling designs, and an Italian inscription.

Well … the expert took a quick look and commented that the map looked “bumpy,” that it was probably glued to a backing when it was framed. Kim’s family treasure, he said, is almost worthless. Kim had never even thought about how the map was mounted, and neither had we. Now she knows that glue eventually destroys paper and that gluing a map to a backing ruins the integrity of the map itself. She also learned that having the glue removed would cost a few hundred dollars, and that once it’s fixed the map would sell for about what it cost to remove the glue. On top of that, according to the expert, the map is not of a “collectible location” (we’re not sure what that means, perhaps a more exotic locale) and has no vignettes of people or scenery. To make Kim’s experience even more unbelievable, there were 1930s roadmaps, the kind given away at gas stations, selling for more than $200.

Kim took the map home, hung it back on the wall, and planned to enjoy her heirloom and the memory of her grandmother. Sometimes value is not measured in dollars.