Mr. Johnson then visits a map collector, in a scene clearly set up to show his father's advice as unrealistic.

Thanks to garage sales and eBay, it is easy to become a map collector.

A merchant named Hooftman, a map collector, had found the job of rolling up and unrolling his many large maps an increasing nuisance.

Charles Olson, another map collector, has over 100 maps.

To the Editor: I read "Well-Charted Territory" (March 9), Aurelia Scott's essay about being a map collector with a great deal of pleasure.

Roland Crane, a wealthy map collector and dilettante archaeologist, is visited by Polly Gould, a cousin of an army friend who has disappeared.

("With maps, condition is terribly important," Mr. Reese said, comparing map collectors to porcelain connoisseurs, also notoriously fussy).

There he met David Rumsey, an ardent map collector who had digitized and cataloged his private collection of 150,000 maps at www.davidrumsey.com.

David Rumsey is a map collector and the founder of the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Though now a defunct brand, Kyso road maps published during the company's prominence in the 1930s and 1940s, are highly sought after by map collectors.