Starter Kit. Idea 58 of 500. Cluster 3
Antique and reproduction map shops
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Photograph 10 old maps of the island that are out of copyright, from a collection you are allowed to copy, and print them on good paper in two sizes. Sell them at a weekend market in Colombo or Galle for two weekends. Note which maps and sizes sell. Steady sales tell you whether a small shop could pay its rent.
- Who pays first
- Visitors, collectors and Sri Lankan buyers abroad who want the island's history on their wall, printed well.
- What leaves today
- The island's old maps earn nothing sitting in archives; good reproductions sold here turn that heritage into local income.
Ask first
- Department of Archaeology. Ask whether old maps or documents need permission to be sold or taken abroad.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what licence a small shop near the fort needs.
Check before you spend
That any antique map was legally obtained and can leave the country, and who holds the right to reproduce each map you print.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a framed reproduction map?
- Where can good old maps be found to reproduce legally?
- How many visitors pass the shop each day?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.