Old but unused and used charts

[Theshipscat]

I have dozens of old and unused charts and quite a few used ones too. These go from the uk, down the french coast, spain, portugal and are dated the 80's. The question is are they of any value? Seems a shame to throw them away.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Sell then to an interior design company for use as wall decoration.

 

[saltylegs]

I was thinking along the same lines as decoration items and have given a couple of dozen to son to flog on flea bay.

 

[doug748]

I have dozens of old and unused charts and quite a few used ones too. These go from the uk, down the french coast, spain, portugal and are dated the 80's. The question is are they of any value? Seems a shame to throw them away.

Of course thay have value.

Use them for navigation like the rest of us.

 

[prv]

Use them for navigation like the rest of us.

I know I'm probably unusual among yachtsmen in using current corrected charts, but I think most people would baulk at thirty years out of date!

Pete

 

[awol]

I know I'm probably unusual among yachtsmen in using current corrected charts, but I think most people would baulk at thirty years out of date!

Pete

You pays your money and takes your chances! Electronic vector charts with missing artefacts like rocks, current paper charts based on 18canteen lead-line surveys, uncorrected out-of-date charts, they all carry risks. An up-to-date nav mark/light list and a not too out-of date pilot + any of the charts mentioned will do me. Just remember to check the datum used and adjust accordingly.

 

[Paddingtonbear]

Hiya Tiggy, don't you use them at all when out cruising? I was going to ask a very similar question as I have been given a whole host of charts that have never been used but having checked some local to me, Newhaven not Stretton I have decided that they are fine to use although mine are nowhere as old as yours. Could they possibly be used as a training aid? Seasons greetings
PB

 

[tidclacy]

I use my old charts as Christmas and Birthday wrapping paper.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Ideal for wallpapering the bog.

 

[pampas]

+1. also old charts make good gaskets.

 

[Pete7]

The Stromness Hotel has a cellar bar called Flatties with charts on the wall, each covered in a what looks like a clear varnish and very nice it is too.

http://www.stromnesshotel.com/links.html

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Perhaps it is worth pointing out that charts from the 1980s will almost certainly not use the WGS84 datum that the GPS systems use (oceanic scale charts might use WGS72, which is insignificantly different). All modern charts are on WGS84, and there was a period during the late 1990s when charts not on WGS84 were printed with a note stating that they weren't compatible with GPS unless a (specified) correction was applied.

For the UK, note also that the correction between the previous (1936 Ordnance Survey) datum and WGS84 is not straightforward, varying enormously and unsystematically from place to place, with no simple relationship between the two. There are one or two places (not, fortunately, in areas of interest to mariners!) where there is no consistent conversion between the two. For those interested, these are a few locations where, using the old datum, if you surveyed a location from one trig point, you'd get a different position if you started from a different trig point. WGS94, being a consistent, world-side datum, avoids this problem, which arises from the survey-based nature of the old datum!

I would not recommend using a 1980s chart for navigation using GPS. The potential errors are in the region of 100s of metres - not a problem for offshore use in open waters, but very much a problem for navigation in confined, inshore waters.

 

[[70521]]

I have dozens of old and unused charts and quite a few used ones too. These go from the uk, down the french coast, spain, portugal and are dated the 80's. The question is are they of any value? Seems a shame to throw them away.

How old?

I've just donated my 1982 charts to my daughters school as they were doing lat and long in geography this term.

 

[allanc]

The charts on the newer tea-towels are printed to show drying heights. Older tea-towels have shrunk or stretched non-linearly and probably show Staines where there are almost certainly dragons and irregular large cherubic-cheeked puffs best avoided whatever the datum. And rocks do move.

 

[doug748]

These people:

http://www.chartsales.co.uk/

...sell cancelled charts for £3.65 each.

Put them on the For Sale section for, say, £2 each. parhaps? There are one or two I could do with...

 

[Theshipscat]

Thanks for all the responses. Most of them are from around 87 the there's a few from 1980. The Black and White ones from French data are beautiful. I have my own up to date charts and these were given to me by a friends rather when he retire from sailing.

 

[simon barefoot]

We've used them as all sorts of decoration, wallpaper, even folded origami style for xmas tree decorations (old os maps are better for that).
Greetings cards for people in relevant areas, book covers, inlays in cd cases, laminated for placemats.... the list is endless....