In the early 1980's, David C. Jolly left M.I.T. to begin an endeavor that has taken his name around the world. He published Antique Maps, Sea Charts City Views, Celestial Charts & Battle Plans - Price Guide and Collectors' Handbook for 1983. Since then the title has been streamlined. It became an annual production, though between 1997 and 2002 it was published biannually. David soon altered key words in the title from "Price Guide" to "Price Record" on the theory that the publication just recorded published prices, and interpretation of the data was up to the user. The early editions were compiled on a TR-80 computer and printed from dot-matrix copy.

In 1992, Jon Rosenthal was approached by David Jolly to take on the stewardship of Antique Map Price Record & Handbook. Kimmel Publications was established as a sister enterprise to Amherst Antiquarian Maps specifically to publish the Price Record. Jon was joined by his wife, Bernice, as coauthor of the series. Improvements were made with every edition; atlases and globes were added to the record; it became larger; the presentation was refined.

For some time, Jon had given thought to publishing a compendium volume. Since Volumes 1 through 11 were out of print, the full run of information was not available to people who had recently developed an interest in antiquarian maps. However, publishing such a compendium volume would have been cumbersome and costly.

In recent years, it has become apparent that computers were revolutionizing the assembly and accessibility of data. An electronic compendium edition made more sense. In 1999 Jeremy Pool, a software developer and map collector, suggested that he and Jon, together, should undertake a CD-ROM edition of the Price Record, bringing together all of the historical data along with new data for the next volume. Jeremy undertook constructing the specialized software for the project, as well as merging all the historical data into a single consistent database. Meanwhile, Jon prepared the new Volume 17 material. The result of the collaboration - Volume 17 in CD-ROM format - first appeared at the Miami Map Fair in February of 2002.

As a result, the records of dealer offerings and auction sales reported in all those books pictured above - along with new records from 2001 and later - are now accessible in a single CD-ROM. It is:

• easy to use
• fast in operation
• comprehensive
• fully searchable in a manner not possible with the print editions

After the publication of the Volume 17 CD-ROM, Jon and Bernice decided that the time had come to pass on the stewardship of the Antique Map Price Record, and Jeremy was interested in taking over the Jolly/Rosenthal tradition. The publication - in CD-ROM format - will continue under the aegis of MapRecord Publications. A new CD-ROM edition will be published each Spring. Volume 18 was published in April, 2003, with editions for both Windows and Macintosh computers, and new volumes have been released annually. As of 2008 (Volume 23) the database has over 120,500 records.