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Hong Kong Visitor’s Kit (2007)
These were so useful, and so are the updated versions when you can find them. This 2007 edition has 60 pages and some of the advice is wildly out of date — but it’s fun to read. Grade: 1
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Yuen Po Street Bird Garden (Hong Kong)
A tourist brochure issued by the Hong Kong Government’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department earlier in the 2000s. People either love this short street or they hate it — there really is no middle opinion. Grade: 1
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A-O-A Street Map – Hong Kong (2011)
These single-sheet large folded maps have been invaluable for tourists in Hong Kong (and residents) for many years, and used to be updated — mostly with new ads — regularly. No more: it’s all online now, and that’s a shame. Here’s an edition from 2011. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong Map
Dated 12/2010 – 1/2011, this is another large, single-sheet multi-fold, with ads and tips and maps and everything a visitor needed at that time. Grade: 1
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Guide to Hong Kong 2006
Once upon a time, military ships from different nations — mostly U.S.A. — made Hong Kong a port of regular call. A place called Fenwick Pier pulled various shops together, like tailors and souvenirs, where shopkeepers spoke English and sailors could feel they were in a sort of safe haven. Being on the fringes of the Wanchai bar area, this was a good idea. But times changed. Boy, did they change. For years, those sailors could pick up pocket-sized guides full of tips on where to go, how to buy, and generally how to survive their Hong Kong experience. Here’s one from 2006. Grade: 1
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Guide to Hong Kong 2015
We’ll refer you back to our entry 50000273 for the full explanation. This issue is from 2015. Grade: 1
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Immigration Department Hong Kong (2006)
Form ID 93, the multi-page arrival and departure card used in 2006.
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A Tour to Urban Birds – Hong Kong
It says Hong Kong hosts 400 species of birds, and while that might be so (and a good friend works hard to find them all), we mostly notice sparrows, pigeons, and cockatoos. Regardless, this brochure co-sponsored by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society probably dates from the earlier 2000s and is Grade: 1.
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Hong Kong At A Glance
This 2010 brochure, folded single-sheet with maps of key areas, came from the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong Cultural Kaleidoscope
Subtitled “Meet the People Programme and Museums Guide” and mentioning Hong Kong’s limited and ill-fated role in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, this 46-page pamphlet was issued by the Hong Kong Tourism Board in February 2008. Grade: 1
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The Peak – A New Sensation (Hong Kong)
Only new for someone who’s never been there before, but one can say this about Victoria Peak: it continually reinvents (and rebuilds) itself. This 2008 pamphlet from the Hong Kong Tourism Board is greatly out of date now, which makes it more fun to read. Grade: 1
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The Peak: Top of Hong Kong
Quite often, Peak Tramways Company updates its promotional materials. Issued in October 2014, this large, single-sheet, multi-fold pamphlet looks new but much has happened to Victoria Peak and the tram itself since then. Grade: 1
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Ocean Park Hong Kong – Learn about the Giant Pandas
Ocean Park had a good run with giant pandas but old age has a way of getting in the way, and China may now be waiting to see what happens to the Park itself before committing to more “gifts”. This brochure with Guide Map was issued in September 1999, and features an ad for Kodak Film. Grade: 1
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Ocean Park map (Hong Kong) (1-31 July 2011)
For awhile, the Park ambitiously updated this monthly. Grade: 2
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Ocean Park Hong Kong – Guide Map
Deeply troubled Ocean Park remains an interesting place to visit but has not yet figured out what it wants to be when it grows up. This is a large, single-sheet, multi-fold map from 2019. We would not rely solely on it now. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong – High Speed Rail User Guide (April 2019)
See entry 50000300 for more detail, but this is one single-sheet, multi-fold brochure with much of the same information about Hong Kong’s dormant (for now) High Speed Rail service. It will get back in service eventually. Grade: 1
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A Traveller’s Guide to Sai Kung (Hong Kong)
This 20-page English-language booklet was published by the Hong Kong Tourism Board for 2020. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong Disneyland – Grand Opening (September 12th, 2005)
Promising “new and classic entertainment facilities”, this brochure announces the Park’s opening, how to get there, for how much, and so on. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong Disneyland Guide Map (2012)
This folded guide from 2012 would have been a compact reference at the time, though you’d need the updated version now. Grade: 1
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Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
This is a slim, one-page promotion (January 2021) and because we have more than one, we’re showing both sides. This Disney Park’s survival was briefly in question during the worst of Covid, but seems to be back on track as of right now. Grade: 1
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Ngong Ping 360 (Hong Kong)
You might see our earlier descriptions of this hilltop attraction on Lantau Island. Here’s a brochure from January 2019. Grade: 1
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Quality Tourism Services Scheme (Hong Kong)
In Hong Kong, at least, the word “scheme” does not always mean “trick” or “evil plan”. In this case, it’s exactly the opposite. This 2019 brochure from the Hong Kong Tourism Board seeks to reassure visitors that what they buy is genuine and the shopkeeper is reliable, if the visitor sees a logo on the shop window. To everyone’s credit, for the most part, this works well. It has been a long-running joke that mainland Chinese come here because the products are real, while Hong Kong people cross the border to buy fakes. Grade: 1
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Ocean Park (Hong Kong)
Bilingual, comprehensive, updated 2022 brochure trying hard to keep up with Ocean Park’s constant changes. Grade: 1
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A-O-A Bangkok Guidebook (1979)
Alongside its Hong Kong counterpart, which was thicker, this slight hardcover guide (3-5/8″ x 5-1/4″) from 1979 was a really valuable introduction, lots of winks and nudges, to Bangkok and especially its nightlife. In some ways it is wildly out of date; in others, not. Grade: 1
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Carte Taride 142: Tout le Maroc (map)
As nearly as we can tell, this highly detailed map of Morocco dates from 1956. When unfolded, it’s enormous. Drivers of the time would have been very grateful for this. Grade: 1
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Mobil Oil Nigeria – Road Map of Nigeria (1957)
We know all too well we cannot compete with vendors who have literally millions of maps for sale, probably including one of your own home too. That’s fine. If you’ve been looking for this particular one — original and aging as it is — you have found it. Grade: 3
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Michelin map 153: Africa (North and West)
This is the 1967 edition of a travelers’ standard: to the scale of 1:4 000 000, 63 miles to the inch, and covering an awful lot of territory both charted and otherwise. Map 153 had many editions and many different cover sheets, so be certain this is the one you want. Grade: 2
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Michelin map 155: Africa (Central and South)
… and Madagascar too, for good measure. Like our previous entry, this is the 1967 edition. It is, if you don’t already know Michelin maps, quite large. Grade: 2
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Cameroon Embarkation/Disembarkation Card
As distributed to passengers on Cameroon Airlines in 1975. Nothing unusual about the card, but the star-crossed airline itself — as reported by Wikipedia — “Cameroon Airlines was operating as early as 1973, as until then flight operations were mostly executed by multi-national Air Afrique. Scheduled flights between Douala and Yaoundé were launched on 1 November of that year with an initial fleet of two Boeing 737-200 aircraft. Shortly thereafter, international flights commenced using an ex-Air France Boeing 707, which was replaced by a larger and more modern Boeing 747-200 in 1982. (This aircraft remained in service with Cameroon Airlines until 2000 when it was severely damaged in Flight 070) Over the years, Cameroon Airlines was plagued by financial difficulties, which came along with a poor safety and maintenance record. On 16 September 2005, the airline was indefinitely banned by the French Civil Aviation Authority and in an effort to save the airline from bankruptcy, the Government of Cameroon signed an agreement with SN Airholding, the parent company of Brussels Airlines to ensure future funding. Plans did not materialize, though. Instead, on 11 September 2006, the launch of Camair-Co as the new national airline was announced. Cameroon Airlines stayed operational until March 2008, though flight operations had only taken place during irregular intervals over these last years.” Grade: 1
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Republique du Dahomey Border Control Form
The Republic of Dahomey was renamed Benin in 1975, and this basic “Emigration-Immigration” paper dates from 1968. Just imagine that so few people came and went, they were able to manage with hand-cut mimeographed forms. Grade: 1
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Discover Bombay (India)
An undated folder published by Air-India, yet an ad for their Boeing 747 flights and other clues places the brochure probably in the early 1970s. Nice that the map on the back cover measures distances in furlongs. Grade: 1
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You’ll Have a Grand Time in Grand Forks (North Dakota, USA)
A single-sheet, multi-fold brochure from the Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce in the 1960s. Having lived there three different times, we might observe that while Grand Forks does have attractions, it’s something of a stretch to call it a tourist destination. But this pamphlet makes the most of what they had. Grade: 1
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Michelin Map 154: Africa (North – East)
Kindly refer back to our entries 50000362/363 for the other two maps in this series. Same vintage (1960s) and this completes the basic set of the three largest maps of the region. If all three still appear in our listings, and you want all three, contact us for a special price. Grade: 1
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Plan Touristique de Casablanca (Morocco)
Single-sheet, multi-fold map, ads, tips, directions — in French — to everything except Rick’s Cafe. From about 1973. Grade: 1
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La Semaine a Saigon / Seven Days in Saigon
Mostly in French but with some English information, this pamphlet of about 50 pages covering a week in February 1974 has some extra markings on the map inside but is generally clean and of course its job was to put a good light on or at least finesse the chaos spiraling all around during that period. This item is aging but is a very, very interesting artifact. Grade: 3
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what’s doing in MADRID
Your plan for the week of 3-9 July 1972, a bit marked up on the inside by someone wanting to decipher the mostly useless map it contains. Grade: 2
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Abidjan (Ivory Coast) – travel brochure
From the 1960s, in English, and published by l’Office National du Tourisme de Cote d’Ivoire, map and other information the tourist might want. Grade: 1
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Bogota guide for shopping and shows (Colombia)
Bilingual and wide-ranging visitors’ guide, 23 pages, though the map it contains might not help much — then or now. From October 1975. Grade: 1
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City Map – Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Single-sheet, multi-fold, from the mid-1970s. Published by the Ethiopian Tourist Organization, with support from Shell, we can tell you this map would have left you more confused than had you never seen it at all. Grade: 1
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Tamatave (Madagascar)
We’re not certain that a tourist brochure should emphasise the destination’s “unceasing struggle against the devastating fury of cyclones” and “massive havoc at times”, but so it did, when published in 1960. Bilingual French/English, and it redeems itself by its exotic and otherwise gentle approach. Even so … massive havoc? Grade: 1