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Title: Lunar Moon Globe
- Author: Rand McNally & Company
- Date: c.1969
- Condition: Excellent - Sliding acrylic meridian rule, mounted on a three-spoke Perspex base
- Inches: 12 x 12 x 13 [Globe Width & Height]
- Centimeters: 30.48 x 30.48 x 33.02 [Globe Width & Height]
- Product ID: 308756
An exceptional 1969 Rand McNally Lunar Globe, an evocative scientific model from the height of the Space Age. This pivotal era—defined by the Space Race, unprecedented advances in space exploration, and the cultural imagination it inspired—began with Sputnik in 1957 and reached its zenith with the Apollo program.
Produced at a moment of extraordinary scientific progress, this globe reflects the rapidly evolving state of lunar knowledge just before the Apollo 11 landing. The far side of the Moon, long hidden from Earth and only recently observed through spacecraft reconnaissance—including Apollo 10’s lunar-orbit mission—is rendered with comparatively generalized, unnamed terrain. In contrast, the Earth-facing side is richly detailed with identified mountains, valleys, and craters.
Most compellingly, the globe predates the historic Apollo 11 mission of July 1969. Its landing site had not yet been added, preserving the model as a remarkably immediate artifact of the moment just before humanity first set foot on the lunar surface—a defining event of the twentieth century, witnessed by an estimated 500 million people worldwide.
Background on Creator
In 1856, William H. Rand opened a Chicago print shop, hiring Irish immigrant Andrew McNally as a printer two years later. They established a relationship with the Chicago Tribune’s predecessor, soon taking over its printing operation in full. Eventually, in 1868 Rand, McNally, and Rand’s nephew George Amos Poole bought out the Tribune and founded Rand, McNally & Co. Now with significant printing experience under their belt, the three men embarked on several publishing endeavors, capitalizing on the massive success of Chicago’s railroad industry by printing tickets, timetables, and railroad guides. Rand, McNally & Co.’s cartographic enterprise began as an offshoot of their existing publishing business; it was not until 1872 that the company printed its first map, a wax engraving that appeared in the company’s December Railroad Guide. Thanks to the low cost and ease of production associated with wax engravings, the firm quickly became the largest commercial publisher in the United States and to this day continues to produce quality atlases, maps, and globes.