Overview
- The working proof will be offered in London at Christie’s Groundbreakers: Icons of our Time sale on December 11 with a guide of £70,000–£100,000, and it is dated to 1932 and described as the earliest known copy.
- Manuscript annotations include proposed colour changes for Waterloo and South Kensington, reinstatement of the Metropolitan line branch to Watford, and a note that the Piccadilly line did not serve South Ealing.
- Christie’s attributes handwriting on the sheet to Harry Beck and to predecessor Frederick Stingemore, reflecting the transition from geographic charts to the new diagrammatic style.
- Few working proofs survive, with most in the care of the London Transport Museum, which makes this offering an unusual opportunity for private buyers.
- Beck’s circuit-inspired design abandoned geographic accuracy, proved itself in a 1932 trial, and entered public use in 1933 before becoming a model for transit maps worldwide.