Old Copy bundles - non letter

OCB 1

Old Copy bundles - non letter

c. 1800s- present

The main series of record copies of printed Admiralty charts held at the Hydrographic Office is known as the ‘old copy bundles’. They were arranged by N. Atherton, Chief Cartographer, between 1934 and 1958. These bundles do not contain every state of every Admiralty chart that has ever been printed since 1800. Nor do they contain every new chart or new edition, especially during the early nineteenth century and throughout the Second World War.

Each record copy of an Admiralty chart in the OCB series held at the UKHO has a unique reference. This reference is made up of three elements: the chart number, the chart series indicated by a letter, and the number within the series e.g. OCB 1234 B1. Every time a correction or new edition was made the chart would be given the next number within the series. Every time a chart was revised and a new chart issued a new series letter was started. Numbers were allocated up to chart number 19000.

Some charts within OCB 1 pre-date 1800. These are usually found in the 'A' series of a chart and often represent some of the earliest charts printed by Alexander Dalrymple. These were first published by Dalrymple in his capacity as Hydrographer to Hon. East India Company.

This series is currently being catalogued. As a reuslt please be aware that many of the dates for each chart cover the whole chart series, e.g. 1823-1880, or might only record the last date of correction, usually the last large correction of the chart. Dates of minor corrections or when the survey work for the chart was undertaken are sometimes recorded in the chart description.

Where known, the scale, unit and correction details of the chart have been recorded in the description. Some of these details are abbreviated. A list explaining the abbreviations is below:
LC Large Correction
SC Small Correction
NM Notice to Mariner
NE New Edition
NC New Chart
CC Cancelled Copy
RP Reproduction / Reprint
JD Julian Date
INT International
ED Edition
SD Sailing Direction
WD Withdrawn
PDS Print Depot Stock