BERKELEY - The less we knew about the world, the more beautiful were our maps.

That doesn't apply, however, to the items that Plumlee has set aside as "showpieces." In a room off to the side, shoppers with deeper pockets can find maps that are not only fascinating historical documents, but miniature works of art. A colorful map of the Dutch city of Delft, for example — probably dating from the 17th century or earlier — is decorated with miniature human figures and tiny, Monopoly-sized houses drawn to scale. Imagine being able to buy anything else from the birthplace of Vermeer and dating from the era of Breughel for $200.

Other rare maps up for sale include a 1918 "Strategical War Map of the Western Front" that's the size of a classroom blackboard; a map presented to the "Right Honourable Charles Earl of Traquair from his Most Obedient and most humble Servant Will Edgar"; and a complete set of the 1746 plans for the cities of London, Westminster and Southwark. The set was issued in 1967 as a limited-edition reproduction comprising 26 panels, 23 by 30 inches each.

Beautiful as such old cartography is, the department has to make room for newer items. Plumlee has been doggedly paring down the department's overcrowded map storage room on the fifth floor of McCone Hall, a tiny space that until recently held five stacks of five flat filing cabinets, reaching about eight feet high.

"It was dark in there, not to mention unsafe," says Plumlee. With the extra and outdated material removed, there's finally room to actually spread out a map and look at it. Yet space is still at a premium: Plumlee has yet another storage room to clear out to accommodate a lab expansion.

The department's sale maps were largely collected by past faculty and students and were either redundant or deemed no longer useful for current research or instruction; the wall maps are heavily used for instruction and have been replaced as they age. The Earth Science and Map Library's sale items, meanwhile, are duplicates from donations or are common, out-of-date maps produced by government agencies.