Narrator: If these artisans make a single mistake
laying a flat map over this giant custom sphere,
they'll have to start the entire process over.
The slightest twitch of the finger can cause a rip,
a costly hiccup at Bellerby & Co. Globemakers,
where the world's most expensive globes are made.
A 22-centimeter mass-produced globe can cost about $25,
while a Bellerby globe of the same size
can sell for over $3,800.
And prices can reach six figures
for Bellerby's largest globes.
That's partly because artisans customize these globes
entirely in-house, including hand-painting the globe
and crafting the base it sits on.
So, what makes these globes worth waiting
up to two years to get?
And why are they so expensive?
Peter: If someone asks why it's so expensive,
I invite them along to the studio
and show them around
and show them the processes we go through
at every single level.
When they leave, they fully understand why it takes so long.
Narrator: Peter Bellerby founded London's
Bellerby & Co. Globemakers in 2008,
and today, it's one of the only studios in the world
making globes by hand.
The smallest globe it sells,
the 12-centimeter-diameter pocket globe,
can set you back almost $2,000.
Its largest, the Churchill, has a 127-centimeter diameter
and costs over $94,000.
Since 2008, Bellerby has sold around 5,000 globes,
ranging from maps of the Earth
to the constellations and even the moon.
Three of those were featured in Martin Scorsese's "Hugo,"
including a 40-centimeter celestial globe.
Production is limited because making a globe from scratch
entirely by hand is no easy feat.
At Bellerby, it requires cartographers,
globemakers, painters, and woodworkers.
And the price of these globes is largely a reflection
of how many the team can make without compromising quality.
The attention to detail starts with the spheres.
Most sizes are made from fiberglass
for its strength and durability.
But what's most important is that it's a perfect sphere.
Any deformation can result in uneven weight distribution,
which affects how the globe spins.
If that happens,
Bellerby has to fix it by attaching a counterweight.
Then there are the maps themselves.
The cartography department focuses on accuracy
and fulfilling the customer's imagination,
like adding the Silk Road or the spice routes.
Isis: They highlight the places where they came from
and where they might have immigrated to
and where they got married
and where their ancestors are from.
Narrator: But Bellerby doesn't just customize its maps
for creative or sentimental reasons.
The details also affect
where the company can sell its globes.
Peter: For instance, in India,
I can actually go to prison for six months
if I ship a globe to India that doesn't have
the correct border between India and Pakistan.
Narrator: And if any territories shift
or new borders are drawn,
Bellerby's new iterations will reflect that.
When the cartographers are done
with all the necessary specifications,
they print the map onto oblong strips called gores.
Now, it can be handed off to globemakers like Eddy.
Eddy: So, with globemaking, it's all about applying
12 or 24 gores onto a sphere.
So it all starts with cutting those gores
very, very precisely with a scalpel.
Narrator: Makers have to cut the gores
to within 0.1 of a millimeter
so there are no gaps or overlaps when they're applied.
Eddy: You can very easily cover an entire country
based on the amount that you've extra-overlapped
because you've cut a little bit too much excess.
Narrator: Eddy traces the latitude and longitude lines
onto the sphere as guides.
Then he wets the gores and glues them onto the surface,
gently flattening them by hand.
Even the slightest tension or miscalculated movement
can cause a rip or wrinkle.
When globemakers do make mistakes,
they have to scrape off and replace the offending gore.
If they're lucky, they'll only need to remove one,
but sometimes the team has to redo the entire globe,
including the cartography.
Eddy: A lot of the times it does result
in the globe being restarted,
and that can even be at the final stage
just before it's being packaged.
While that doesn't happen often, when it does,
you know, everybody's upset.
But it's just the only way
that we can maintain a really high-quality standard.
Narrator: Correctly setting a single gore
onto the massive Churchill globe can take an hour.
Aside from size, factors like the temperature in the room
or the consistency of the glue affect application time.
The globemaker has to account for all of this,
including their own breathing.
Eddy: I've found that cold showers actually help a lot
with controlling breath,
and that's really improved my making, actually.
Narrator: It takes up to 18 months
for trainees to learn the most basic aspects of globemaking,
and much longer to master it.
Eddy has been on the job for six years.
When the gores are finally set,
the globe is ready for the painters, like Isis.
She can bring the Earth, the moon,
or the constellations to life.
She shades in the coastlines, mountain ranges,
political borders, and any illustrations or customizations.
The difficulty on this stage is actually making
all these gores the same color and consistent.
It's almost like if you're making a painting
but you have 12 different canvases
and there has to be a continuation.
Narrator: Some globes highlight different ocean depths,
so Isis has to paint in ocean trenches
in their exact location.
She works deliberately, being careful
not to paint neighboring countries the same shades
or let any watercolor run from one gore to the next.
That's another mistake that risks
having to start the whole globe all over again.
At the woodshop, artisans are working on a base
for the nearly complete Churchill globe.
It's all done in-house by a dedicated team of four.
They engrave, chisel, and stain the wood
based on customer specifications.
At every stage of the globemaking process,
Peter encourages his team to take as long as they need.
It's very important that we spend the time
that is required to make every single globe
as best as it can be.
It's finished when it's finished and when it's ready.
Narrator: The cost of labor accounts for most of the price,
since it usually takes four to six months
to complete a globe and ship it out.
But Bellerby also pays attention to the materials it uses.
The inks it uses for printing
can last between 80 and 200 years in gallery conditions.
The origin story of Bellerby Globes
is just as peculiar as the globes themselves.
In 2008, Peter decided to make a globe
for his father's 80th birthday.
He went through hundreds of globes
and thousands of pounds before he was happy with the result.
In about 2011, '12, I sold my house to fund,
because this is a bottomless pit of money.
I used to go down to the municipal dump
every two weeks
with an estate car
full of trial globes.
Narrator: And once he got it right,
he wanted to keep making them.
But Peter didn't expect the warm reception
these boutique globes received.
The company was recently commissioned
to work on a globe for the Louvre,
and its largest globe has a wait list of two years.
Peter attributes this demand
to the rise of consumer interest in handmade products.
The global-handicraft-market size
reached $680 billion in 2021
and is expected to exceed a trillion dollars by 2027.
Bellerby & Co. too has seen this consistent rise
in demand for its handmade globes.
The company says it turns multimillion-dollar revenues
year after year.
And it expects this to continue,
even at high price points for its niche products.
What I love so much about what we do
is that it is so deeply personal.
You can tell someone's whole life story in it.