I found a brass compass at a swap-meet that pointed about four degrees east of true north. The seller shrugged: "It was right, once." Declination changes. So do we.

Declination isn't a flaw

Magnetic north drifts. A map that ignores declination is a map that's quietly wrong. carTO corrects it automatically.

But the lesson stuck

The best tools are the ones that were right for someone, once. Keep the compass. Draw the map anyway.