It was during the middle 'fifties that schoolboys began to give their attention to the "foreign stamp collecting." I say "foreign" advisedly, for the early interest was almost entirely centred in the stamp issues of other countries, and it pleased the youthful mind to receive specimens from Brazil or the United States. The stamps which passed in the post before his own eyes every day were treated with the contempt that is bred of familiarity. In later years the old designation of "foreign stamp collecting" is by no means correct as applied to the scope of modern Philately. Patriotism had led the fashion of the time to the cult of the stamps of our own nation and its possessions. There are several claims to priority of interest in collecting stamps which have been put forward in recent years. Mr. E. S. Gibbons is said to have collected when at school in 1854. He was then fourteen, having been born in the year of the introduction of postage stamps. He is said to have been dealing in stamps about 1856. Mr. W. S. Lincoln tells of an album still in his possession inscribed "Collection of stamps made by W. Lincoln 1854." The memoranda in that book are: "1854, 210 varieties. 1855, 310 varieties." In the following year (1856) he was exchanging stamps with another collector. The late editor of _Le Timbre-Poste_ (Brussels), M. J. B. Moëns, started collecting about 1855, and produced the earliest of the continental periodicals devoted exclusively to philately from 1863-1900. His earliest English rival of any pretensions, _The Stamp Collector's Magazine_, was edited by Dr. C. W. Viner, whose interest in the subject began about 1855 by assisting a lady friend to form a chart representative of the postage-stamps of the world. This simple form of collecting was evidently much in vogue in the later 'fifties and remained during the next decade, and a photograph of one of these taken in the 'sixties will be found among the illustrations. It was not until 1860 that Dr. Viner took up the pursuit on his own behalf. And with 1860 and the next few years we have evidences of the spread of the newer form of stamp-collecting, which was to give the pursuit the scientific interest and value which were to ensure its permanence and to make it in the present year of grace the most widely popular of all collecting hobbies. In those days collections were limited by the comparatively small number of stamps that had been issued, but even then the phantom of completeness was not within reach. "I remember counting my stamps with much glee when they reached a hundred," wrote Dr. Viner in 1889. "I _saw_ some collections with two or three hundred, and _heard_ of one with five hundred. Cancelled specimens were principally seen; but I can recall one collection rich in unused Naples, Sicily, Tuscany, and other Italian States purchased at their several post-offices by a young traveller." [Illustration: A POSTAGE STAMP "CHART"--ONE OF THE EARLY FORMS OF STAMP-COLLECTING.]