The historical collection: literary and philatelic--The quest for _rariora_--The "grangerising" of philatelic monographs: its advantages and possibilities--Historic documents--Proposals and essays--Original drawings--Sources of stamp engravings--Proofs and trials--Comparative rarity of some stamps in pairs, &c., or on original envelopes--Coloured postmarks--Portraits, maps, and contemporary records--A lost opportunity. The scope of the modern collector extends beyond the collection of actually issued stamps. He uses the stamps as a starting-point, but in the historical collection he works--as it is said the writers of detective stories used to do--backwards. He traces to its earliest inception the service which ultimately gave us the postage stamp. The collection is literary as well as philatelic: stamps are preceded by documents, prints and postal records of all kinds. The essays, as we term the suggestions for stamp designs submitted by artists, inventors or printers to a Government or other issuing authority, are of a high degree of interest and should be included in the historical collection, which will also show, where possible, the engraver's proofs taken in the course of his work, the finished die-proofs in black, plate-proofs in black and in colours, and the stamps, generally of the first printing, which are overprinted with the word "Specimen," or its equivalent in other languages, and are sent out to show postal officers what the newly-authorised stamps are like.