A more general limitation begins with political or geographical grouping. "Europeans" are in constant demand, as there are many collectors who confine themselves to the stamps of the European States as a group. It is, however, a very large group, and few could hope to successfully cope with the whole of it on anything approaching specialist lines. The Castle-Mann collection, sold in 1906 for nearly £30,000, was limited to European stamps. But Europe for the collector naturally subdivides into lesser groups, _e.g._, the German States, Italian States, Balkan States, &c., and these in their turn yield single countries, many of which will provide in themselves an abundance of work and study for the enthusiast. The fashion which has for many years kept the stamps of the British Empire in constantly increasing demand is rather curious, in that what may be attributed--at least partly--to patriotism at home has yet prevailed in foreign countries, where British Colonials are collected even more than the national products. In the United States, for example, the collector has until quite lately somewhat neglected the grand series of beautifully engraved stamps of the Republic and has followed the crowd of collectors of British Colonials. This may be explained in some measure by the shrewdness of the American investor, whose confidence in the security of his money in good old British Colonial stamps is still unbounded. At the same time philatelic experience is that every country is gradually being taken by the students and getting its turn, so that as the United States has a growing family of its own, it is not unlikely that in due course we shall find more United States collectors working out their philatelic salvation on their own lines on a national, or American, basis. The American field is a particularly fine one and offers the most virgin philatelic soil. Nearly every other group has been pretty well collected and studied, though not exhaustively. The United States itself has had much attention, but Mexico and South and Central America, Cuba, Hayti, the Dominican Republic are comparatively fresh soil, and the student can invest at present prices with a good assurance that, as United States expansion and influence become more overwhelming in the Western Hemisphere, all these countries will enjoy increased popularity with the stamp-collector. THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.