The largest collection of plates is that belonging to Mr. H. E. Deats, of Flemington, N.J. This industrious collector, while a rather new comer, has distanced all the older men, and, being the owner of the bulk of the Mauran collection, has some very fine examples, as well as large numbers, to boast of.
Dr. Henry C. Eno, of Saugatuck, Conn., has a large and valuable collection mounted in volumes bound in full levant.
We number among our collectors several ladies, and it is earnestly to be hoped that here, as in England, we may have plates designed by lady artists. Probably the earliest lady collector is Mrs. Richard J. Barker, of Warren, R.I., who has several albums filled with good plates, and who has contributed an interesting article on the subject of early American plates to the literature of our topic. Other ladies who are collecting are Miss Helen E. Brainerd, of Columbia College Library; Mrs. C. H. Duhme, of Cincinnati; Mrs. E. M. Gallaudet, of Washington; and Miss Louise Fitz, of Newton Centre, Mass.
The mounting and arrangement of plates are vexed questions among collectors. The really satisfactory method has not yet been discovered. Many ways are tried; and experience shows that while one may at different times think he has found the very best way, its disadvantages are sure to appear, and a new method will be looked for.
Mr. E. H. Bierstadt, of New York, keeps his collection in large albums constructed for the purpose. The leaves are of double thicknesses of heavy calendered manilla paper. The plates are pasted down on mounts of a stiff white ledger paper, and are then placed in the book, four to the page, by slipping the corners of the mounts into slits cut for the purpose in the page. This allows the easy readjustment, the easy exchange of a poor specimen for a better one, the re-placing of a plate wrongly classed, and the extension of alphabetical arrangement ad infinitum. The appearance of the volume is handsome.
Mr. Henry Blackwell, of New York, is mounting all his plates on rather large sheets of a stiff paper, of a dark tint, which shows off the plates to good advantage. They are arranged in alphabetical order, and are kept in neat wooden boxes.
The plates of Mr. Pickering Dodge, of Washington, D.C., are mounted on a dove-colored mount, which is an advantageous tint. The plates are arranged according to styles. This collector, however, is about to change to albums.
Mr. Nathaniel Paine, of Worcester, Mass., has his plates mounted directly upon the pages of an album made for them. Portraits, views, etc., are also interspersed.
The present writer used originally the individual mount; but becoming dissatisfied with that method, because of injury by careless handling, adopted the albums, using in both instances the “hinges” of the stamp collector to fasten the plates down with. He is now changing back to the individual-mount plan, as it admits of more freedom in comparison, easy changes, and the better display of the collection, either to a few, or to an audience.
The larger part of our collectors do not mount their plates at all, or have any system of arranging them. They are kept in odd envelopes, boxes, between the leaves of books, or in a desk-drawer, and there await the new arrival, or the shaking up incident to the search for a particular specimen. This is ruinous.