despite the continual warnings of experienced collectors.

But if we turn to the result of experienced collecting we find
abundant evidence of the fact that the stamp collector may enjoy his
stamps and, when the force of circumstances compels him to abandon
them, he may retire without regret for having put so much money into a
mere hobby.

Mr. W. Hughes Hughes, B.L., started his collection in 1859, and kept a
strict account of all his expenditure on his hobby, and in 1896 he
sold to our publishers for close on £3,000 what had cost him only £69.

In 1870 a stamp dealer in London, as a novelty and an advertisement,
papered his shop windows, walls, and ceiling with unused Ionian
Islands stamps, which were then a drug in the market. The same stamps
would now readily sell at 10s. per set of three; in other words, the
materials of that wall-paper would now be worth at least £5,000.

The late Mr. Pauwels, of Torquay, made a collection which cost him
£360 up to 1871, when it was put on one side and left untouched until
1898. It was then purchased by our publishers for the sum of £4,000,
and yielded them a very fair return on their investment.

In the International Philatelic Exhibition, held in the Galleries of
the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in Piccadilly,
London, in 1897, one collector marked over each stamp of his exhibit
the price which he had paid for it, and the market price of the day.
The collection had been got together during the previous fifteen
years, and had cost its owner £25 2s., while by the then latest
catalogue value it totalled up to £368 1s. 3d.