Pages from the Past leaf books were sold as six different collections with three different releases (18 total sets were sold in editions of varying numbers) between 1964-1966. These were all compiled and sold by the Washington DC-based dealer, Alfred W. Stites of Foliophiles, Inc., who had dismembered original printings and manuscripts specifically for the purpose of selling them in these "portfolio sets", as he referred to them. Western Michigan University Libraries is one of a number of institutions who obtained a set. WMU's set was donated by Mrs. Donald Gilmore of Kalamazoo and is from the first release of 1964, Set I: "The History of the Written Word", numbered 10 in an edition of 20. It contains 149 items, which include a Babylonian cuneiform tablet, leaves of handwritten manuscript codices, as well as leaves of incunabula, Hand Press Period books and newspapers, as well as nineteenth century books. The materials in this collection date from between 2500 BCE and 1894 CE.