The Folgers took annual vacations to The Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Virginia, where Henry enjoyed participating in golf tournaments in his later years. Though the Folgers had no children, they considered their collection to be their descendants, and Henry was known to refer to his rare books as "the boys." Folger was an avid collector of Shakespeareana, assembling the world's largest collection of First Folio editions of Shakespeare's plays. The first rare book Folger acquired was a 1685 copy of the Fourth Folio, purchased in 1889 for $107.50. He purchased his first original copy of the First Folio four years later, in 1893. Unlike other wealthy collectors of the period, like Henry E. Huntington and J.P. Morgan, Folger favored "imperfect" copies of rare volumes, with their marginalia and other markings. Following this trend, his Folio collection was marked with diversity in provenance and condition. He preferred to purchase Early Editions of books published between 1567 and 1606, in addition to manuscripts of the period. Based on their collective knowledge of Latin and French, and Emily's proficiency in German, the couple also favored rare volumes published on the Continent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The couple was less interested in art collection, and many of the Shakespeare-related paintings they purchased were misattributed to artists like Thomas Gainsborough. The Folgers chose items to purchase from booksellers' catalogues, which were initially perused and marked up by Emily, before she passed them on to Henry, who kept an extensive and precise list of items he intended to bid on. If possible, he inspected an item personally before purchasing it. He also avoided consulting scholarly experts about rare volumes, preferring his own and Emily's expertise, as she received an M.A. from Vassar College in 1896 for a thesis on Shakespeare. Folger used professional booksellers as middlemen at auctions, believing that the concealment of his identity would keep prices low. Due to the growing size of the collection and their concern for fireproofing, eventually few of the Folgers' acquisitions were stored in their living space. They kept an extensive card catalog at home in Brooklyn, and when traveling, took a smaller, annotated set of check lists along with them. The collection itself was stored among several fireproof warehouse companies throughout Manhattan, in specially-designed wooden cases originally meant to hold two five-gallon cans of oil each. Frederick Fales, a co-worker of Folger's at Standard Oil, initially designed and ordered these air-tight wooden cases for company use.