The engravers are American and English. Walter Aikman and John Evans lived in Brooklyn, and Edwin D. French designed the bookplate of Emma Toedteberg.

Except where noted, these plates are mounted and do not include associated information about the subject. The American bookplates were owned by men who lived primarily during the mid-19th century through the early 1930s, and include bookplates owned by surgeons, professors, bankers and editors. The English owners lived primarily in the 19th century. The unmounted plates include individual men's and institutional plates, and Box 44 and 45 have "unmounted duplicates," which include numerous Emma and Augustus Toedteberg duplicates and presentation plates to the Long Island Historical Society.

The plates of various states are printed directly to the paper rather than mounted. The "oversize" plates are printed on 8 x 11 cardstock. A "state" refers to the printing process, where an impression is made from the original design to create a print. Different states result from changes to the original design. Copies of many of these plates are boxed elsewhere in the collection. Included are several duplicates of Emma Toedteberg's personal bookplates, as well as the bookplates of ladies and institutions.

Box 45 includes correspondence between librarian Edna Huntington and the College of Arms in London, dated 1951, regarding Ms. Huntington's research request to identify a coat-of-arms depicted in a particular bookplate. The box also includes a letter to Emma Toedteberg from Northwestern University Library, dated April 24, 1922; and a handwritten note dated January 29, 1925, lacking letterhead.

The bulk of the collection consists of bookplates described as "illustrated," which indicates that the bookplate is mounted and accompanied by any one or more of the following materials: a photo or portrait of the bookplate owner or institution, an obituary of biographical note or clipping, a sample signature or autograph. These bookplates include male and female individuals as well as institutions, and are the chief source of plates in the collection owned by notable or historical personalities, such as Lord Byron, J.P. Morgan, H.L. Mencken, and Gouveneur Morris.

The non-illustrated bookplates have been previously organized between male and female book-owners. Some of the ladies' mounted plates include a handwriting sample. While the men's bookplates are often of a more stately and familiar design, employing armorial patterns rooted in Western Europe, the ladies' bookplates tend to be of a more expressive and original nature, unconstrained by tradition. Topless sirens call to distant ships on the ladies' bookplates, where the men's show shields, lions' heads and foliage. Also, this collection includes the joint bookplates of married couples, which have been filed according to the wife rather than the husband.

These institutions include libraries, societies, colleges & universities, private clubs and museums: the Brooklyn Historical Society (previously known as the Long Island Historical Society); the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, CA; the Newark, NJ Free Public Library; the Salmagundi Club; the gift-plate of the YMCA; and the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

The primary indexes in Box 46 generally correspond to the arrangement of bookplates and act as useful guides to finding individual plates in the collection. However, these indexes are sometimes inconsistent with the physical collection at the item level. For instance, the "Illustrated" index lists both the owner and the engraver, and though the particular plate is indexed under "Illustrated," it will be filed in the collection under the series "Engravers of Bookplates." Lionel W. Rothschild is indexed under "Illustrated," yet his bookplate is boxed under Sherborn (in which index Rothschild is not listed). The same is found for several other "Illustrated" plates, which are boxed under the engraver. Conversely, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt is indexed in "Illustrated" and though engraved by Sidney L. Smith, Mrs. Roosevelt is also boxed in "Illustrated." Such cross-indexing recurs in the collection, and requires the researcher to check multiple indexes and boxes before finding the physical location of a particular plate.

The J.W. Spenceley index is marked at the top in pencil, "not in Miss Toedteberg's list," which description may also apply to the indexes for all engravers' collections. The French index is pencil marked to note that Emma's bookplate has been added to the collection. The Sidney L. Smith index has been previously amended in pencil where the listings are out of alphabetical order. However, the bookplates in the boxes are alphabetized according to the pre-amended indexing order, which might suggest that the author of the original index also boxed the collection. Unlike the French collection, which indicates a post-Emma stage of processing, here the Smith box follows the original index.

Finally, many of the indexes show traces of having been updated. For example, some are marked in pencil to indicate mistakes in alphabetization, and some show typewritten amendations to the lists. A reference to the "unmarked green box" remains a mystery.

Box 48 contains bookplates and correspondence acquired by Harriet Stryker-Rodda, Long Island Historical Society librarian in the 1960s. Numerous unmounted and uncollected bookplates are included, as well as a one-page outline of the materials and a detailed index of the bookplates.