IN Topsham, Me. (pop. 3,500), Colonel Robert F. Carter, a 60-year-old West Pointer, is busily pursuing a hobby that reaches into the past and the future and extends around the world. Colonel Carter's determination is to read every article that has ever appeared in TIME. In the past three years, the retired Army officer has collected all but about 70 of the 1,887 issues TIME has published since it began on March 3, 1923.

To add zest to his collecting, Colonel Carter has had 863 TIME covers autographed by the cover subjects. Before he is through, he is certain he will have a complete set of all past TIME issues. But the autograph collection will be another matter. Some 800 of the subjects of TIME'S covers had died before he began his collection. Of the remaining 120-odd "possibles" still alive, most are what he calls "Reds and royalty," two categories that have not widely responded to his appeals, though he has the signatures of Yugoslavia's Tito and Italian Communist Palmiro Togliatti, of King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Frederika of Greece.

MANY of the cover subjects added a fillip to their autographs. Alfred Krupp returned his signature with a note from his secretary saying that the Ruhr industrialist rarely gave his autograph, but was making an exception. J. Paul Getty, one of the world's richest men, wrote his name in pencil, and Kim Novak wrote, "Best wishes, Bob. Kim."

Three members of Colonel Carter's class of 1919 at West Point, four-star Generals Alfred Gruenther, Albert Wedemeyer and Nathan Twining, were subjects of TIME covers, and each one signed. Gruenther also helped get the autograph of Field Marshal Montgomery, who wrote across his cover portrait, "Montgomery of Alamein." Another West Pointer, Dwight D. Eisenhower, class of 1915, has appeared on TIME'S cover more than anyone else--13 times since 1942, as soldier, candidate and President*--and has signed two covers for Carter.

"THE cover of last Nov. 24 carried pictures of seven leading Democratic presidential hopefuls--Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Meyner, John Kennedy, Stuart Symington and Pat Brown--and all autographed the same copy. Carter also has signed covers from Vice President Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller. Among others in his autographed collection: Harry Truman and Thomas E. Dewey (both on the same 1948 pre-Election Day issue), John Foster Dulles, Chiang Kaishek, Toscanini, Nehru, the Duke of Windsor and the Morocco Riff leader, Abd el Krim.

Colonel Carter is still stumped about how to get autographs of Communist leaders. His copy of the Aug. 1, 1955 cover, with the Big Four of that time--Eisenhower, Eden, Faure and Bulganin--has been signed by the first three men. But, with that prize collection of signatures on it, Colonel Carter doesn't dare send it to Bulganin. Other issues sent behind the Iron Curtain for autographs have not been returned.

* Runners-up: Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph Stalin (ten covers each).

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