With the correct order of the preliminary leaves of Shakespeare’s First Folio unknown, the sequence of the first 18 pages has long puzzled scholars. Over the last 400 years, binders have assembled the first gathering differently, spawning a wide variety of order types. Using data from Anthony James West’s Census of First Folios (2003) and A Descriptive Catalogue (2012), this presentation provides an overview of the different preliminaries found in 146 surviving copies of the First Folio and discusses the assumptions behind the most popular order. All order types are comprehensively enumerated and cross-tabulated based on binding age, revealing the profound impact that re-binding has had on the arrangement over time. Two competing collation statements are also reconsidered through the lens of an emerging appreciation of the volume’s cultural context, the failure of King James I’s Spanish Match.