QUEER CRAZES OF COLLECTORS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 146, 17 July 1909, Page 3

QUEER CRAZES OF COLLECTORS.

Once bitten with the mania for collecting things, uml the average itidii viiluul scums to lose all control over Jumself. It does not matter, apparently, what the -objicfo are. "Old" china. tiiat is not ' old, stamps perforated or surcharged in ] i peculiar way—for these, and other l suchlike intrinsically valueless articles, | lie will cheerfully pay away a. fortune M need lie.

One well-known lady who died recently expended £OOOO on keys. Her colJection comprised the key of the Nuremberg Iron Virgin, one said to have belonged to Cleopatra's jewel-case, another of the private sitting-room of the murdered Queen Draga of Servia, a huge iron specimen from the Tower of London—got by -bribing a "Beefeater"—and the one that used to unlock Anne Hath»way's cottage at Stratford-on-Avon. A rich Manchester gentleman collects wooden legs, of which he possesses several hundred specimens. Minnie Palmer, the actress, had a craze for collecting stockings, and accumulated more than twenty trunks fuli. King Edward's hobhy is walkingsticks, of which he possesses a very fine lssortment indeed. His son, the Prince of Wales, is a stamp enthusiast. A London society lady devotes herself to collecting door-handles, of which she owns over two thousand examples. An East End publican hag been collecting policemen's truncheons for these forty years past. He has over three hundred of them, including some that •vere served out to the special constables sworn in during the Chartist agitation, and others that are connected with famous crimes. Prince Bismarck collected thermometers, flcorge r\\ had more than ten Miousaiid teapots piled in pvramiels in ,hc Brighton Pavilion. The lion. Charles Rothschild has spent hundreds of .pounds ill collecting specimens of (leas. Laura B Starr, the authoress, collects chililren's doll* from all over the world.

Scores of enthusiasts are at this present moment engaged in collecting railway tickets, often at considerable risk and expense to llii'iuselves. Others pin their faith to tram tickets, to cigar bands, to cigarette-Bioxes. A famous lady novelist has collected buttons for over twenty years.—Home paper.