The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-11-07
RUINED BY THE STAMP MAMA.
Head of Firm Neglected Business to
Collect Stamps.

Peculiar Reason Given for the Collapse of
the Great New York House of Hilton
Hughes s. Co.
Chief among the causes of the failure
of the big house of Hilton, Hughes & Co.
which succeeded to the magnificent bust
ness of A. T.. Stewart, 10 declared to he
the postage stamp mania. Everybody
knows with what viruience this form of
the collecting mania still RACES, and
that many men and much capital are
employed in traffic in old postage stamps
but no such example has coms to pub
LOFTY as this Of the tremendous effects il
may have ON a man s business. An EN-
ploye of the firm of Hilton, Hughes s.
Co., who had occasion to consult or con-
fer with the head partner, Albert Hilton,
usually expected to be mot with the
petulant exclamation: "Oh, go away
Don't bother me now. Can't you see
I'm busy?"
He was busy. the chief Of this great
concern. But not with balance sheets,
nor with contracts nor with estimates,
nor in the consideration of new ideas in
dry goods selling. The head of one of the
largest dry goods houses in America, the
| employer of thousands OF persons, and
! over Whose counters immense sums Of
money were daily passed, was busy dur
ing business hours almost exclusively
with his collection of postage stamps
The mania for collecting rare speci-
| mems of the stamps used all over the
world since the introduction Of the pos
tai system 30 years ago is one that is
peculiar on account of the severity with
which it attacks those who possess 1t.
Mr.. Hilton, in pursuing his hobby..with
such zeal that he left his business to
take care of ITSELF was only following
the example of other philatelists, In
whose ranks it is surprising to find
Alphonse De Rothschild is said to care
more for his album of postage stamps
declared by judges to ba worth over
slu0. 00O-than for his pictures or books,
worth half million or more. Even the
Gear of Russia is afflicted with the
| mania.
Mr.. Hilton had been collector from
early years. AS school boy he pos
sessed an album, and devoted much time
to swapping duplicates for other speoi-
| mems. Then the possession of set of
Australian three-cornered stamps WAS
IL 49,
coveted Central Asia Issues was the
chief desire of his life.
The possibilities for the rich collectors
are enormous and complete album of
every issue to date would contain some
where near half million varieties and
be valued at an enormous figure. This
was the aim Mr.. Hilton set himself-to
have complete colleotion-apd he was
listed in the philatelio journals as having
the largest collection in existence,
This object in life was in fair why OF
becoming attained. He has all the rare
English black series, the Mulready en-
velopes (the first device ever issued to
insure the delivery of letters through the
mail). He has rare early Argentines and
| scarce stamps of other South American
States, with unique collsctio OF Cash
meres and Indian native states.
So absorbed was MIR. Hilton with his
mania that he engaged young man,
whose sole duty it was to help him in
gathering his collection. AS his assis
| tant was one of the cleverest experts, he
must have been paid large salary for
| his service. He was instrumental in OBJ
tanning for his employer several of those
specimens that are to the stamp collector
as the Elzevir Caesar is to the Biblio.
maniac-i. e., Impressions not only rare.
but antique.
Mr.. Hilton's collection WINS insured for
$3.50 He speculated some in stamps.
Every collector will remember the re-
markable rise in the value of the Column
bian series issued OF Washington in the
year of the Chicago Fair.
set OF these stamps was, Of course,
desired ardently by every American col
lector. But soon after their issue a most
extraordinary rise in their value took
place. They were quoted at So, SIS and
even " and $l0 beyond their face value.
Then suddenly they dropped to their
former prices, and some even sold at less
than their face value.
This "corner'' In Columbians was a.
gineered by Mr.. Hilton. = 1t was kept up
| as long as possible, and at one time it
looked as though he could continue the
corner successfully, but he mad estimat-
ed the number of stamps in circulation
wrongly and found it impossible to con-
tinue. And then the issue dropped 10
its present value and Mr.. Hilton dropped
S25, 600.
1t is evident that with all this Albert
Hilton found little time to attend ia tha
business of which he was the nominal
head. He reached his office about 10 and
left at 8. While there he was generally
closeted with some dealer IN stamps. and
all the inquiries of his employees as to
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