It took nine tailors (1948)

140 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS night I was wearing the studs, feeling very proud of them— solid gold. I have always been partial to solid gold articles because in a pinch you can always find a good market for them, especially if they are not engraved with your initials. But this night I met a manufacturing jeweler who looked at my studs in a very admiring way. "Nice studs." "Yes." "My firm happened to make those studs." "Really?" I thought I would find out just how much of a bargain I had purchased. "What is the retail price of studs like these?" "Three hundred dollars," he said without a moment's hesitation. Three hundred dollars! I had been robbed again! When I recall how a certain philatelist tried to cheat me with phony postage stamps, I blush with shame to think that my father's son was such a sucker. I had always been interested in collecting stamps, so when I began to make money I started to enlarge my collection with some of the very fine stamps I had always wanted. When I used to walk into a stamp dealer's place of business, he would rub his hands together and lock the door for fear I would get away. I bought several expensive stamps from a dealer in New York. One of these was a $500 United States revenue stamp that was very rare. I paid $1,350 for this one; it was supposed to be in perfect condition. I also bought a rare inverted center for $900 that catalogued for over $1,000. Bargains again! I bought in all some $5,000 or $6,000 worth of stamps from this one dealer. Some time later Mr. Warren Colson of Boston, one of the leading experts on stamps in this country, was examining my collection and discovered that my rare $500 United States revenue stamp had a thin spot. I was dumbfounded, for it had been sold to me as perfect. I immediately returned the stamp to this dealer and demanded a refund. He refused, claiming that I