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Women, to be sure, can also be something of a financial drainees- pecially if they have a perfectionist turn of mind, like my friend Mrs. Guinness, who feels that "for a fur coat to look proper, it must be completely new." The quest for youth and beauty is the female way of whiling away time and money slimming expeditions to Main Chance or the Greenhouse, animal-cell injections by Niehans in Switzerland, face liftings by Rees or Converse in New York, and assorted blood aerations, breast shapings, or skin peelings. These cosmetic Sayings leave a woman pretty unsightly for a week or so. So Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post (you know, Post Toasties) Close Hutton Davies May solves the problem by inviting her doctor and three of her friends down to Palm Beach for a peeling, so they can hole up in her 115-room villa and play bridge while the scabs slough off.
The desire to have something to show for all our money has driven us super-rich to frenzies of collecting things, and you will undoubtedly want to join in. Art has always been our favorite combining high prices, cultural cachet and delicious opportunities to play the pa- tron with penurious young talent. Today, however, it seems to have got completely out of hand, with painters and sculptors apparently unable to turn out even fake works fast enough. Personally, I would leave the modern stuff to the likes of Nelson Rockefeller, who has the Museum of Modern Art at his beck and call, or Paul Mellon, who has something like $1 billion to dip into. Even at that, the art is not necessarily appreciated. One of Paul's daughters brought a friend home from Foxcroft (that school demands a lot more than a "good seat" for riding these days!). Well, the friend looked at a Van Gogh and said: "Who paints in the family?" "Nobody," the Mellon girl answered. "Dad gets them at a store."
Sometimes a collection can be awfully handy. Winston and CeeZee Guest discovered that last fall when they were temporarily strapped for cash (not that I understand how that happened to them). Anyway, they got $812,275 for their Chinese porcelains and French antiques at Parke-Bernet, instead of the mere $500,000 they had counted on. Jewels are more durable than porcelain, but they're easily heisted; Sonny and Marylou Whitney got robbed of $780,000 worth at Saratoga a year ago, and their insurance premiums must be ferocious. Coins can be better guarded, but someone recently stole Willis du Font's collection only the other day he got back a single coin worth $100,000. His cousin, Alexis I. du Pont, may be better off with his collection of antique airplanes, though they take up so much room that the poor fellow has had to build himself a complete airport.