Ben Edwards on collectibles

After amassing the world's biggest collection of Chinese Imari porcelain, the former chairman of A.G. Edwards is auctioning off the crockery at Christie's late this month. "I had no idea what a sick guy I am," says Edwards, 70. (He's the fourth descendant of General Albert Gallatin Edwards, who founded the firm in 1887, to run A.G. Edwards.) Edwards's life as a collector began in 1980, when he bought a piece of 18th-century English furniture. He spent the next five years collecting furniture and Oriental rugs, then began hunting Chinese porcelain. "I was running out of room, so I started accessorizing." Much of the collection brightened his former office at the St. Louis-based brokerage firm. Edwards confides that he offered to sell his stash to A.G. Edwards after his March 2001 retirement, but "they properly said no." Christie's estimates that the collection is worth between $800,000 and $1.2 million, about a third of what Edwards shelled out for it. "Antiques are a wonderful pleasure," he says, "but they don't pay you anything."