SA Hanlin, Collector of 2500 Perfume Bottles

Samuel Albert Hanlin arrived in Newton in 1890 and started a store known as Hanlin Supply & Mercantile Company. At one time, he supplied provisions for the Santa Fe Railway commissary cars. He also operated a grocery and mercantile with JJ Lewis. Hanlin's store eventually took up the entire building at 601 North Main and was advertised as the "largest cash department store in the state".  In the 1920s, the store became the Cayot Mercantile.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37717639/samuel-albert-hanlin

Photo from 1935 showing perfume bottle collector SA Hanlin, who believes that "perfume bottles are exquisite things" and has been collecting for 14 years. Among his collection of 2500 bottles are gorgeous Czech, Baccarat, jeweled examples and atomizers, some DeVilbiss and others. I don't believe there are any commercial bottles in the cabinet shown.

There is a passage in a book, Romance in a Junk Shop, from 1938, mentions, SA Hanlin:

"Perfume bottles, in the designing and manufacture of which attempts have been made for ages to create a beauty that would please the sight and touch as much as the aromatic contents please the smell, have long been favorites with collectors. One young lady I know collects them in pairs. The king of perfume bottle collectors patronizing my store — he has called regularly twice a week for four years — is S. A. Hanlin. 

Hanlin, a prominent merchant in Newton, Kansas, after operating the Hanlin Department store for more than 25 years, along around 1910 retired from the merchandising business and started out to see the world - America first. In Cairo, Egypt, in 1921, he became fascinated by native perfume bottles, which he bought as a nucleus for a collection  to represent the different countries of the world. Little did he think at the moment that it would assume the proportion it has and that later he would make a second trip around the globe in search of more bottles.  

Mr. Hanlin called for perfume bottles. Showed him five. Three he had, two he bought. The actual number of bottles in his collection to date, he says, is 3215. Reports having made a fine acquisition while in Pasadena this week — a quaint and beautiful Chinese bottle reputed to be 150 years old.  If I could supply everything that is called for I would soon be rich."

In 1940, he hosted a tea for the members of the Matinee Musical Club where he showed off his collection of 4600 perfume bottles.