No. I Antiquer

Antiquing is one of the favorite sports of the nation's rich. Just about the biggest sportsman of all is Wilmington's Henry F. du Pont. Since 1928, Du Pont has spent about $20 million to fill his 185-room Delaware mansion, "Winterthur," with nothing but the best in U.S. antiques.

Last week Du Pont opened Winterthur as a public museum. Guests found over a hundred of its rooms made into authentic re-creations of American living quarters from 1640 to 1840. Winterthur's indoor bowling alley had become an 18th Century shop lane gleaming with china and pewterware. The badminton court was now a cobbled indoor square with fine old house fronts on three sides, and the brick fac,ade of an inn from Red Lion, Del. on the fourth. Even the elevators were finished in antique American paneling. Among the prize exhibits: a set of silver tankards made by Paul Revere, an 18th Century Philadelphia highboy for which Du Pont paid a reported $44,000, and paintings by John Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Benjamin West.

Visitors, limited to 20 a day, will pay $2 each (mainly as a token of their seriousness), and will not be restricted by the usual museum ropes, guard rails and glass covers. To make way for the public, Du Pont is building himself a 30-room "cottage" nearby.

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