F. R. Innes, physicist, collector of antiques

With his thick white hair, flowing beard, and plastic cutlery protruding from his bedraggled coat, Dr. Frederick Rush Innes was often mistaken for a homeless man. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The gregarious retired physicist recently took a second apartment in Cambridge after his Beacon Hill residence became too cluttered with antiques, books, paintings, and objets d'art.

"He was a beloved figure who would be familiar to anyone who has gone to the Skinner auctions or the Brimfield antique shows in the last 20 years," Benjamin Walker of Cambridge said of Mr. Innes, 88, who died Jan. 4 in Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering a stroke on New Year's Eve.

Walker said he suspects Mr. Innes's appearance might have been camouflage. "He was mugged once, " he said. "I think [the look] offered him some protection."

Mr. Innes was born in Boston. He interrupted his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to serve in the Navy during World War II. He was an information officer aboard the heavy cruiser Northampton. After the ship was sunk during the Battle of Tassafaronga in the Pacific, he served on the heavy cruiser Baltimore.

After the war, Dr. Innes returned to MIT to complete a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He earned a doctorate in theoretical physics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 and joined the staff at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, where he conducted research on the interaction of atomic particles in the upper atmosphere.

In the 1950s he worked on a number of research projects with physicists in Japan, which apparently piqued his interest in Asian art. After his retirement in 1985, he collected Asian art, American landscape paintings, and objects from the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th century.

"He was obviously eccentric, but he was a true renaissance man who was an expert on Oriental art," his nephew, Jim Innes of Philadelphia, said yesterday.

Mr. Innes enjoyed the give-and-take of offering his pieces to gallery owners for exhibit and sale. He loved to pass the time with almost everybody he met. "He had many friends, from professors at Harvard to the custodian at the research lab," said his nephew.

Mr. Innes was a creature of habit. Every week he had lunch with a friend at Cambridge's Legal Sea Foods in Kendall Square; he always had fish chowder and a draft beer. Nearly every day he visited bookshops, not only to add to his collection, but to banter with the clerks. Evenings meant a visit to the MIT library. "He said he was working on his theory of the 'hypersphere,' " Walker said, "but I think he just liked the company."

Mr. Innes leaves three sisters, Adelaide Peale of Concord, N.H., Nancy Ross of San Diego, and Helen of Boulder, Colo.

A memorial service is being planned.