During 1874 Breitfuss attended meetings of the London Philatelic Society, later to become the Royal Philatelic Society London, and became a corresponding member in 1875 as he was not able to attend the meetings of the Society after he left the United Kingdom.
Stanley Gibbons Monthly Journal reported that Breitfuss started to collect stamps as a schoolboy in about 1865. He moved to London in December 1873 and in 1874 he met Doctor Charles Viner who introduced him to the London Philatelic Society. In 1875 he moved to Odessa and in 1877 he returned home to Saint St. Petersburg.
Breitfuss continued to collect widely throughout his life but was a particular expert on the stamps of the former local government authority posts, Russia and Finland generally and South America.
He died on 7 September 1911 at Karlsbad.
