"Go-Withs" come in many forms for the insulator collector.. From insulator hardware such as metal pins... to bottles made by the same companies that made insulators... to postage stamps depicting telegraph lines or insulators... there are many interesting and inexpensive ways to "spruce up" an insulator collection.

Collecting advertising from older magazines is one of them. The cover of this month's magazine is from the November 6, 1943 Saturday Evening Post. Western Electric placed the ad. The text read, "Circuits of Victory! That's what this lineman and his comrades in the Signal Corps are providing. They're building and keeping open the telephone lines that help coordinate attack and defense in every battle zone. Mile after mile they'll push forward, often under fire, till their Circuits of Victory reach 'round the world." 

The scene gives the appearance of troops advancing through France, probably because of the French-style insulators on the pole. Western Electric paid for some 18 similar advertisements in the Saturday Evening Post. This was the only one to depict insulators in use.

Their ads plugged the company as "In peace... source of supply for the Bell System. In war... arsenal of communications equipment." The ads also encourage readers; "Won't you help him... by turning your dollars into fighting planes, tanks, guns and ships? The more money you invest in War Bonds... regularly, week after week... the sooner the Axis will be crushed."

A couple of other ads, of approximately the same vintage, are shown on pages 28 and 29. The American Telephone and Telegraph ad is from the Atlantic Monthly; and shows the construction of a long distance telephone line. The pole in the background has at least three cross arms of bearing ten insulators apiece.

The Shredded Wheat ad honors hard working linemen. While the ad contains interesting detail of the worker, the depiction of the pole, crossarms, insulators and wire is oversimplified and inaccurate in many ways. The ad is apparently from a magazine called "The Country Life Press".

Two of the ads were given to us, and the item reproduced on the cover was purchased for three-dollars. So who says it takes money to create an interesting collection?