I once worked for a man who's favorite saying was "Never assume nothin"', and over the years that bit of advice has proven to be of remarkable value. That wise man's axiom coupled with my own natural curiosity has led me on an incredible insulator adventure, which is still unfolding three years after it began.

In The Beginning -
This particular saga began in February 1998. Having re-entered the insulator-collecting hobby a few years prior with 25+ years of pent up zeal, I was "Lookin' for glass!" No antique shop or flea market was safe from one of my sorties. I even began running an ad in our local trader paper seeking to buy "colored glass telephone and telegraph line insulators". You'd be amazed by the number of people in rural areas who have piles of insulators in barns, under houses, or in just about any other place you can think of. As you might imagine, though; about 95% of the pieces turned up this way were "junk" and of the remaining 5% the good ones were often broken. I was looking for a way to boost my success rate. Clearly, other sources needed to be explored.

From my earliest collecting days (about age ten) I could remember finding hundreds of insulators along the local railroad tracks after the old open wire toll circuits were dismantled. And, because the insulators that had once been plentiful near my boyhood hangouts had long since been carted away, I began to covet the rights of way of more distant tracks. But was anything still there? Having learned to be careful with my assumptions, I set out to answer that burning question.

Let's Have a Little Look See -
Where to start? Which rail lines were most likely to produce positive results? Are any poles still up? I had questions. Remembering some family trips we took to see relatives years ago, I decided to first check a line along the route to my great aunt's house. My first quick look was disappointing. The tracks were barren of poles except for the lone, isolated and bare few that were still able to defy gravity and the elements. Closer examination was in order. On the third "ride by" search for evidence of insulators I asked my wife, Dee, to pull off the road near the next crossing. 

All married men are required to be able to interpret a rather large but silent visual vocabulary of specific messages from their wives. Failure to be well versed in these missives can lead to untold grief. The look being directed my way at the moment was one by which I knew that my state of mental health was being questioned. Much to her credit, though, my wife is one of those people who believe that most problems contain their own solutions. She figured that a few briar cuts later I would abandon all notions of what I was now planning. Instead of trying to stop me she simply inquired about the status of my life insurance and told me to watch out for snakes.

Those of you misguided enough to live in parts of the country other than the Deep South may not be aware of just how quickly Mother Nature seeks to wipe out any traces of man's activities in a warm and humid climate. Anything that stands still for more than a few minutes will have vines and the like growing over it pronto, and with optimum growing conditions the plant life provides an ideal habitat for all sorts of unpleasant creatures of the crawling, slithering, and flying kind. 

About half a mile from the crossing I found the first evidence of the old line. There, about twenty feet from the track, lay a fallen pole complete with crossarms AND most of its insulators. I didn't even feel the briar cuts and scratches as I swooped down to investigate. After struggling with the undergrowth for a few minutes I could see that the entire cache of insulators consisted of "B" beehives, CD 152 Hemingrays and Brookfields, and Hemingray 42's. Twenty or so additional downed poles, all uniformly spaced 150 feet apart, yielded similar results. ,Even though all the glass here was common, I was encouraged rather than disappointed because my most basic question had been answered favorably. Insulators were still to be found on this line. Further examination of the poles revealed that the line had not been dismantled but had been abandoned in place. This situation had potential. I encountered no snakes. 

Charles Bibb at fallen pole.

By now I was "pumped". I promised Dee that if she would endure a few more hours of boredom, I would take her out to eat when sundown forced me to stop. She agreed so we headed south. About 50 miles from our original site I checked the right of way again. This area had much less undergrowth near the tracks but also had fewer old fallen poles. I was headed back to the car after a short search when I noticed the dome of an insulator sticking up out of the dirt. From about six feet away it looked like a CD 162 Brookfield No. 36. The dirt was loose and released the jewel easily. Instantly I realized this insulator was not the aforementioned Brookfield, but was something much more rare. In my hand was the top two thirds of a CD 133.2 skirt embossed P & W, sometimes referred to as a "LAC". Even though more than half the skirt was missing the embossing was complete except for two letters! A few minutes of furious scratching with fingers and digging with a stick turned up no more fragments. This piece was OLD, one of the very earliest threaded insulators! Back in the car I was struck by this thought: I chose this spot at random, so there must be more of these around.

Shortly after this tentative beginning I attended the Huntsville, AL show (March 1998). All the other collectors I showed the "LAC" to wanted to know where I had found it and what else I had turned up there. I knew "my line" had tremendous potential. Strategy, research, planning, and more scouting would be required, so upon returning home I immediately set to work.

A Man With A Plan --
At this time my job required that I work most Saturdays until at least mid-afternoon. Dee usually had plans for Sunday, so my hunting time was severely limited. Also, for about two years we had been regularly attending a Saturday night auction. The targeted hunt area just happened to be "on the way" to the sale location, so we worked out a compromise. We would leave for the auction about an hour and a half earlier than usual each Saturday, and this would give me about an hour's hunting time before losing daylight. 

By the next weekend I had a spot all picked out. We arrived as scheduled and while Dee stayed in the car to read I headed down the tracks. Some of my research had led me to a long time collector who knew that base embossed American beehives had been used on this line, so my modest goal for this first expedition was to find one of those. At first this spot didn't look too promising, but after checking the first downed pole my opinion quickly changed. The first set of rotting crossarms yielded a couple of crown embossed Brookfield beehives and a CD 162 crown embossed Brookfield signal with the 1883 patent date on the skirt. Not a bad beginning! With all the physical obstacles present it took a few minutes to thoroughly check each pole site. My one hour time allotment was ticking away and I still had not found that American. After a few more poles the nature of the glass being found seemed to change. Suddenly all the beehives were "B" embossed. Many of the crossarm piles were in such thick briars that it was taking too long to determine the exact embossing on each piece. I started checking for Americans just by leaning over as far as I could reach and feeling the base of the insulator for lettering. And, finally, there it was! - a three-date base embossed American beehive in light aqua and in VNM condition. By now the car horn had sounded for the third time, so I really had to be going. Final haul for this first hour: about a dozen crown embossed two-date Brookfield beehives, one with the "FAB" embossing error, and another loaded with milky swirls; two crown embossed CD 162 Brookfield signals and one American. I don't even remember what happened at the auction that night. The hunt was on!

I used this same spot as a base for several other short Saturday afternoon hunts in the coming weeks and found more of the same items. However, on my last return I made an even better find. After walking nearly a mile I came upon a downed pole with the crossarms still attached, and suspended from the bottom crossarm on a "J" transposition bracket was a real jewel. It was a crown embossed two-date Brookfield beehive in a medium shade of yellow green; sort of a dark lime green. The 110-year-old glass sparkled like a precious gemstone in the late afternoon sun. Elation turned to concern, though, as it became apparent why this guy was still in its place. When the pole fell the "J" bracket jammed against the bottom of the crossarm it was attached to so this insulator couldn't be screwed off the pin in the normal manner. Deer hunters frequented the area and I knew that if this attractive piece of glass could be easily removed it would have been taken long ago. Some collectors may not realize just how heavy an old pole really is, but you can't just lift one out of your way. I carried a folding camp saw in my backpack, and after a little carpentry the shining emerald was on its way to a place where it could sit out its old age in safety and comfort. Except for an inner skirt chip this rescued beauty was in great shape. Little did I know then that this was only the beginning.

What Are You Doing Next Weekend? --
Being truly repentant for my safety violations I swore to Dee that I would not be such a bonehead in the future. Yielding to considerable pressure I finally acquiesced to the position that insulator hunting in the wilderness should not be done alone. I needed a partner. The first and most obvious choice was the person with whom I shared everything else - my wife. I extended the invitation. You know those looks I talked about earlier? Now I was getting one that said - no screamed, "I KNOW you've lost your mind now!" All my well-reasoned arguments fell on deaf ears. I even offered that maybe she could USE a little exercise. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. On the plus side though, I now had plenty of solitude in which to ponder my dilemma. 

One circumstance, which has always diminished my insulator collecting pleasure, is the fact that I am so isolated geographically from other collectors. For me one of the great joys of this hobby is being able to share experiences with other like-minded devotees. A quick review showed that my nearest insulator-collecting neighbor was well over 100 miles away and the only other collector I had formed any real friendship with lived even farther away. I called Ken Roberts in Huntsville, AL to see if maybe our club, the Dixie Jewels Insulator Club, would be interested in hosting a "club hunt" in my area. After some discussion we agreed that scheduling and distance would probably rule out any large group activity. However, Ken thought that he might like to come take a look at "my line", so we began to make plans.

Ken Roberts at fallen pole.

Ken had a few days free after Christmas, so we chose December 31, 1998 and January 1, 1999 as the hunt days. My mother's birthday was December 31 and my presence at the party was not optional. Since Ken could only get away for the 31st and the 1st, my mother agreed to move her birthday celebration to the 30th, which we did. Fellow collector Charles Koccisek and Ken's son, Neil, came along for the fun as well. I had several promising spots picked out for us to investigate spanning more miles of track than we could possibly cover in just two days.

First up was a three-mile section, which began on the southern edge of a mid-sized town. This span produced two good green crown-embossed Brookfield beehives and several American beehives in a nice light blue color, along with various other collectible insulators. We even came up with a large Edison battery jar for our trouble. The Brookfield's were a nice medium green color, but not the yellow green we were looking for. We moved on to another part of the line.

Charlie Koccisek at a downed pole.

The second spot yielded another green Brookfield beehive, which I had somehow overlooked on a previous solo search, and for which fault I received merciless razzing from Ken and Charlie. Well, nobody's perfect. Here we came across another memorable sight and one that we would rather not have seen. Several adjacent standing poles held crown embossed CD 162 Brookfield signals which had all been shot for target practice, probably singled out due to their different shape. Only the crowns remained of about twelve of them. 

By this time in our hunting we had found miles-long remote stretches where standing poles were the norm rather than the exception. They had been stripped of every inch of wire (for the copper) back in the '70's, and left to rot. We were becoming experts in the use of "insulator grabbers" fashioned from paint roller extensions and broom handles and the like. My current grabber is made from a telescoping pole used to clean out swimming pools. The Brookfield signal graveyard marked the end of the first day's hunt, so we headed to my house for the night. We left out before daylight on New Years Day for phase two of our quest. The weather this second day was nothing like the sunshine we had enjoyed the day before and soon it started to rain. Undeterred, we stopped at Walmart and bought caps to keep some of the rain off our heads. Back on the tracks it became apparent that yesterday's luck with the glass had run out too. Two miles of walking produced nothing worth taking home nor did any of the other shorter spans we looked at. We decided to break for lunch then hit a stretch north of town.

I usually carry a cell phone in my backpack for emergencies, but this morning I had not turned it on in order to conserve the battery. After all, I reasoned that most emergencies would be of the outgoing rather than the incoming type. The local Sonic drive-in was chosen for lunch mainly due to the amount of mud we carried with us on our clothes and shoes. While there I turned on the cell phone and it rang almost immediately. Dee had been trying desperately to reach me all morning. She told me that my mother had had a massive stoke that morning, the day after her 77th birthday. I had to leave Ken and Charlie then. Mom passed away nine days later. 

I learned later that Ken and Charlie had gone on to the spot where we all were headed that New Years Day and actually found the first of the true yellow green Brookfield beehives that we had been searching for. This one had damage, though, so we didn't feel like we had achieved success yet.

So Close Yet So Far --
Ken and I did another hunt in February 1999 with disappointing results. The major items gleaned from the line on that occasion were some dark yellow green Hemingray 40's. We felt like we were on the right track yet we continued to fall short of our goal. It would be hard, however, to call any of our hunts total failures. This line has such a wide variety of insulators on it that you never know what is going to be on the next pole. That fact keeps us enthusiastic about hunting this line. 

Having deftly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, we just couldn't end the '98-'99 season without one more hunt. We did this one in late March, which is usually too late in the spring to get out on the tracks. By this time the snakes and insects are out in force plus the weeds and vines have grown out enough to make spotting difficult. Undaunted, we headed north this time. From the beginning this location produced color. The second or third pole in sported a great yellow green crown embossed Brookie. It looked terrific on the pole, but when we got it down it had a major internal crack. The remainder of the hunt followed a similar pattern - great color, but damaged. We did manage to acquire several good medium green crown embossed ones and a few more of the light blue Americans, but we were still falling short of the mark. I had recently bought two of the dark yellow green Brookfield's from two different old timers who found theirs on "our line", so I just KNEW we could do the same. It was just turning out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.

If At First You Don't Succeed... --
The beginning of the '99-2000 season found me just about ready to "climb the wall". I needed and insulator hunting fix and I needed it BAD! Two short solo hunts in late September greatly encouraged me, but it was too early. The insects and reptiles were still a hazard and it was difficult to see much of anything. We needed a few killing frosts to get things ready. One of the September hunts produced a one-date crown embossed Brookfield beehive in celery green, a rare color for one of these, but more importantly that hunt revealed a stretch of track that looked more promising that any we had hunted in awhile. The only problem was that the weather just wouldn't turn cold. I know you guys in Minnesota and New York and places like that have a hard time believing this, but we actually look forward to winter because it is the only time of year we can safely hunt insulators. This particular winter was one of our warmest on record. Finally we (read I) could wait no longer. The vegetation was still green on the early November Saturday I chose to do a little scratching around looking for signs of threadless. This line is old enough to have them, but I've never been able to turn up even a single fragment of one. While on the line I also planned to check the base of each pole to see what may have been missed lying on the ground. With good glass still "in the air" it's hard to slow down and look under each pole, especially when they are so grown up with briars and vines. Finding no fragments I was soon doing more pole base exploring than digging. At one pole base a year and a half long quest finally came to fruition. There it was - right on top of the ground! A beautiful dark yellow green crown embossed Brookfield beehive, and in VVNM condition. I had to sit down for a minute. It was so unexpected. Why was it there? Did a lineman of long ago leave it for a spare? Did a collector take it down in the '70's and not find it on his way out? Did it fall? The unexpected nature of this find turned out to mark most of our future discoveries of any importance on this line. When we expected the least, we found the most.

This find was enough to motivate Ken to hurry up and come over for another hunt. Due to conflicts with our schedules, time was short, and we had to scale back our plans a bit. We only had one day available and we wanted to make the most of it. Once we were on the tracks, however, it looked like I had not chosen the hunt area wisely - or so we thought. After about a mile of walking neither of us had put any glass into our backpacks. We still had another mile and a half to walk to the other car and our spirits were low. Ken was trying to make the best of a bad situation by replenishing his stock of date nails. They were everywhere. His pack was heavier by several pounds (no kidding) by the time I stopped dead in my tracks. I tried to play it cool. "Are you going to pull those date nails all day, or are you going to help me get this yellow green Brookfield down off this pole?" I asked. So sure was Ken that I was pulling his leg that he didn't even look up. After all, we hadn't found anything so far. So, I proceeded to the pole and started spinning the little green critter off its pin. Just think; this thing was in such a remote place that it had sat unmolested right here for over 100 years. I just about had it off the pole when it finally dawned on Ken that I wasn't joking. Down came the jewel, and I think Ken was more excited about it than I was. I thought it was just dirty with rust, but Ken pointed out that this one was not just yellow green, but yellow olive green. After a good soak in acid this beauty showed its true color. If I had not put a teeny tiny flake on the inner skirt getting it down, the piece would be MINT. That beehive is the best of the Brookies we have found and is the one presently pictured on my web site of favorite insulators. We also found a few more light blue American beehives to add to our stock before stopping for the day. 

Ken Roberts holding a 
yellow green crown-embossed Brookfield beehive.

The last hunt of 1999 was one of our biggest let downs to date. We had high hopes for one particular area because of its isolation. The nearest two access points in this remote place are five and a half miles apart. That means that the only practical method of hunting it was to park one car at each end and walk the whole length. It took us all day and we came away with very little to show for our efforts. On top of that, Ken and Charlie still had a five hour drive home to look forward to.

Late winter and early spring 2000 found me doing more short solo hunts and fishing battery jars our of their wells, but I found no more noteworthy insulators that season. We needed to develop a new strategy. Since we found good pieces where we didn't expect much and found almost nothing where we had great expectations, maybe we should take a second look at some spots we had passed by.

Ken Roberts in the water with his "insul-grabber".

This was just the beginning. Before the day was out we would have FIVE of these jewels in our packs. Three were VVNM; the other two had some damage. And this place was lousy with light blue American beehives. We brought out ten and left at least that many behind due to the water. Really! Let's get our priorities straight. I can see wading into ice water for the Brookies, but the Americans would have to wait for a drier day. They are still right where we left them, patiently awaiting our return. We also encountered ten to fifteen broken Americans, which we did not bother to bring home. This was the best single day of insulator hunting any of us has ever had, (well, maybe) but there were more great finds ahead.

Insulators from January 13, 2001 hunt

The Man With the Midas Touch --
I don't believe in luck in the usual sense; I believe we make our own luck to a great extent. I do, however, believe in enhancing ones chances, which is often confused with good luck. As a famous scientist once said, "Chance favors the prepared mind".

Once, I had difficulty finding anyone to hunt this line with me, now I can't accommodate all those who would like to join me. It's sort of like having a swimming pool. You don't know how many friends you have until you get one. Two weeks after the "Super Saturday" trip, I arranged a group hunt. The crew included Raleigh Sanford of Millington, TN with his two nephews, Will and Alex Havener, and Rick Bailey, a new collector who lives near me. We started out on a part of the line that I had partly covered but where I had also left some items behind. The boys had a blast. They were finding all sorts of "cool stuff' along the tracks as well as insulators on the poles. This span yielded us about fifteen insulators, some bleached white bones of many different types of animals along with a few turtle shells, and all manner of junk metal pieces fallen from 140 years of passing trains. This span also led to my first experience with the "Kamikaze Squirrel Squadron". At four different poles that day we had encounters with wild gray squirrels that apparently live inside the tops of some of these old poles. One of us would be trying to unscrew an insulator when the startled varmints would either run across the crossarm and into the adjacent trees or launch themselves in a great leaping dive to the ground. Two jumped right over me so close that I thought they might use my head for a landing pad. I had had a similar run in with a large well-fed rat a few weeks earlier, but the squirrels were far more startling.

The next locations were a bit trickier to approach. We schemed to have the kids along when we hunted these sections because here the railroad ran through a couple of residential neighborhoods. People who live near the tracks aren't always friendly to suspicious looking strangers tramping up and down the line, so we figured our presence would seem less threatening if we had children along. We gained access to the tracks near an abandoned post office building and began to find crown embossed Brookfield's almost immediately. Although we didn't find any of the green ones here, we did pick several light blue Americans.

After a break for lunch we set out for a place I had scouted some months earlier yet still couldn't tell much about. It turned out to be one of the strangest parts of the line I've ever hunted. This site was even more urban than the last so I had grave doubts about our ability to search there in peace. Maybe it was because this was Super Bowl Sunday that no one showed any interest in our activities. We had only covered about 100 yards when I spotted one of the dark yellow green Brookfield's. This pole was not being used for its original purpose, but it WAS being used. None of the older wires were on it; instead it held a big fat insulated cable leading to a cell phone tower. It also held a span of low voltage "triplex" used to power a security light. All this became more relevant when our "insul-grabbers" failed to budge this jewel from its lofty perch. Nothing worked. If we had been in a typical remote area I would have shown that pole who was boss. The lumberjack option was not available to us with this one, though. Raleigh's older nephew, Will, had proven both his athletic ability and his insulator hunting utility earlier that day, but we judged this pole too dangerous to climb. Not only did it have wires on it, but we could also see that it was broken at the base though still standing. After about twenty minutes of futile struggle, we reluctantly admitted defeat. Raleigh, however, vowed to return the following Sunday on a predawn raid with some help and a ladder tall enough to safely reach it. (Yes, he did.)

As we continued our search I came across a pole loaded with CD 147's. It had three crossarms so could have held as many as thirty of the spirals; I lost count. Strange. Two poles farther along I spied ANOTHER dark yellow green Brookie! The only impediment to retrieval this time was the height of the pole. None of our grabbers could reach it, so Raleigh made like a monkey and moments later it was safely "in the bag". Raleigh graciously handed this one over to Rick, sure in his ability to later remove the one we had just left behind.

It was about this time that one of the boys noticed something peculiar in the woods. About 30 yards from our line and running parallel to it was ANOTHER line. I had not previously known about this. We checked it out and found that it was of far more recent vintage than the one we were hunting (all of the insulators we looked at were CD 122 and CD 128 with date codes in the 40's and 50's). Whole sections of it were down despite its young age. It sure was an odd sight, though; it seemingly started nowhere and went nowhere. A few steps farther along and the tracks became surrounded by water with the ballast rocks forming a long isthmus leading to the city's edge. Most of the insulators at this point had been damaged by target practice of one kind or another. One insulator, though, stood out for its weird shape. Will saw it about the same time I did and asked, "Is that some kind of pony?" While not a pony, it was a type (CD 116) I had been trying to find for nearly two years, ever since an old time collector told us they were used on this line. I had to adopt the poor thing and take it home with me. It must have been lost because the spot we had been told they were originally found was over 80 miles away. This one was a lone isolated example; no others have been found since. 

We found two of the yellow green Brookfields that day. Since two doesn't divide easily by three I contented myself with the "triple rumple" CD 116. I know the joy of finding something really special for the first time and I didn't want to spoil it for anyone.

Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Better...--
Hearing of the recent success following close on the heels of our "Super Saturday" hunt, Ken couldn't stay away. He juggled his workload so he could come over for at least one more hunt this season. The plan this time was for a two-day hunt to cover some stretches we had dismissed as too difficult or too unlikely. After the recent discoveries, though, I needed to reevaluate my definition of "likely". When the second Saturday of February dawned we were already on the road and headed for glory - or so we thought. We checked all the planned spots and walked more than nine miles of track, but by the end of the day we had little more to show for our efforts besides sore feet. For those of you who have never spent a day walking on railroad ballast I can assure you that it will test both the quality of your shoe soles and your endurance. As consolation we stopped for supper at one of my favorite taverns in this area and dined on Memphis style barbeque hoping it would remove the bitter taste of defeat we had been left with. "Tomorrow is another day," we said, "Yep, we'll find the good stuff tomorrow." 

The predawn darkness of Sunday morning found us again headed for our line, this time with a slight change of strategy. Rick and Raleigh and I had such good results near a city that Ken and I decided to try our luck near some small towns. We parked the cars on the north end of one sleepy little berg and had only covered about half a mile of track when we spotted green glass. Tangled vines and an unyielding pin conspired to hold this old timer firmly in place, though. We couldn't budge it. It was time to apply mind over matter. You know, it's amazing how some of those old poles will just fall over for no good reason. It must be termites. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Just a little further on we spotted some glass in the bottom of a shallow ditch, some on the surface and some partially buried or under water. Both these days had been quite cold and windy with the temperature never rising above the mid-thirties. This made us a bit more reluctant to get into water or even expose our hands more than we had to. I adjusted my binoculars for a better look. Right away I saw something worth closer scrutiny. At first I thought I was looking at the top of a beehive having the impression of a penny on its dome. Pranksters at the glass houses were sometimes known to do this. It took about one half a nanosecond then for me to realize that, NO, I was not looking at any beehive; this was the telltale flat spot on the dome of a "LAC". I was down the slope and on this thing like a duck on a junebug. A gentle tug freed it from the red clay soil and a few swishes in the frigid water showed that it was in VNM condition. The grin on my face was broad and silly! Three years of searching and I had finally hit pay dirt. According to the price guide, a "LAC" has less monetary value than the yellow green Brookies we were finding, but this CD 133.2 somehow meant more to me than any of those. But, I wasn't done yet. Right next to the first was another! This one turned out to be only a specimen as the bottom half was missing and remained hidden from all my digging. From just under the surface of the water I then pulled up a CD 127, also in VNM condition. Clearly we were in the right spot for old glass. More investigation revealed an ancient pole stump, much older than the standing line and nearly weathered away. I have deduced that the pole line on which we find the Brookies was initially installed in the mid-1880's with a major rebuild in the late 1920's, but my theory is that it replaced an even older line which must have held threadless and then the "LAC's", etc. when they were used as upgrades. I even found the dome top to a third "LAC" on the way back to the car. It's hard to believe that here it is, 2001, and this stuff is still out there waiting to be found. 

This day, however, held still more excitement for us. We continued to hunt past the "LAC" burial ground and made a few additional good finds. I will return to this spot to do some serious digging when the weather makes searching the standing poles impractical. We headed north to another hunt site and to do some scouting on the way. Our new destination was a short span on the edge of another small town, which we had rejected as too exposed for any good finds. Boy, were we wrong again! To the south of the crossing - nothing, but once on the north side of the road business began to pick up. The line of poles followed a low ridge parallel to the tracks and for ease of spotting Ken began walking under the poles while I stayed on the tracks. Since we hadn't expected to find much here we only carried one backpack and one set of binoculars. My binoculars wouldn't focus close enough for me to stand directly under the poles, and that accounted for our current relative positions. Abruptly, that low ridge turned into a very tall ridge. Ken's feet were at least 30 feet above my head as I began to spot American beehives. The poles were right on the crest of the ridge with half of each crossarm overhanging the abyss. Ken was going to try and make the insulators land at his feet as he pushed them off their pins. That was Plan A. Plan B found me playing center field with one-pound glass baseballs! They would come rocketing down the cliff where I would have to intercept them lest they smash on the rails behind me. None got past, but I sure could have used a catcher's mitt. In a very short span we came away with ten light blue Americans, two green Brookfield's, and several green Star beehives.

Then it started to rain. Valor is not the only thing discretion is the better part of, so we divvied up the loot and called it a day. We chalked up another success. As of this writing these were the last significant finds.

Just the Facts, Ma'am --
Time to "do the numbers". So far, this is what we've found: One CD 133.2 skirt embossed P & W in green aqua and VNM; several other "LAC" fragments and specimens; seven dark yellow green or yellow olive green crown embossed Brookfield beehives in VNM or better, and at least that many more damaged ones; maybe two dozen of the same in medium green, and too many of the aqua ones to count. We've harvested over forty-five light blue base embossed American beehives in conditions ranging from good to VVVNM, having left behind nearly this many more because they were too damaged. The Americans are a nearly equal mix of the two-date and three-date varieties. Curiously, only two of the Americans are aqua; all the rest are light blue. Where are the greens? About twenty dark yellow green Hemingray 40's and numerous CD 145 STAR's in various shades of green have also been taken. All the different CD number/embossing/color combinations would be too much to list separately. We have found examples of the following CD's: 106, 113, 116, 121, 122, 126, 127, 128, 129, 133.2, 134, 145, 147, 151, 152, 154, 155, 160, 162, 190, and 203. The line is predominately CD 145, CD 152, arid CD 154, though. 

Also, these primary embossings are represented: American Insulator Co., Armstrong; B, Brookfield, H. G. CO., Hawley, Hemingray, Lynchburg, No Name, P & W, Patent Dec. 19, 1871, Patent - Other, Postal, Pyrex, STAR, and Whitall-Tatum.

Insulators from February 9, 2001 hunt.

What's Next? --
This line is about 200 miles long. I have personally, on foot, actually walked and hunted 65 of those miles. That leaves 135 miles of opportunity, some miles of it better than others. We are planning the hunts by which we will search it all. When we have hunted all the standing and fallen poles, I will still have a whole lifetime's worth of digging places in which to prospect for threadless. After all, it isn't going anywhere. 

You may THINK that old line near you has been hunted out, but go take a second look. You may surprise yourself. Remember, "Never assume nothin'!"

The hunt continues...