In this article I promised to bring you up to date on various additions to my early articles, and I also want to tell you about a recent trip I made to British Columbia, and about some exciting discoveries of 143's! First, let me bring you up to date regarding additions to earlier types. 

(Drawing is by Clay Salzman) 

In article #2 which discussed the Canadian Pacific Ry Co two-piece molds, you may add the following: 

In article #3 which discussed the three-piece molds of Canadian Pacific Ry Co, you can add a light gray and a yellow-amber to the colors listed for the 143 embossed Canadian. Pacific. Ry. Co (note periods) My thanks to Mel Shootman of Colorado for sending me a color photo and data about the yellow-amber variety. It is really a beauty! 

In that same article you can add another embossing to mold style #1D

This one is really unusual because it is the only example I have found of Canadian Pacific being embossed over a blot-out. You can' tell for sure whether the blot-out is a large C P R or a large C N R, but it measures out exactly right so that I know that it was some sort of cover-up, and not just a mold irregularity. My thanks to Dear Axelson for providing me with this one. 

The last few months have been real exciting as other new discoveries have popped up. Although I won't write about these in detail until later articles, they are so exceptional that I wanted to tell you about them now. 

Rollo McDonald of Ontario recently contacted me about an exceptional 143 that I had never heard of! It was a Great North Western Telegraph Co which had a grooved base!! Grooved base varieties have been found in the Montreal Telegraph varieties, and they are quite common in the Dwight Pattern 143's, but I have never heard of one on Great North Western. I am inclined to suspect that the common thread between these is the employment of Mr. H. P. Dwight. If true, it would indicate that Mr. Dwight began working at G.N.W. before their merger with Montreal Tel. 

If the development of the grooved base is tied to Mr. Dwight (and the widely used "Dwight Pattern" would seem to bear this out), then it would seem that somewhere we should find a "G.N.W." with a grooved base. Although I have seen several base styles on the G.N.W., I haven't seen the grooved variety. Can any of you help me out in this? 

Anyway, my sincere thanks to Rollo McDonald for bringing this one to light and for letting it join my collection. (Mr. McDonald is a highly-regarded 143 expert. In the early 70's he teamed up with R. J. Gauchi to publish a study of CNR 143's, which study is a classic reference work even today.)

This past September I made another trip to British Columbia and had the chance to visit several collectors that I had first met last Spring. On this trip I took my seventeen-year-old son Tom with me, as well as a friend and fellow insulator collector, Frank Feher of West Sacramento. We had an exceptionally nice visit with Bert and Dot Kirkland in 100 Mile House, and with Aidan Morgan in Cache Creek. Then we made a quick trip to Kamloops and got to see Greg Evans, Bill Gurney and Milt Johner. 

When we stopped by to see Greg Evans, he proudly showed us two new items in his 143 collection, and real gems they were! Greg had picked them up since my last visit. When I say "picked them up", I mean that literally! He picked them up off the ground! He was walking an old RR line in one of the eastern provinces when he found them. Both were no-name types, but the real thrill came when he got them home and cleaned them: One was a beautiful green, and the other was a rich yellow!! Not only that, but they were both the double-threaded variety!!! (The double-threaded 143 is a unique and which we will discuss thoroughly in a later article. Suffice it to say it is quite scarce and very desirable, in any condition or color.) 

In plain aqua the double-threaded is really tough. In green it is extraordinary, and in the yellow it is a true prize! Greg and his wife Earlene are expecting their first child any time now, and maybe when the baby comes, Greg will lose interest in 143's and will let me have some of his. Maybe about 18 years from now, when his auto insurance goes sky high and someone is going to go to college, maybe Greg will be faced with the poor house, like most of us, and will be willing to sell out! 

During our visit with Aidan Morgan, he told me about a friend of his who had taken insulators off a short line that had been abandoned in British Columbia. He had kept the insulators, and there were evidently several light green horizontal-ridged Withycombe 143's in the bunch! I had heard of places back East where groups of SCA Withys had been found, but I had never heard of a concentration of green ones. The green Withy seems to have been used mostly out West, but I have only heard of widely scattered finds. Anyway, I was interested in finding out who had built the line, where it was located, how many Withys had been found, how old the line was, etc., etc. Aidan called his friend and was told that there were two types of Withycombes in the bunch that had been taken down.

Aidan took me over to his friend's house, where I was shown an almost perfect light green horizontal-ridged Withycombe; however, I totally ignored that jewel, because right next to it was a 143 that I had never seen before. It was absolutely a brand new discovery! It was a Withycombe with horizontal ridges, but the shape of it was more like the shape of the Withy with vertical ridges. It was a two-piece mold and was aqua!! Additionally, the ridges below the wire groove were circular, and not spiral. It is in superb condition, and Aidan's friend has agreed to trade it to me. Hopefully, I will be able to get it in time for the National! Aidan's friend has also given me lots of detail and background information about these items, and has also drawn me a map showing the location of the line! Later on when I write the article about Withycombes I will include this new discovery and will have the map printed in the article.