The text discussing the two photographs on page 15 of the January 1994 issue of CJ was inadvertently omitted in the last "Porcelain Insulator News". Our apologies to Dave Wysoski who submitted the photographs. As you can see, this insulator appears to be the porcelain version of the glass Cochrane bells, which also has a solid wood core. Dave said that they were found in a river in north central Montana. He obtained them in a trade about 20 years ago. They must have been laying in the river for a long time, because they had a lot of white scale covering them. Much of the hard scale is still on the underside of each bell, which Dave said is near impossible to remove. The string of eight bells is about 30 inches long. Either Dave or I would appreciate hearing from other collectors who have porcelain Cochrane bells. These must be rather rare.

Porcelain Cochrane Bells?

The only information that I could find was a similar "patented" strain insulator in Ohio Brass catalogs from 1916 to the 1920' s, which was used for river crossings. It, too, had a solid wood core, but the bottom of the bells were not all facing in the same direction. In the Ohio Brass version, two bells on each end (4 bells in all) were facing toward the center of the string. 

We have added several new U-numbers to Jack Tod's U-Chart since we published the "1992 Supplement" to Jack's Porcelain Insulator Guide Book. As a reminder, the "1992 Supplement" with 30 new U-styles is still available from me for $1 and a long SASE. 

Wesley Tucker first reported this new style of distribution insulator in July 1991. I resisted assigning it a new U-number until Fred Collier found one with the incuse marking "COOK". He said that he obtained it from Jeff Hogan. It is different than any in the U-Chart since the wire groove is so narrow. This new style has been assigned U-292B.

U-292B

Very few insulators have been found with the "COOK" marking. The Cook Porcelain Insulator Corp. factory was in Byesville, Ohio. They began making wet process porcelain insulators in the early 1920' s and were out of business sometime in the early 1930's. Cook catalogs from June 1926 and March 1929 carried a rather complete line of insulators, which included three unusual styles of multipart insulators. These were characterized by downward arcing top cable grooves and upward arcing tie-wire grooves and can be seen in the drawing for M-3420. We discussed the Cook patent for these features in my book Multipart Porcelain Insulators. U-292B was not shown in either Cook catalog. However, one insulator identical to U-292B with the exception of a 1- inch wire groove was shown in the 1929 catalog. It would have been easy to change trimmer blades to produce this basic style with a smaller wire groove for a special order.

12 - 10 - 6.5 x 10

10 - 8.5 - 3.5 x 7

7 - 6 - 2.5 x 5

David Dahle reported an insulator U-460 with the "COOK" marking. Several other styles of Cook unipart insulators can be found, but they are quite uncommon.

Only three Cook multipart insulator styles have been reported. Jeff Kaminski reported a marked M-2224 and Barry Conolly reported a marked M-2704. The M-2704 has a very unusual glaze in that it has pumpkin-colored specs scattered throughout. Bill Rohde has reported an unmarked M-3420. This specimen can be easily attributed to Cook because of the arcing cable-top and tiewire grooves.

The original drawing for U-922 was taken from the 1912 Thomas catalog, but a specimen of that style was not reported until 1989. That specimen did not match the Thomas drawing with respect to the glazewelded inner skirt. The specimen had a bell-shaped inner skirt, so Jack Tod redrew U-922 to match the specimen. All seemed well calling this unmarked specimen a Thomas item. However, as we became more aware of the characteristics of insulators made by the Lima Insulator Co. from 1904 to 1908, it became apparent that the handful of U-922 specimens may indeed be Lima products.

Original U-922 from 1912 Thomas catalog

U-922

U-922A

Bob Stahr found two styles similar to U-922, but they are 1/2 inch larger in diameter. I have assigned this obviously new style U-922A. Note, too, that the two petticoats of the glaze welded inner skirt are not flush with the outer skirt, and that it is bell-shaped just like U-922. Yes, the glaze and pinhole match the characteristics of Lima insulators.

I reprinted the only known example of a Lima catalog a little more than a year ago (copies of this 32 page catalog are still available from me). To further confirm our conclusion that both U-922 and U-922A are Lima products, note the illustrations reproduced here from that catalog where each style exhibits the bell-shaped glazewelded inner skirt. No. 18 is U-922 and the No. 20 is U-922A. There is yet one more of this basic style to be discovered. Lima No. 241 is six inches in diameter and No. 281 is seven inches in diameter. If specimens of these insulators can be found, they will be U-922B and U-922C. Please check your collection and keep a sharp eye out for these glazeweld styles.

U-922 (11 Kv) from Lima catalog (4-1/2" x 3-3/8")	U-922A (15 Kv) from Lima catalog (5" x 3-1/2")
"LIMA PORCELAIN"
No. 241 (18 Kv) 6" x 4"	No. 281 (26 Kv) 7" x 4"