Dr. P. Quentin Tomich, of Honokaa, Hawaii, has found a way to combine two popular pastimes... using insulators as chess pieces. Note the CD 206 'castle' insulators being used, most appropriately, as rooks.

Dr. Tomich writes, "In the early 1970's I was fortunate and surprised to discover castles' in use in Hawaii. Some of our telephone lines on Oahu were generously adorned with 'castles'. Not being a pole climber, there were few options for collecting strategies, like scrounging in the weeds under the poles and begging in the baseyards. I got rather few of these gems."

In 1972, Quentin became acquainted with an executive with the government phone company in Alberta, Canada, who mentioned that members of his office were creating a complete chess set using compatible insulators. That early set used transformer parts and difficult to handle insulators, although it was featured in the Chicago Daily News and in some hobby publications.

Quentin, however, was struck by the appropriate shape and nickname of the CD 206 'castles', and decided to build a chess set with them as cornerstones. He used "saddle groove" insulators for the knights (horse head pieces in chess). Bishops are CD 128.4's, which was the closest insulator he could find to represent the episcopal miter. Queens are high dome CD 162.4's. Kings are CD 208's with their crown-like tops. For those expendable pawns, CD 102's.

Quentin has done a most admirable job of promoting insulator collecting in Hawaii. He writes frequent articles on the history of telephone companies on the Islands, and on the insulator hobby, for the Hamakua Times.