In the photo are Paolo Salucci, Nora Coppo, Guido Boreani and Nora's husband (kneeling). This was the first meeting of the Italian Collector's Association in the home of Nora Coppo of Genova, Italy on June 9, 2002. As seen each collector is holding a favorite insulator. Paolo is holding a Ginori unipart, Nora is holding a VACCARI type "WEITSCHIRM" CD 765 glass insulator, found near Viterbo in a warehouse. Guido is holding the classic Italian "Paderno Type porcelain insulator.

European Insulator Association's
(EIA) First Meeting

The European Insulator Association (EIA) held its first annual meeting in Pisa, Italy on June 8, 2003. Founding members in attendance include Nora Coppo, Guido Boreani, Paolo Salucci, Andreani with mother (all from Italy), Ulrich Reiser (Germany), Frantisek Danek and Miroslav Immer (Czech Republic), Fredrik HojeHilt (Holland) and was hosted by Mr. Barsottelli (Italy) of the Italian Insulator Collector's Association "Isolatori Di' Italia."

After the meeting they gathered at a restaurant for their first official lunch. No formal bylaws have been established by the EIA, but they aren't letting that deter them from their goals of finding, researching and documenting European insulators and the Italian collectors are actively preparing a book on Italian insulators.

The 2nd annual EIA meeting is tentatively planned for Stuttgart, Germany possibly during the summer of 2004 and will be hosted by Ulrich Reiser. This group represents some of the brightest and most enthusiastic insulator collectors in Europe and I anticipate sharing more exciting discoveries from them in the future.

Looking at the center of the photograph of the EIA advertisement flyer (next page) there is a low voltage telephone style white porcelain (u-number unassigned) stamped with the Verbano logo with a crown inside a triangle with "T.S.1 EP" underneath it.

According to "World Wide Porcelain Insulators" by Jack Tod and Marilyn Albers, this Italian insulator was manufactured by Societa Ceramica Italiana "Verbano" in Laveno, Italy. The company's catalog reveals the Verbano factory was established in 1925 as a result of an agreement between P.H. Rosenthal & Company of Selb (Germany) and their associates, Italian Ceramic Society of Laveno. Verbano produced this telephone style insulator in the late 1940s to the early 1950s. In the flyer's photo this insulator is humorously superimposed over the actual location of the leaning tower of Pisa.

The medium voltage multipart in the logo in the upper left hand corner of the flyer is a "Paderno Type" double bell insulator made by Richard Ginori. It was originally patented in 1897 by ING. Semenza for use on the13 kv electric tramway line between the power station at Paderno D' Adda and Milano, a distance of about 30 miles. This was a major accomplishment at the time and many technicians from around the world came to see it. The U.S. manufacturer Thomas apparently offered a nearly identical style and nicknamed it "Antwerp" in its 1905 catalog but little else is known about it. Paderno insulators are still being manufactured today in a slightly modified design.

In the next photo "The Fab 3" Zoltan Drinoczy, Nora and Guido are selecting insulators out of the display shelf at the home of Nora Coppo. (Italian photos courtesy of Nora Coppo, all rights reserved, used with permission). Among some of the noteworthy insulators (not counting all the nice spools!) are a canary yellow glazed Suisse Langenthal porcelain and a potpourri of colors and shapes of Italian and other European insulators.

Nora shares this recently discovered low voltage glass insulator embossed "Fidenza 6102" (cd number currently unassigned). It is threaded to the base and has a slotted crown groove with a brass thimble insert. It measures 2-3/4 inches wide and 5-2/5 inches in height. Only six of these have been recovered to date. It was made in the 1960s to early 1970s time period. A four-wire line of these was located on a mountain along with a few on a wall and one on a light pole. This line has subsequently been dismantled and apart from the 6 recovered and the few spotted on a precarious hard to reach wall, no further quantities of this unusual style insulator are known to exist. Of interest to this piece are its height for a low voltage insulator, high quality threads and light aqua color glass, which is unusual for Fidenza insulators.

FIDENZA 6102 - 
A newly discovered insulator

Thanks to Don Mecklenburg for "Practical Telephone Hand-book", circa 1906, pp. 334-337) and Steve Homewood for "Practical Telephone Handbook and Guide To the Telephonic Exchange" by J. Poole, Pitman of London, 1919, 6th edition, pp. 390-397; and "Telephony" by T. Herbert & W. Proctor, Vol I,1934, pp 1104-1109 and sending the Sinclair-Aitken insulator with original hardware along with the photo of their installation). A special thanks to Nora Coppo for the Fidenza 6102 and her tremendous support and Lis and Jim Bergman for information provided for this article. Thanks also to Guido Boreani for granting permission to share information from his book "Isolatori D'Italia," March 2003. '

I'm receiving numerous emails, letters and phone calls reporting new discoveries of foreign insulators. Keep up the outstanding communication! There is so many exciting discoveries being made. With your continued help, together we can make a difference.