July 2006 PONIES OF CAL ELEC WORKS

Here's an interesting observation about insulators and insulator collecting. The more I learn about the subject, the more I realize how little I actually know. The CD 120 pony insulators manufactured for California Electric Works are a perfect illustration. Please enjoy this article... out of curiosity if nothing else. Howard Banks

While I suspected there were more mold varieties than just the two embossed and one unembossed styles listed in the Price Guide, I was surprised at what I discovered once I started looking closely at them.

But before talking in some detail about the insulators. let's put the CEW ponies in historical perspective.

The Electrical Construction & Maintenance Company of San Francisco was the first supplier of telegraph equipment on the West Coast to have insulators manufactured with its name on them. The company was founded late in 1870, and aggressively constructed hundred of miles of telegraph line in the next few years. Perhaps tens of thousands of insulators embossed EC&M Co SF, in CD style 123, were produced and placed in service. By June of 1877, the company was re-organized and a new company called California Electrical Works was formed in its place.(1)

It's apparent from advertising that the new company continued to use CD 123 EC&M's for several years. A telegraph line constructed in association with the Nevada Central Railway used CD 123 EC&M's exclusively. Construction of the railroad was begun in 1878 and completed in early 1880.(2)

But most likely by the mid-1880's, California Electrical Works was using insulators made specifically for them. CD 130 and CD 130.1 styles are embossed CAL ELEC WORKS / PATENT. The "PATENT' wording is likely a reference to company superintendent Paul Seiler's own insulator design patented in 1877, the CD 130.2.

When were CD 120 ponies put into service? Being a smaller insulator, were they designed for telephone lines? How do we know "C.E.W." stands for California Electrical Works?

Hmm. Patent dates of 1871 and 1883 are found on older CD 120 ponies. The 1871 date is the Hemingray patent for "moulding glass telegraph insulators". The 1883 patent date placed on CD 120's manufactured for Homer Brooke's refers to a method of "forming threads", and not to the design of the insulator.(3) Nevertheless, Hemingray made CD 120's well before the company patented drip points in 1893. Therefore, it seems reasonable to believe CD 120 ponies came into their own in the mid-to-late 1880's.

Circumstantial evidence connects "C.E.W." with "Cal Elec Works". The ponies were found largely in California, western Nevada or Southern Oregon. Early collectors frequently found CD 120 C.E.W.'s as replacement insulators for CD 123 EC&M's. That, in turn, indicates they were used on telegraph lines as well as telephone lines. EC&M replacements? That's where this survey gets interesting.

Ever look at the top of a pin hole in an EC&M? Notice the bead of glass that hangs down? Did you know that there are CEW ponies will a similar bead at the top of the pin hole?

What I noticed first is that the pin hole in some CEW's is much smaller in diameter, just like the substandard size for EC&M insulators. You can tell instantly if you have one. Stick your thumb in the pin hole. On the undersized pin style you can practically get your thumb stuck.

Is it possible that these were deliberately made as EC&M replacements? I have two in my collection. Both are aqua. One is embossed C.E.W. and the other is unembossed. Both were made in three piece molds. Both were made for an undersized pin. And both have a bead of glass at the top of the pin hole.

I'd like to hear from other collectors who have these varieties. What color is the glass? Embossed or Unembossed? With the bead of glass at the top, were these made by a different manufacturer than the other three piece molds? Does anyone have a MLOD variety in the substandard pin size?

CEW ponies are not particularly well known for" character". Most examples are rather consistent in the clarity of the glass. There are some exceptions, such as the specimen shown above. We've enlarged the image so you can better enjoy everything that's going on in the glass.

A small group of CEW ponies have been found that appear to have been produced from an unusual batch of glass. We hesitate to call them "milky", as they don't have curtains of milk like some Hemingrays. "Cloudy" would seem to indicate distinct areas of discoloration. Perhaps "hazy" is a better term, as the overall appearance is affected, as the sky might be on a "hazy day".

Provenance: Noun, meaning "origin; derivation; source". From the Latin word provenire meaning "to come forth".*

Embossed CEW's in purple are among the hobby's scarcest insulators. You wouldn't run out of fingers on your two hands in counting them. When something's that rare, it's nice to know the history, or origin, of the piece. The story for the particular example shown above is that it was removed from a tree by a collector who was a park ranger at Yosemite National Park. He sold it many years ago to a collector who didn't part with it until just this spring. Known to the hobby for nearly forty years, this insulator has had just three owners since the line when out of service.

The provenance of this dark, dark purple unembossed CEW is even better documented than the insulator on the opposite page. According to his granddaughter, Arthur S. Bell (1895 - 1973) removed it from service himself during a life-long career working at hydro-electric projects in California. She remembers that hundreds of insulators covered the roof of her granddad's house. Because her favorite color was purple, Grandpa Bill gave her this pretty pony. He worked for Southern California Edison at the time she received this insulator. However, earlier in his career, Arthur Bell worked at the Big Creek Hydro-electric Complex in the mountains northeast of Fresno.(4) That's just south of Yosemite, where the insulator on page 36 was found.

Shown here are four unembossed CEW's with varying intensities of purple coloration.

Upper Left: "Tall" embossed CEW
Upper Right: Embossed CEW with undersized pin hole.
Lower Left: Unembossed CEW in straw, with light amber swirls.
Lower Right: Unembossed CEW in aqua; rarer than purple.

Perhaps because CEW's can be rather ordinary looking, some great buys are made occasionally. Why scanning garage sale ads, I once read of a sale that featured "old bottles". Well, if they have old bottles, I told myself, they might just have a couple of insulators. I was wrong. They only had one. It was the CEW shown on the left above. When I asked where he got it, the owner pointed to a giant, old tree in front of his house. He said he took it off the clearly visible side peg himself. The insulator is damaged, but is also full of milk and steam. I paid the man's asking price: $2. Alas, I didn't find any more side pegs in trees along the man's street.

Janet Bond once did better than that. Just a couple years ago, she purchased the aqua, embossed, CEW shown above at a garage sale for 25-cents. She says she doesn't have the heart to remove the price tag.

Mid Norris reports attending a garage sale and finding a box of purple bottles for sale for $2 apiece. Searching through the bottles he found an unembossed, purple CEW at the bottom of the box. When he asked the price, he was told it was the same as the bottles. Yep. He bought it.

CD 120 CEW insulators were used on some of the early telegraph and telephone lines that ran through the heavily timbered Sierra Nevada mountains. Imagine what might happen to the insulators and side pins if a tree top or large limb came crashing down through the telephone wire.

To reduce maintenance requirements of lines through timber country, special harnesses were developed for the insulators. The wire was actually suspended from an extension that was connected to a yoke that was connected to the insulator. A short metal rod (left above) was tied to the telephone wire to help keep it aligned. The telephone line, then, was less rigid. Now if a tree or tree limb fell into the phone wire, there would be enough "play" in the line to, hopefully, keep the wire, or insulator, or bracket from breaking. Service outages were fewer, and maintenance costs less.

The concept was well known to the telegraph industry in the 1850's. A line built in the timber country from Weaverville to Yreka, California in 1858 used the rubber Goodyear "threadless hats" affixed with similar harnesses. (See page 19 of the January 2002 issue of Crown Jewels for a photo.)

Yokes are found made from hand-forged steel, or as in the example above, from brass. Insulators with original yokes and harnesses are somewhat scarce. Collectors in the early days of the hobby were generally after the glass, and many paid little or no attention to the hardware. Later, collectors removed everything, including the side pegs. CEW sidepegs are especially attractive, dating as they do from the time period when square nails were in use.

Whoa. Don't pack the car and head for Goldfield, Nevada hoping to find 450 CEW ponies. By the time this order was placed (1908), Cal Elec Works had changed names to California Electric Company; the firm was now a division of Western Electric; offices had been moved to Los Angeles; and those insulators had drip points ("D.P. Pony Insulators"). By the turn of the century California Electric was selling Hemingray products. However, those 300 #2 Brown Insulators used with duplex pins were CD 187's. Now, they could be worth looking for. But being sold to a mining company, they could have all been used underground.

Like many insulators made in the late 1800's, including CD 123 EC&M's and CD 130 Cal Elec Works, the height of an insulator depends upon how much glass was placed in the mold. Collectors have been know to pay premium prices for exceptionally tall CEW ponies. The example shown on page 39 would only be considered moderately taller.

The difference in height can be visually quite distinct and striking. But when measured, the difference in height is usually only 1/4 to 1/2 inch. CEW ponies are typically 3 and 3/8th inches tall. The one on page 39 is 3 and 5/8ths inches tall. Examples this size are not that scarce. Before paying a significant premium, look for one at least 3 and 7/8th inches high.

Fractured.
	Chipped.
		Damaged.
			Broken.
				Busted!

Not sure which term best describes this insulator. But with all that "character" this piece was purchased at a recent national show for the grand price of $5.

McDougald's Price Guide (5) lists the following mold styles and color varieties for CD 120 CEW ponies:

[010] Three piece mold. Found in aqua, blue, ice aqua, light green aqua, cornflower blue, olive green, purple, cobalt blue & mustard yellow.

[030] Three piece mold. Found in purple, light purple, dark purple, pink, clear, purple tint, purple/burgundy two tone, straw, aqua & blue aqua.

While only two mold "styles" are listed, there undoubtedly were multiple molds used in making these insulators. The length of the embossed "C.E.W. " lettering can vary by several millimeters within a particular mold style. The shape of individual letters also varies within mold styles. Still, these variations are minor, and often barely noticeable.

With two distinctly different mold styles, it is likely that at least two different glass companies made CEW's. Hemingray possibly made the CD 130.2 for Paul Seiler. So could Hemingray have made the three piece mold CEW's? And could one of the California glass houses have made the mold line over dome varieties? As I mentioned at the start., the more we learn....

About ten years ago a number of glass objects purported to be CD 120 C.E.W.'s came onto the insulator market. Beyond the wild colors of some (not all), there are a number of other problems with them. Here's how to recognize one. The diameter is smaller than a genuine C.E.W. That makes the object look taller and skinnier, and gives an exaggerated concave appearance to the skirt. The embossing is weak (although the embossing can be weak on a genuine insulator, too). The glass has a "new" appearance. The surface of the glass is shiny and wavy. There really is a reason why they look like they just came out of a mold.

Insulators shown in this article are owned by Bob Jackson, Ross Baird, Mike Green, David Campbell, Janet Bond, and Howard Banks. Photographs were taken by Janet Bond, Carol McDougald and Howard Banks.

1. A History & Guide to North American Glass Pintype Insulators, by John & Carol McDougald, 1990.

4. Written documentation provided to Mike Green by "Ruthie", the granddaughter of Arthur Bell.