I agreed to be the new clearing house for American Porcelain and Editor for this column because I wanted to see more frequent informative columns and to hopefully improve the interest in collecting porcelain insulators. I cannot do it alone! I need your help to provide interesting and newsworthy articles that all of us can use to improve our knowledge of the hobby. I will look forward to your questions, comments, contributions and suggestions.

Dear Elton:

I bought an unusual porcelain mid-span transposition insulator at the Rochester Show (refer to sketch below). The fellow I got it from had found it at a flea market. It was in the original box with a packing slip that had the following information:

3G1100-104.3 Item 1-13 Insulator Transposition 1 Each 32093-P-55-59 (31) Gar-Let Mfg. Co. , Scranton, Pa Date Pkd. 12/55 Method 111.

It is unmarked with red-brown glaze. Dimensions are 6 inches long, 5 inches wide, and one inch thick, and it has five holes through it.

Do you have any idea how these were used? If these were ever used, it would involve much cutting, splicing and cursing on the part of the lineman to install it.

On an abandoned railroad signal/communication line in my area, I found some H.K. Porters on an electrical circuit for the semaphores. They were clear and had red paint applied to the inside of the skirt and pinhole. Were these used as market insulators? I also found an H.K. Porter with a one-half inch pinhole.

At Rochester I also saw a U-207 transposition with a cream colored glaze and black treated wire grooves. What was the purpose of the treatment?
William Ogden, NIA #1857

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Dear William:

We have no info on the block transposition insulator, how it was used, or on Gar-Let Mfg. Co. I agree with you that the design is impractical for use on telephone pole lines, and my crystal ball says this thing is used in some way for radio antenna transmission lines. 

It sounds logical that the reddened H. K. Porter insulators are meant for line coding, but not if all the ones in use there were treated that way. In so many cases of oddball line configuration and equipment usage, you'll never find out the reason they did things certain ways unless you can get back to the people who did it and ask them. Trying to use horse sense or any form of logic doesn't have a very high batting average for getting correct answers!

The U-207 transposition with black-treated wire grooves sounds highly unusual and must have been a very pretty and desirable specimen. If this did in fact have purposeful radio-treated wire grooves and not just darkening in the recessed areas from a firing problem (as sometimes happened), I can think of only one logical reason for it. That is, it could have been made expressly as a "break insulator" for high-voltage, series street light circuits -- even though most of those circuits generally have maximum voltages below that where radio interference problems occur.

Elton

Dear Elton:

I have a white Hewlett insulator that is 6-1/2 inches in diameter. It is marked as follows: PAT SEPT 15 14. Do you have any information on these being found in white?
Richard Wiesman, NIA #3029

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Dear Richard:

Many thanks for your report of a white Hewlett. Maybe someone else has seen one of these, but I've never heard of a white Hewlett of any type, size or style. Of all the line insulators other than pin types, the O-B pig liver link strain insulator and the various Hewlett dead-end and suspension insulators are probably the most collectible ones. Certainly this white one would be at the top of that class.

Elton

Dear Elton:

NIPSCO is rebuilding a line near my home, and they were kind enough to allow me to inspect the equipment that they were using. The insulators are twelve skirt clamp-top line posts mounted both vertically and horizontally. They are skyglaze and rated for 69 KV. The new O-B marking on each unit is a dark blue underglaze located on the top skirt. This is the first I have seen of the new logo.
Robert Winkler 
Michigan City, Indiana

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Dear Robert:

They've been making the newer logo for a number of years on, in their words, "new items" as they come up. Use of the logo has been reported on a number of items, including the cast iron parts of certain line insulator types. It is thus not surprising for it to turn up on the porcelain parts of line posts.

But, also in their words of some time ago, they have no plans for use of the new logo marking on low voltage pin type insulators. We'll continue to assume that is the case until one actually turns up someday, if ever.

Elton

It can now be confirmed that the U-186 is glazewelded. I have a specimen that has a thin glaze with open bubbles in the glaze over the glazeweld joints. The head was made in two parts and glazewelded to the body.