Porcelain Insulator News
by Elton Gish, NIA #41
Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", July 1990, page 14
In the March, 1990 issue of "CJ" on page 4, we reported a U-310
with an incuse marking of a "Maltese Cross" on the bottom of the outer
skirt (see photograph below). Joe Maurath of Abington, MA brought a similar
style to the Allentown show for me to see with the incuse marking in the same
location. Joe's insulator was made of dry process porcelain and he said that his
tannish brown insulator was found "locally". Again we ask if anyone
else has a clue on this unusual marking??!!
Joe reported another unusual insulator marking. It is Sim-U-293 with a
brownish mahogany glaze which is nothing too unusual. However, the LOCKE R=oo
insulator logo is incuse marked on the skirt! Joe says that he has seen thousands
of Locke "hats" in the past 25 years and he has never seen this
marking/style combination. This is new to me as well. The Locke insulator logo
has only been seen on larger unipart styles with a top conductor groove or
multipart styles. Do any of you have a similarly marking insulator?
Joe's recent letter further described a few exploits with friend Jeff Kaminski in the New England area where they have reported sighting and
collecting specimens of Ohio Brass M-4323's and Victor M-4425's as well as a
couple of M-4710's still in service. You will be reading more about their
adventures in an article written by Jeff which will appear in an upcoming issue
of "Crown Jewels".
In the August, 1989 issue of "CJ" on page
29, we ran a photograph of a multipart insulator with an unusual marking.
Unfortunately, the photograph was cropped wrong leaving out the unusual marking.
So here it is again below. Bill Rohde brought a M-2221 to the San Luis Obispo
Regional in May, 1989 for me to look at. As you can see in the photograph, the incuse marking underneath the top skirt is very prominent. The insulator does
not have any other markings, but it does appear to
have been made by Thomas.
For
about 15 years now, I have known of a new style of U-966 with the New Lexington
marking. It was first reported to me in the mid-1970's by Ken Stefan and, every
since then, I have not been able to capture one of these. Then Chris Hedges
bought one at the St. Charles National. He learned of his good fortune a few
moments later that his newly acquired specimen was marked "New Lexington,
O."!!! I have seen one other which is in Jerry Turner's collection. This
new style has been honored with a new U-number by Jack Tod. It is now U-966A. As
you can see from the comparison below, it is quite different with the rounded top skirt.
All of the specimens I have seen have a cemented 1-3/8 inch metal thimble,
however, on close examination by Chris, it was determined that his was
originally made with 1-5/8 inch porcelain threads just like U-966!
Now for a bit of trivia. The only unipart insulator made with 1-5/8 inch pin
hole was U-966. It was made to replace the U-937 on the Niagara line and also on
lines in upper Michigan. [A line of U-966 has recently been discovered still in
service considerably distant from the Niagara and Michigan lines. More on this
exciting find will be disclosed in a future "PIN" article when
available. Naturally, the location of this site is closely guarded.] Jack Tod
correctly guessed that the U-966A may have been made with the 1-5/8 inch pin
hole and later downsized to 1-3/8 with the metal thimble. The use of the 1-5/8
pin hole was very short lived with the 1-3/8 pin hole quickly adopted as a
standard. Thanks to Chris for his confirmation that his U-966A specimen did
indeed have porcelain threads hidden under the cement and metal thimble.
The
photograph below was the one sent to me by Ken Stefan showing U-966A on the left
and U-966 on the right. A new multipart style has been reported by Ken which is
very similar to U-966. It is M-2275 with dimensions 7 - 6.5 x 8 with the incuse
THOMAS marking!!!!
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