You may remember from November CJ that I am working on a value guide. Actually more than 20 collectors have volunteered to help by cataloging their collection so the listing of known unipart porcelain insulators in the value guide will be as complete as possible. I will name these collectors later when the project has been completed, but I do want to send out a BIG THANK YOU!! now to all of you that have spent hundreds of hours cataloging your collection and have returned my survey. I had no idea that my request would have been so well received. It is obvious that all of you want a value guide. The work you have contributed will make a large difference in the quality of the value guide.

Values in the value guide will be shown as a value range around the average of everyone’s estimated values, e.g. $20-30. There are more than 2600 different unipart insulators listed. The final listing may have nearly 3000! I have been tabulating the results of everyone’s survey with my computer which instantly totals the number of reported specimens for each specific entry. The final count will give a fair idea how many of each rare insulator are available. There are a number of rare insulators that are noticeably missing or lacking in reports. If you have any of the following insulators, I would appreciate hearing from you. PLEASE drop me a postcard or letter if you have any of the insulators listed below or insulators with the following markings: “PITTSBURG”, “New Lexington, O.”, “LIMA, N.Y.” Your name will be kept anonymous if you prefer.

I know that all of the above insulators exist and I know a few people who have some of them. I do not have time to contact each of you individually to ask what you have or if you still have a specific insulator. It would be interesting to all of us if we knew about how many rare insulators are in collections. Please let me know if you have any of the insulators listed above. Also, it is not too late to at least drop me a line with a small listing of uncommon to rare insulators in your collection. Wouldn’t you like to know about how many there are? Maybe you have a one-of-a-kind insulator or maybe just one or two others are known. Desperately need to hear from you if you have threadless styles.

Barrie Rufi (NIA #4016) just sent me several interesting photographs of insulators that he has picked up while working the last 34 years as a lineman for Utah Power & Light in the Ogden area. You might want to look back at PIN in the September issue of CJ to see other early porcelain insulators found near Ogden. Barrie has a couple of brown U-746 Imperials, many U-923 and U-923A Imperials, several U-744's (made by GE circa 1895), and a couple of U-928 Boch Patent insulators that he found in the area. Of particular note are two brown U-746 insulators each marked "New Lexington, O." Several of these were reported back in the 1970's from that same area but they were a light sandy tan color. Barrie's two U-746's are a dark tan similar to the brown Imperials. I have been trying to determine what common characteristics. can be attributed to New Lexington. Problem is so few marked insulators have been found. The most common of the marked styles is U-746 with maybe 8-12 known and all had the sandy glaze. There are three different styles of two-piece multipart insulators and each one has a completely different glaze ranging from sandy tan, tan, mahogany, and nearly black. You can well imagine the difficulty in coming up with similarities that we can use to attribute unmarked insulators to New Lexington.

Two dark tan U-746 insulators marked "New Lexington, O."

Barrie also reported another U-924 Imperial (discussed in Nov. CJ) and two white specimens of U-393 and U-393A which were made by Pittsburg. He also reported several U-935A's and U-935B's. He said that U-935A's and U-935B's on about 13 blocks of line in downtown Salt Lake City were removed in 1966. The crew threw the insulators onto a flat bed truck and threw them into a dumpster when they got back to the shop. Barrie was only able to retrieve a couple of good insulators from the estimated 400-500 in the dumpster! That is a story we all hate to hear.

Broken U-935A insulator in the center is a dry process 
insulator made by General Electric. 
The two on the left and right are wet process U-935A's with 
Imperial dates in March 1897.
Imperial U-935A's replaced poor quality GE versions.

In the November 1994 CJ we reported another U-967 with a very beautiful light caramel-colored glaze. Donald Groff reported that he also has a U-967 but his insulator has a different glaze. The color is a very pretty rusty orange with caramel mottling. I would guess that Donald's insulator was made a year or two later than the light caramel-colored ones. This darker glaze is typical of very early Thomas insulators from circa 1905-1908. This makes four known of the U-976 style.

Unmarked Thomas M-2255 with mottled 
greenish-gray glaze from circa 1905.
 Dimensions are 7 - 5 x 6.5

Ben also reported an insulator similar to M-3536 with glaze color that looks like it was made by Ohio Brass. The unusual thing about this insulator is sand was applied around the tie-wire groove! Guess they planned to cement a metal cap on it.

Ohio Brass Sim-M-3536 with 
sand applied to tie-wire groove.

Early gray-glazed insulators are very uncommon to rare since they were manufactured before circa 1910-12. Ben sent the following photograph of an early gray M-3460. Both the gray M-3460 and the later model M-3460 with mottled mahogany glaze have the blue-jean seam inside the bottom skirt. We think that the blue-jean seam was not used much after 1910. The mahogany colored insulator is a color more typical of Thomas production in the 1910's.

Two M-3460's made by Thomas circa 1905-1912.