Foreign Insulators
by Marilyn Albers

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", November 1982, page 10

Any Italian insulator, either glass or porcelain, is, in my mind, rare. To succeed in leaving the country with even one in hand is a feat in itself. The reason for this is Italian insulators are considered to be government property period! And no native cares to risk losing his job, or go to jail, in an effort to add to anyone's collection. What a pain it is to have spent almost $20.00 in cab fare trying to find the telephone office or power company, and you're finally sitting in the manager's office explaining what it is you came for. A few feet away, down the hall, is a storeroom lined with shelves full of insulators, and here sits this guy with his arms folded and his chin out. His eyebrows look like rickrack, and he's saying, "No, no, no, no, no, I cannot sell you even one, Madam, neither can I give you one, and please do not try to help yourself to such a thing." He draws his finger across his throat as if to slash it. There's not a whole lot of doubt as to whether or not he means it. 

The next course of action is to slip a few coins to either the gardener or the hotel porter, who always have a friend or a brother, uncle, cousin, etc. who can help. This worked for me back in 1975 when I was in Sorrento, and produced one white porcelain insulator. In this case, the porter had a friend who worked for the local power company, and as we were leaving to go to the next town, the porter approached me, handed me a small brown bag and said, with a wink, "Your camera, Signora. You were about to leave it behind." He had done his part -- now it was my responsibility to stay out of jail! I was holding my mouth just right, I guess, because the insulator stayed wrapped in that brown paper bag in my suitcase, and, when leaving the country, no one ever asked what was inside.

The following picture shows five white porcelain insulators, all manufactured by Richard Ginori of Italy, and all carrying the company trademark as shown. The insulator I brought back from Sorrento is the one in the center. It measures four inches in height, and is now our U-1707. At the time we printed Worldwide Porcelains, it was our only "live" specimen from Richard Ginori. These four additional ones are brand new finds and as yet have not been assigned U-numbers. The first three on the left are line insulators (Isolatore per linea), and the two on the right are drop line insulators (Isolatore per calate). 

The Richard Ginori factory is located in Milan and is one of the most modern in all of Europe. It manufactures porcelain dinnerware and decorative items in addition to a complete line of electrical insulators.

If you will check back to your November 1981 Crown Jewels, You will discover that the catalogue pages reprinted there from another Italian insulator manufacturer, Verbano Ceramics in Laveno, offer nearly identical styles of insulators to those made by Richard Ginori pictured above. The Verbano factory is quite a bit smaller, however, and as far as we know, makes only electrical insulators. As of this writing, the only insulators I have seen with the Verbano trademark are the three shown in the picture below. At the left is U-1248, center is similar to U-1714, and on the right is one similar to U-1654. 

A Different Shade of Red! 

In the February '82 issue of Crown Jewels I showed you two fire engine red porcelain insulators, U- 1451 and U-1542, both made by Bullers Ltd. of London, and both carrying the incuse Bullers trademark on the flat unglazed top of the crown. The U-1542 is also marked with the incuse letters LMS (for London, Midland and Scottish Ry.). These red insulators were used on the signal lines of British Railways. Until the National Show in Cedar Rapids last summer, these were the only red British insulators I had seen. But on Jerry Turner's sales table (bless him) I found another red U-1451, only this one was different in several respects. The whole top of the crown was glazed, the color was more like a creamy Burgundy wine, and the only marking it carried was on the skirt -- an incuse version of the familiar "hand" trademark you see below. This trademark shows up over and over on both of these styles of insulators, but always before on white porcelain, and accompanied by the letters G.P.O. (for General Post Office), indicating that these were to be used as telecommunication insulators. With the discovery of this "new" red insulator marked only with the hand trademark, it is my guess that it, too, was to be used on the signal lines of railways, and that the marking is that of the manufacturer. Both U-1451 and U-1542 are referred to as Cordeaux's screw insulator. The following information was taken from the Practical Telephone Handbook, printed about 1900 and owned by Chris Weston of England. The December 1975 issue of Crown Jewels carried this also.

I'm not going to quote it word for word, because it is too lengthy, but the name Cordeaux comes from the patent of that name, having to do with the method of securing the insulator to the metal pin. The pinhole of the insulator is approximately one half inch in diameter, with very small threads, and the insulator is designed to be screwed directly onto a steel spindle. The screw arrangement makes it possible to remove the insulator from the pin, while still in position, so that it can be cleaned out, or to allow the position of the wires on the poles to be changed. A rubber or felt washer is sometimes placed upon the upper flange of the spindle before it is screwed into the insulator pinhole. This allows for the difference in expansion by heat between the iron and the porcelain, thus preventing the insulator from breaking. These Cordeaux insulators were made in three sizes, the standard large (No 6 - pictured here) for signal or trunk lines, medium (No. 8) for 70 lb. bronze wire, and small (No. 11) for 40 lb. subscriber circuits. 

These red insulators are really beautiful, and it's a thrill to own them! 

Two Unusual Australian Glass Insulators: 

At first glance you may say, "What's so unusual about these two?" The shapes are common enough - C.D. 490 (old 152.9) and C.D. 154. True -- we've seen them around for a long time. However, the C.D. 490 on the left (see picture above) has four large sharp drip points on the base. These are not just extra blobs of glass there by mistake, or mold marks or rests, but four distinct drip points. As if that weren't enough to set it apart, it is two-toned glass -- part green and part lavender! This last, I'm sure, was a mistake, but how interesting for the collector!

My friend, Laura Van der Endt, who lives in Sidney, Australia, tells me that these 490's with the drip points are very rare. She knows of only five in existence including this one. How many have you seen? She goes on to say that the smooth based 490 comes in a straw or peach color (She is sending me one!), as well as smoke and various shades of purple. From what she has been able to learn, they were all made in straw to begin with, and the sun did the rest -- according to the time of exposure. She claims to have a straw colored 490 that was up on the pole for nine years and is still straw. That's just enough to keep me awake at nights! Supposedly, the straw insulators are rarest of all. If this color does indicate they are of more recent manufacture than the purple ones, how come there aren't more of them? We have more digging to do on that one! Laura says it's very difficult to find out answers to these questions for sure, because so few old records were kept by the manufacturers -- in this case Australian Glass Manufacturers Company in Sidney. The insulator is embossed AGEE.

The C.D. 154 on the right, also an Agee, is an exact copy of our Hemingray 42, including shape, round drips, standard one inch pinhole with four threads per inch. It is a pretty shade of steel blue grey. It is the only Australian made glass insulator we know of that doesn't have the typical seven threads per inch. How come? Sorry, can't answer that yet unless, like the Esperanza Glass Company of Spain, the Australian Glass Manufacturers Company just flat decided to copy our Hemingray 42, because it was such a versatile insulator, and fit into so many situations so perfectly. The Mexicans, the Chileans and the Argentines sort of liked it, too, because they have all copied our C.D. 154! At any rate, Laura tells me the C.D. 154 Agee is extremely hard to come by, and if you succeed in finding one in purple, you are very lucky. My question again, "If it is so versatile, and it is, how is it so few were made for Australian use?" That's got to be true, or there would be more of them. Perhaps they didn't work out so well in Australia, after all? 

Most of you know the following information, but just in case you don't, let me say a word about the AGEE marking. According to N. R. Woodward's book The Glass Insulator in America (1973 Report): "Glass insulators (in Australia) made during the period extending from the early 1930's to the late 1950's. Early production was at Australian Glass Manufacturers plant at Sidney. Insulators are marked AGEE, which should be pronounced "A.G.", for Australian Glass. In the very early 1950's, insulator presses were moved to Australian Glass Manufacturers plant at Hobart, Tasmania; and during that decade some twenty-million insulators were made there with the marking A.G.M."