2002 >> August >> Show Report Part A  

Show Report - Part A

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", August 2002, page 17

Rick Soller (Gurnee, IL) brought two displays to share with collectors. Pictured below is a display of "dummy" potheads (U-190 and U -190A) and photos showing their installation in the greater Chicago area.           
                                                                                        

Rick also assembled a colorful display of insulator business cards.



NIA First Place - Threaded Glass 
Jack Roach 
(Wimberly, TX) 
celebrated the 4th with an "All American CD 145 Display"



Louis Hall (Fresno, CA) mounted six panels with a vast assortment of pins and brackets.


NIA First Place - General
Leonard Gibson 

(Corvallis, OR) and his daughter Laurie Haney (Portland, OR) displayed a pre-school classroom educational unit using insulators. (See CJOW, April 2002 for "Never Too Young" story)

NIA First Place - Lightning Rod Equipment
Combining two loves - early sheet music and plain round lightning rod balls -- John McDougald (St. Charles, IL) displayed six colorful music covers with balls of matching colors.
"Color Classics - A pretty lrb, is like a melody."



NIA First Place - Porcelain 
Elton Gish (Buna, TX) 
will feature his New Lexington High Voltage Porcelain Co. in Porcelain Insulator News in CJOW, October 2002 Best Use of Power Insulators - Greater Chicago Insulator Club presented by Bob Stahr



NIA First Place - Junior
Sean Green
(Lakewood, CO) 
included impurities and color in the variety of his display.



NIA First Place - Foreign 
NIA Milholland Education Award
 
The story of developing an "insulator procurement system" from an Eastern block country is fascinating! Tom Katonak (Albuquerque, NM) procured and displayed "The Best of the Ukrainian Glass".


Most of the pieces fall into the highly unusual or rare category and have been introduced over the past two and one-half years. The colors, shapes, swirls are breathtaking -- especially the ambers, olives and cobalts!

High voltage lines out of Kiev yielded various shades of amber CD 247.5 power insulators. A railway station in Poltava was the source of the 7-up green piece; a CD 589 transposition dates back to 1916 from Kani; transformer cover (7) from hydro-electric dam in Kharkiv; a 50kv power insulator with metal removed.


Sandy Ellison's (Oklahoma City, OK) "My Telephone Connections" featured her family and their connections to the telephone company.


Her interest in telephone embossed long distance insulators was a perfect fit to accompany an operator's headset; pole climbers and a hand-held test set.

Even at 18 months, Sandy had established her own "telephone connection".

Bob & Phoebe Adams Showmanship Award given by Phoebe Adams and presented by John and Carol McDougald

First Time National Displayer - Central Florida Insulator Collectors presented by Jim Colburn



"Insulators. . . Plus!" had some of the wildest UFOs (Unidentified Foreign Objects) that have ever been seen. Bill Rohde (Williams, CA) has made contact with some great "aliens."


Best Use of Railroad Embossed Insulators Chesapeake Bay Insulator Club presented by Larry Novak

Bubble up graphite Black threads  Open bubble wire groove to dome Slice of bacon Indian head penny impression

Bottle cap Red "lifesaver" Nail pressed over entire dome Hemingray "quality"

Button reading Made in U.S.A.



Jack Tod Memorial Award for best Porcelain Display
Robin Harrison
(Seattle, WA) displayed a lot of porcelain "character" with examples of:

Glazed over chips Drips
Glazing errors Unusual patterns
Gas bubbles Trimming errors


NIA Fred Griffin Threadless Award

Eloise Haltman (Cathedral City, CA) staged the marriage of Intense Heat to Silica Sand, producing a display of 115 different glass threadless insulators, Two recently acquired threadless CDs were the CD 796 Boston Bottle Works and the CD 724.6 threadless sleeve. 

Rumor has it that there are still four threadless CDs that are not yet part of in the Heat/Sand marriage!


"The Western Flint Glass Company is now erecting a large plant for the manufacture of all kinds of bottles, fruit jars and insulators which they will shortly place on the market".
-- Denver Post, September 24, 1899
 - - - - -
"40 boys wanted at once, 12 to 14 years of age. Apply to Western Flint Glass Company, Valverde, Colo. " -- Denver Times. September 4, 1900
- - - - - 
"There are now about 175 employees and the factory is running night and day." -- Denver Times, February 28, 1901

NIA First Place - Specialty

Expanding the historic years of Western Flint Glass Company and their wares to cover more than 30 feet of display room, Mike Miller (Denver, CO) used a combination of photographs, newspaper articles and unique glass products in sharing his specialty collection.



NIA First Place - Go-Withs
Best Use of So. California Glass
- Central & Southern Counties Insulator Club, presented by Dwayne Anthony 
Best Use of Western Glass - Nor-Cal Insulator Club, presented by Mike Doyle

Dave Hall (Wilmington, CA) spent nearly four hours with the help of fellow collectors assembling this tremendous display of McLaughlin products including La Vida mineral water bottles and a representative CD of each insulator manufactured.

McLaughlin bottles




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