Lightning Rod Insulator Primer (Part 1)

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", January 1983, page 8

Submitted by JAMES COLBURN
1616 North N St., Lake Worth, Florida 33460

(Reprinted, with permission, from "The Crown Point" newsletter by Dick and Dottie Daugherty.) 

Most readers of this newsletter probably collect LRB's. While that is all right, they may be ignoring the fascinating field of collectible lightning rod insulators.

In some of the early ads for lightning protection systems, lightning rod insulators are mentioned. They were used up into the twentieth century. Lightning rod insulators (LRI's) were used in the scroll braces or other closed holder braces; they were nailed across the roof; and mounted in brackets that were screwed; and, less commonly, were hammered into the sides of a structure.

Most LRI's now known are of several basic shapes. The following description is of possibly the most common of these shapes.

THE SIDE TAB (fig. 1) This is also referred to as a 'sleeve', 'thru-hole', and 'wart'. I will use the term side tab. Side tabs were mounted in LR braces (fig. 2) and in brackets on the sides of a protected structure where the screw thread portion was turned into the woodwork of a building (fig. 3).

Side tab insulators are found in glass and porcelain. There are many known embossed pieces. They vary quite a bit in their dimensions. The coloring of these can really be described as a rainbow, as the many shades of blue, greens, purple, and others have turned up.