The Bullet

CD 133.4, known as the "bullet" and third in the early Hemingray line of threaded low voltage styles, has been a popular style for collectors for many years. It has a lot of history, simply because it was put in service nearly 130 years ago. Since the style was used widely, it has been available, at least in various shades of aqua, to most collectors, even those on a limited budget. In addition, the early molding techniques lacked uniformity, creating an enormous variety of overpours, underpours and other molding flaws that have become so collectible in recent years. For those with a little more spare change, Hemingray CD 133.4's come in a wonderful range of colors, mostly in the blue and green families, enhanced by the milky and amber impurities that were so often found in these early insulators.

In addition to Hemingray, possibly as many as five other manufacturers were involved in the production of the CD 133.4 style. Next to Hemingray, the most prolific producer of the CD 133.4 style is suspected to be the Wormser Glass Company, located in southwestern Pennsylvania. Wormser produced this style in a wide variety of colors, including purples, pinks, grays and one known piece in honey amber. Examples of the Wormser style are shown at the top of page three of the color insert. More about the other possible manufacturers shortly.

First a bit about the development of the low voltage styles by Hemingray. The early style numbers were just shown as numbers on the back of the crown. The "old" Hemingray number "1" is classified as CD 131.4 and this insulator has the same profile as its threadless counterpart, CD 732.2. We know that Hemingray was in the business of producing, at least on an experimental basis, threadless insulators because a few examples with the December 19, 1871 date have been found employing the Floyd patent threadless pinhole. The colors of unembossed CD 732.2's are consistent with Hemingray, but that production has not been attributed to Hemingray with any level of assurance. Examples of CD 131.4 and CD 732.2 (using the Floyd patent) are pictured on the following page.

A threadless CD 732.2 (Floyd patent) with PATENT over 
DEC. 19 1871 on front crown and a large "1" on the rear crown.

CD 131.4 with PATENT over DEC. 19 1871
 on front crown and a large "1" on the rear crown.

The "old" Hemingray number "2" is classified as CD 132. Again, Hemingray was the predominant manufacturer of this style, but there may be as many as three other manufacturers, none of whom have been identified with certainty. CD 132's by Hemingray and one of the unattributed manufacturers are pictured below.

CD 132 with PATENT DEC. 19 1871 one line embossing 
on front crown and a large "2" on the rear crown.

CD 132 with PAT APP FOR on front skirt and 
a large "2" on the rear skirt.

The "old" Hemingray number "3" is the CD 133.4 shown in the color insert. It appears to be a scaled down version of the CD 132, slightly shorter and narrower but with the same basic characteristics. 

One of the perplexing issues that arises with the "old" Hemingray number "3" style is its range of shapes. The first two pages of the color insert highlight this problem. Ordinarily, we could just deal with it noting the variations in shapes, but the problem is compounded because of the difficulty that many collectors have in assigning CD's to insulators in the CD 133-134 range. Here is the problem with the Hemingray pieces. CD 133.4 is designed to have a convex crown. In other words, if you place a straight edge on the crown, it will only come in contact with one point on the crown surface at a time because it is rounded outward. The examples shown on page one of the color insert are typical. 

However, on page two of the color insert, you see examples (in the middle of the page) of bullets whose crown sides are virtually flat and (at the bottom of the page) of bullets with concave crowns. The profile shown at the bottom of page three is virtually identical to CD 133, whose primary characteristic is a concave crown. I originally solved this problem by classifying all of the bullets that didn't have a "3" on the rear crown as CD 133's and all with a "3" on the rear crown as CD 133.4's. That was consistent with the small sample of bullets without "3's" that I had seen, most notable of which was the purple bullet. However, since my original decision, I have seen a number of bullets with "3's" on the rear crown and concave crown shapes. The emerald green example shown at the bottom of page two is from my collection, and it has both the "3" and the concave skirt. So if you are wondering how to distinguish between CD 133 and CD 133.4 when classifying bullets, I used the following rule when I issued the 1999 Price Guide: If the crown is convex or flat, I classified it as a CD 133.4; if the crown is concave, I classified it as a CD 133. 

The pieces pictured at the bottom of page three don't really represent a controversy, just another of the many unanswered questions in the insulator hobby. On the left is a Wormser attributed bullet. On the right is an insulator that I acquired from Collin Yennie at one of the local Minneapolis shows several years ago. It is slightly larger than the Wormser (about 1/8" at the base), and you can see that the profile near the wire groove is quite different. Collin believed that the piece was manufactured in Canada as several of them were found in service there, but no more details are available. I wondered if this piece was the listing that I had classified as a CD 132, but because my records from the '91 Price Guide are not computerized, I was unable to verify the source of that information in time for this article. Strictly from a size standpoint, it is a "tweener", but it is a little bit closer to a CD 133.4, so for now, I'm going to leave it there.

This is the traditional rounded shape of the CD 133.4 bullet made by Hemingray. The front crown is embossed PATENT / DEC. 19. 1871 and the rear crown is embossed with the number 3. The left bullet has a single [Letter] on the front skirt and the right bullet has a single [Letter] on the rear skirt. Some letters can have a backwards engraving, as is the case with the right bullet. Two other embossing variations are bullets that have no skirt [Letter] and one where the middle bar is missing in the letter "E" of DEC.

Many of the early Hemingray bullets are misshapen due to base overpours and underpours, some are filled with steam, milky swirls and irregular bubbles. This example has a two inch long bubble around the lower crown of the insulator just above the wire groove.

Two other Hemingray dome mold varieties are the smooth, angular mold shown below. . .

. . . and the concave mold which gives this bullet the appearance of a typical CD 133 shape. Hemingray products definitely provided style with a lot of character.

The Wormser Glass Company located in southwestern Pennsylvania has often been mentioned as the possible manufacturer of the unembossed CD 133.4 bullets with the smooth, clean lines and well defined wire ridge and groove. The variety of colors in this bullet style are numerous.

Another unembossed piece, with suspected Canadian origins (right) is similar to the Wormser style (left), but has a more rounded wire ridge and groove.

Listed as the unembossed West Virginia style in the 1999 Price Guide for Insulators, these bullets have a very strong side seam and strong button mold. However, they do not resemble the more traditional three-piece mold style of the early Hemingray products. The purple, teal and cobalt blue colors are pictured.

Two other uncommon styles of CD 133.4 have been verified to date. The first is another unembossed style, but it is distinguished from the Wormser piece because it is MLOD (mold line over the dome, which indicates that it was manufactured in a two piece mold rather than a three piece mold). To the best of my knowledge, only a few of these have been found, and their manufacture is unattributed. Another interesting bullet is the base embossed style. It is distinguished by a very flat base on which PAT'D is weakly embossed. Although this style remains quite rare, it is found in an amazing variety of colors. Most of the colors are in the green and aqua family, but examples in purple/sage two tone and cobalt blue have been found. Again, to the best of my knowledge, the manufacturer of this piece is unknown, although there are two other styles (CD 102 and CD 132) with the same characteristic weak embossing that appear to be from the same manufacturer. 

The story of the CD 133.4 bullet would not be complete without the mention of the West Virginia bullet. These insulators surfaced about 10 years ago and immediately raised controversy. On page four of the color insert, you can see pictures of the three exotic colors that this particular style was found in. In addition, a few examples were found in a green aqua and a near clear. The distinguishing characteristics of this piece include a button mold, a fairly pronounced crown seam (both pictured on the color insert) as well as rather weak threading in the pinhole. As a concerned collector as well as the chairman of the Research and Authentication Committee of the NIA, I have spent a great deal of time investigating these pieces in an effort to establish their legitimacy. I have interviewed all of the principals in the discovery, I have walked the line on which they were discovered on two separate occasions, and I submitted samples for chemical analysis as part of the NIA research project several years ago. For me personally, the jury is still out. The mention of these insulators and the controversy that surrounds them is not with the intention of "stirring the pot" one more time, because I believe that most collectors who are aware of the controversy have made up their minds one way or another. This information is provided so that those collectors who are not aware that there even is an issue can be informed and draw their own conclusions. I still get occasional calls/E-mails from collectors who want information regarding the West Virginia bullets, and this information is provided for them.

Well, that's the CD 133.4 story as far as I know it. If you want to share any additional information regarding this or any other style insulator, please contact me by letter, phone or E-mail. I'm looking for new stories to include in future installments of Mac's Believe It or Not!