The November issue of Crown Jewels featured an article on CD 162.1's by Lee Brewer (pages 27-38). Lee writes some follow up comments:

In the article I said these signals challenge the idea of Brookfield claiming the pieces marked New York are older pieces (for sake of brevity, from now on I will abbreviate as such: NY and/ or non-NY). I received mail from fellow collector's, Rick Soller and N.R. Woodward, who have been able to help me see the issue more clearly. These CD162.1's do still challenge the theory, however, the theory will also remain valid under other circumstances.

In the article I had implied the difference between the two era's (NY and Non-NY) was 30 years. I was in error here. I think I got this span of years from thinking of the dates 1870 and 1900. The 1870 date is the start of CREB145 production -- when NY appeared on the insulators (I wonder why this is prevalent in my brain?) -- and the NJ plant started somewhere around 1900. I had not focused on the (obvious!) fact that Brookfield ended production at the NY plant somewhere around the late 1800's, which leaves a much smaller possible time period between the NY and non-NY eras. Although we do not know for sure exactly when production at the NY plant ended before moving to NJ. We know from the Brookfield website: "From 1868 to 1882 the address was 55 Fulton Street: from 1882 to 1890, it was 45 Cliff Street; and from 1890 to 1897, it was 81 or 83 Fulton Street. In 1897 the office was moved to 220 Broadway; and the company incorporated as Brookfield Glass Company the following year. Also, about this time property was acquired and a new modern plant was constructed at Old Bridge, New Jersey."

Since we do not know the exact start of the NJ plant, we cannot really know the gap between the NY and non-NY marking of pieces. For older pieces the date can be 30 years, but the last pieces made in NY were just around the end of the 1800's, and therefore they are not too much older than any without NY markings - certainly less than 30 years! The 'newest" Brookfield signals, we know, omit the NY marking, and were made at the last place Brookfield made glass -- the plant in NJ. The 'calico' NY and non-NY pieces I found in service together (as described in the article) indicate that the NJ plant used both NY and non-NY moulds simultaneously -- hence the dating technique for these SKEB (Skirt Embossed Brookfield) pieces is not valid. However CREB pieces (marked with NY) were all definitely made prior to the NJ plant and therefore are definitely older than pieces without the NY embossing. Mr. Brookfield's statement is therefore valid when considering any piece made prior to the NJ plant. It may be that Mr. Brookfield was thinking (although these terms were not in existence at the time) of CREB's vs. SKEB's when he made the statement that pieces with New York markings are older. The insulators themselves would tend to support this idea.