There does not seem to be an end to the reporting of new Pittsburg date control markings.
New reports keep dribbling in with a chunk here and there.
Frank Phelps (Nibley, UT) reported three new full date markings on sim U-680A
in October 1985 CJ and has again come up with yet another:
DEC 11 1917 (SIM U-672)
C. B. Dittmar (Attleboro Falls, MA) has reported the following three
markings:
SEP 20 A.M. (U-243)
OCT 18 PAID (U-246)
DEC 6 1915 (U-? -- glazeweld 6-7/8 x
5-1/4)
Stephen Corfidi (Kansas City, MO) has reported the following marking on an
insulator he found in Baltimore:
OCT 27 PAID (sim U-290)
Also, I found two other markings previously reported in Jack Tod's book
Porcelain Insulators - Guide Book for Collectors 2nd edition (1976) on page 136.
It always pays to reread the material in his book as it is impossible to recall
all of the details. I guess I have read that book over two dozen times and am
amazed at finding something for the "first time". The two full date
markings are:
JUN 20 1915
FEB 17 1921
With all of these new finds, I have decided to run a revised list of the
known Pittsburg date control and full date markings again.
|
KNOWN PITTSBURG DATE CONTROL MARKINGS |
|
APR 6 Ans'd
|
JAN 16 Rec'd
|
|
APR 13 Ans'd
|
APR 11 Rec'd
|
|
MAY 25 Ans'd
|
AUG 12 Rec'd
|
|
JUL 26 Ans'd
|
SEP 20 Rec'd
|
|
NOV 30 Ans'd
|
|
|
|
JAN 18 Ent'd
|
|
|
NOV 15 Ent'd
|
|
JAN 17 PAID
|
|
|
FEB 16 PAID
|
APR 21 A.M.
|
|
JUN 26 PAID
|
SEP 20 A.M.
|
|
JUL 8 PAID
|
|
|
AUG 26 PAID
|
|
|
OCT 18 PAID
|
APR 12 P.M.
|
|
OCT 27 PAID
|
APR 16 P.M.
|
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NOV 15 PAID
|
JUL 7 P.M.
|
|
NOV 21 PAID
|
NOV 25 P.M.
|
|
KNOWN PITTSBURG FULL DATE MARKINGS
|
|
|
(DAY)
|
|
APR 22 1913
|
(Tue)
|
|
APR 30 1913
|
(Wed)
|
|
MAY 2 1913
|
(Fri)
|
|
MAY 6 1913
|
(Tue)
|
|
JUN 5 1913
|
(Thu)
|
|
JUN 17 1913
|
(Tue)
|
|
MAY 2 1915
|
(Sun)
|
|
JUN 20 1915
|
(Sun)
|
|
NOV 7 1915
|
(Sun)
|
|
DEC 6 1915
|
(Mon)
|
|
AUG 16 1916
|
(Wed)
|
|
DEC 11 1917
|
(Tue)
|
|
JAN-9 919
|
(Thu)
|
|
FEB 17 1921
|
(Thu)
|
With the new interest shown in these markings, I have tried a new approach at
breaking the date control marking code. As many of you will recall in July 1979 CJ, Jack called for readers to report all available markings to test Matt
Grayson's theory for deciphering the year codes. This method called for
determining Saturday and Sunday dates for each marking in the years 1916 to
1921. By eliminating the years that, for example, A.M. dates were on Saturday or Sunday (assuming the plant was closed on those days), it was hoped that a
year could be determined by the process of elimination for each date code. This
proved not to be a good assumption and, along with very few collector reports,
the project was dropped.
The new approach that I tried was first to find the days of the week for each
date code for the years 1916 to 1921. These findings are shown on the following
page.
You can see from the full date markings that Sunday was used to incuse mark
green-trimmed insulators in the 1915 period. Green-trimming is usually done
about 24 hours after the insulators are press formed and then the incuse
markings are applied. The date markings have only been reported on trimmed
insulators and not on insulators with a prominent mold line. I then made the
following assumptions:
1916 and 1917: Eliminate years with dates on Monday since first years of the
war would possibly reduce production and presses would not operate on Sunday;
thus the marking operation would not be performed on Mondays.
1918 and 1919: Eliminate years with dates on Sunday and Monday due to further
decline in production.
1920 and 1921: Eliminate years with dates on Saturday, Sunday and
Monday due
to further production cutbacks in these depressed years.
Now, referring to the tables of markings, days of the week and years, the
year for each date code can be determined by the following sequence of
elimination:
1. PAID must be 1917 because it is the only year (for PAID dates) without a
Monday.
2. P.M. must be 1916 because it is the only year (for P.M. dates) without a
Monday.
3. Rec'd must be 1919 since it can neither be 1916 nor 1917 and the other
years for Rec'd dates have date codes on Monday and/or Sunday.
4. A.M. must be 1921.
5. Ent'd must then be 1918.
6. Ans'd must be 1920. July 26 must obviously be an error in reporting and
actually should be July 27. This would produce a very interesting observation
that all Ans'd date codes were used on the same day of the week -- Tuesday.
We would like to hear from anyone with better cryptographic skills than
myself to help solve this curious riddle. Granted, it may serve little purpose
to solve the date code, but wouldn't it be fun to try? What about the oddity of
the Ans'd dates appearing on the same day of the week? Do any of you have an
insulator with the marking "JUL 26 Ans'd" or does it actually read
"JUL 27 Ans'd"? We need many more reports to confirm or disprove my
assumptions. Wouldn't it be a good diversion for those long winter evenings to
dig through your collection of porcelain insulators to take another look at the
Pittsburg markings and help solve the riddle?
This is a good opportunity to run the following three Pittsburg
advertisements. The first ad was found in the "Electrical Engineer"
dated December 31, 1921. This late date indicates that it may have been late in
1921 when Pittsburg was taken over by Westinghouse.
Note in the 1921 ad that Westinghouse was the selling agent for Pittsburg
insulators in the U.S. and throughout the world. The following ad from "The
Electrical Journal" dated December 1914 showed that General Electric was
the selling agent in Canada. Also note that Pittsburg was spelled with am extra
"H".
The following ad was from "The Electric Journal" dated December
1916 after Westinghouse became the sole selling agent in the U.S.
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