** NEW BOOK **
Porcelain Insulators Guide Book for Collectors
Third Edition, by Jack H. Tod

This new edition has been completely rewritten from cover to cover and includes an expanded value guide that was developed with the help of several porcelain collectors. Besides the inclusion of drawings for all the porcelain styles which have been reported since the publication of his last second edition book in 1976, every page of the text has been rewritten to reflect the new historic information just uncovered in the last few years. For example, we now know exactly what happened to New Lexington (thanks to Rick Soller), we have the details of the Spiral insulator (thanks to Robert Winkler) and much of the Locke story has been unraveled.

Hundreds of trade journal articles that I have researched during the last several years were used to help clarify histories of many porcelain manufacturers.

The listing of Fred Locke markings was completely revised. A review of the markings on over 100 specimens showed that many original reportings were in error as would be expected from so many different individual reportings of those often incomplete wordy markings. In most cases, several specimens were used to verify the marking.

No glass collector would be without their CD-number reference book and no porcelain collector, whether casual or serious, should be without Jack's third edition book. This is the only reference book which contains the U-Chart for cataloging unipart porcelain insulators. This new book is a classic reference tool and the ultimate example of Jack's skills as a researcher, writer and publisher. This book is a must for every collector and dealer. (See ad for ordering.)

The Nashville Eastern Regional show was a great success and I want to thank Sally and Cordell Smith for their efforts in putting on this show and especially for the Saturday night event at their home. Also, Jack Tod was at the show with a supply of his new book as well as the other books that he has written. While he has been busy writing books, many of us have not seen him at a show in many years and we all enjoyed visiting with him.

I thought you would be interested to know what showed up in the way of porcelain at Nashville. Two super rare goodies were present. One was a light tan colored U-990 teapot as shown in the photo below. This is only the second one that I have ever seen. I did see another one in the collection of a West coast collector and it had a white glaze.

The other super rare goodie was the U-982 Bennington (see photo below). It had the characteristic beautiful speckled tan glaze and was a real jewel even with a wire groove chip.

Paul Plunkett had a very interesting piece that he kindly brought for me to see. I first saw this oddity at the Rochester National. Paul had found it at the Victor Plant when his company owned the plant. It dates back to Fred Locke's time at about 1901.

As you can see in the two photos below, the cable top has been cut off. The bottom picture may not be clear enough to show the details, but the lapidary saw cut through the glazeweld joint. This insulator has two eave spouts and is identical to the all porcelain two-spout (see photo bottom of next page) except that it has a glass base. Notice the embossed "B" on the glass base. That may be a Brookfield marking as Fred Locke did contract with them for many of the glass insulator styles that he cataloged. Remember that the two-spouters are two piece multiparts so they would not have a U-number assigned (for unipart types only).

The No. 304 "Victor" insulator (2-spout with glass base) from the January 5, 1901 issue of Electrical World and Engineer. This is identical to Paul's specimen.

The last several shows that I have attended had a sprinkling of Elliot styles to choose from and the Nashville show was no exception. A couple of U-981's could be found as well as one or two U-980's. While these two styles are rare, they do turn up fairly frequently. Not so with the super rare U-979 Elliott hat. Only about three of these were ever found.

Among the less expensive porcelain at the show were two neat pieces that I liked for the history behind them. One was U-541 which was only cataloged by New Lexington and no U-541's have been reported with the New Lexington marking. This unit has a dark blackish brown glaze. This style was reported in the November 1975 issue of Crown Jewels.

Another interesting piece was a U-143A with a white glaze. This unmarked unit was probably made by Thomas as shown in their 1904 and 1907 catalogs.

Several classic shaped multipart insulators, shown in the catalog drawing below, were offered for sale and all four found new homes. These units were incuse marked with the familiar insulator logo and the word "Victor". They had beautiful speckled brown to dark brown glazes.

There were also porcelain insulators in almost every color. There were greens, several shades of cobalt and powder blues as well as various yellow glazes. A couple of units were quickly snapped up that had a bright mustard or canary yellow glaze. They were beautiful in that color and I did hear one report of these still being in service in one small area out west.

Well, many of you porcelain fans missed a good show. The National in Houston should prove to be an even better place to find good porcelain. If you missed seeing Jack Tod at Nashville, do not forget that he will be at the National in July -- his first National in 10 years -- with a good supply of his new book. So it will be a good opportunity to bring in your porcelain goodies if you have one that may be unusual or you may suspect that it is a very different style (not similar to a particular style) than is in the U-Chart. The National will give you a rare chance to meet Jack.