CD 136.7 - The Three Segment Boston

This story begins in the late spring of 1978. Carol and I were heavy into buying and selling collections and adding new pieces to our own collection, although our collection was still quite modest. We received a letter from a gentleman named Cliff Ritchie from Macon, Missouri, indicating that he was interested in selling his collection. I did not know him although he was a fairly well-known collector in the Missouri area. He sent us his telephone number and asked us to call if we were interested. Were we interested??? You bet!!! 

So, over the course of the next few weeks, I tried numerous times to reach Mr. Ritchie to see if we could set up a time to look at the collection. This was back in the days before everyone had answering machines and/or voice mail, and I wasn't getting an answer at the Ritchie household. Finally, one evening when I called, Mrs. Ritchie (Lila) answered the phone. I explained the reason for my call, and Lila stated that Cliff would not be home for several days. Having finally made contact, I was anxious to learn more about the collection since Cliff hadn't said much in his letter. I probed Lila for more information. She said she didn't really know much about insulators, but I kept the questions coming.

How many did he have? Were they porcelain or glass? What colors were they? Did he have a lot of unusual pieces? In answer to my barrage of questions, she said (and I will never forget this), "Do you know that pink book with all of the pictures?" Of course I did. Everybody knew about the Milholland book. "Well," she said, "he has one of EVERY ONE that is pictured in the book."

I didn't know whether I should laugh, cry or just pass out. On the one hand, she had already admitted that she didn't know much about insulators. On the other hand, I could just picture Cliff, the proud collector, with the Milholland book in hand, showing his collection to his wife saying, "see, here's this one," and turning the page, "and here's this one." 

We couldn't get there soon enough. We had recently purchased a 23' travel trailer that we pulled with a Chevy Suburban. As soon as the kids got out of school, we arranged for a time to look at the collection. The five of us, including one of our son Dave's school friends, were going to take a two week vacation and make this our first stop. Our next stop was going to be at the Paul Plunketts who were living in Columbia, Missouri at that time. We pulled up to Ritchie's house and were warmly greeted by Cliff and Lila. The collection was on display and covered three walls of the garage. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that Lila had been more right than wrong when she described the insulators. What a wonderful collection! Without question, the premier piece was a CD 136.7 in apple green. It was virtually mint and what a knockout color. We had never owned a CD 136.7 up to that point in time (in fact I think we only had one Boston in the collection). Needless to say, the deal was made (back in those days, you didn't have to mortgage your house to buy a nice collection), and the CD 136.7 was ours.

You might think the story ends there, but it doesn't. I had failed to adequately plan for this trip. Cliff's collection was about 2,500 insulators strong, and he wanted me to take them all. Well, I had a big Suburban and lots of isle space in the travel trailer. "I can make this work," I thought to myself. So about 4 hours later, we had everything packed and loaded - five of us, clothes, food and camping gear for two weeks and 2,500 insulators. I heard the transmission groan as we bid farewell to the Ritchie's and headed for Columbia. 

About 30 miles down the road, the inevitable happened. The Suburban was incredibly overloaded, and we blew a rear tire. The good news is that the Reese hitch on the trailer held up the back end of the Suburban, so I didn't lose control of the vehicle. We came to a safe stop, but we were in a mess -- overloaded, flat tire, two weeks of vacation in jeopardy and 600 miles from home. Plunketts to the rescue. Paul and Ginny came about 60 miles north to meet us with two cars and hauled most of the insulators back to their house. In the meantime, I got another tire, rebalanced the remaining load and arrived about two hours later at the Plunketts. 

After a brief conference and over Carol and my protests, Ginny Plunkett said, "you will stay here and pack these insulators to be shipped home. We'll get boxes, tape and whatever else you need. You'll be able to enjoy your vacation much more without worrying about those insulators." We repacked insulators for three days. Ginny arranged for the pick-up. Two weeks later, we arrived home, and the insulators were waiting there to greet us.

Now, you might think the story ends there, but it doesn't. Carol and I kept that beautiful CD 136.7 in our collection for 11 years. When we decided to publish a new glass reference book for the hobby, we decided to sell the remaining 40 pieces we had in our collection to raise money for the publication. One of those 40 pieces was the apple green CD 136.7. We conducted a lottery at the 1989 Eastern Regional show. We set prices on each of the 40 pieces, and anyone who wanted to bid could put their name into the lottery, and we drew to see who would win the right to purchase each piece. At the time, Bob Pierce (New York) had the finest Boston collection in the hobby. I thought it would be nice to see him win the piece, but we didn't want to show any favoritism, so we went through the lottery process with the CD 136.7 just like all of the rest of the pieces. About 12 people had put their names in for the Boston, and when we pulled out the winning name, guess who? Bob Pierce!! It wasn't until quite a bit later that I found out that about 8 of the 12 names on the list were people that Bob had convinced to enter with the promise that he would buy the piece at a premium if they were to win. It worked out anyway.

To the best of my knowledge, Bob Pierce still owns the apple green 3-segment Boston. To the best of my knowledge, it is still the only one that has surfaced in the hobby. Unfortunately, Cliff Ritchie remembered nothing about where or when he had acquired the piece. Like so many collectors from the 60's, individual pieces didn't take on any special significance -- they were just different from the others in the collection. I'm happy to have been one of the three owners of that very unique insulator in the past 40 years. If you're like me, a lot of insulators have special significance and special stories that go with them and contain lots of interesting history -- old friends (the Plunketts and Pierces), new friends (the Ritchies), danger and rescue (the flat tire), and that great quote, "he has one of EVERY ONE that is pictured in the book." That's my story about the CD 136.7 . . . Believe It or Not!