Due to the length of my spring research trip to eastern areas, regular news items will not resume until next month. Please address questions to me at 3427 N. 47th Pl., Phoenix, Ariz. 85018. Return postage not required but is appreciated.

Porcelain Universal Style Chart

All the drawings for the Universal Style Chart are accurate scale drawings made from either (1) styles listed in the catalogs of all the porcelain companies from the 1890's to date or, (2) specimens which were never pictured in catalogs.

Companies cataloged items which were popular styles with a number of customers and which the company preferred to make and standardize on. Some styles were made in very large quantities for one or more customers are common in collections but which were never catalog items.

There are somewhat in excess of 200 different glass CD shapes in the glass Consolidated Design chart, but we already have over 800 different porcelain U- shapes in the published porcelain Universal style chart. And the number keeps on growing. Drawings are already complete for 51 more new ones, and this number will swell by the time the next style chart supplement is published.

We are still missing a number of the early classics in the porcelain style chart. In the various catalogs before 1909, the insulators were pictured with some rather fuzzy art sketches only, and the one pictured here is one of the better views. With a few exceptions, we have not yet been able to make accurate drawings of these items for the porcelain style chart and have to hack away at it by making the drawings from specimens as they turn up in collections. We are also hampered by the fact that no person that I know of has located pin type catalogs of Imperial Porcelain Works, Electrical Porcelain & Mfg. Co. and Peru Electric Mfg. Co. (all these from the 1890-1900 period).

Quite some time ago I started a file of what I have always labeled my "best can" drawings, and these are made by referring to the fuzzy pictures and tabulated data in the early Locke, Thomas, New Lexington and Parker (jobber) catalogs. There were over 50 of these originally, but the number has been reduced as specimens showed up so we could make accurate drawings and put them into the U- chart.

The 32 holdouts in this "best can" file are shown on the following pages (1/4 scale). Please pardon the drawing sharpness, but we reduced these twice by Xerox and once by Crown Jewels photog. I would like to hear from anyone who has actual specimens of any of these. A few are somewhat close to items already in the style chart, so please don't write about new items until you have checked them closely with those we already have. The catalog source of each one is shown in the listing below.

One reason for having this file was to make provisions for later assignment of U- numbers in the proper order, as we are perpetually cramped for numbers in some places in the chart. Tentative U- numbers are shown for each item, but permanent numbers are assigned only when items are actually added to the chart - once each year.