MORE ON UKRAINIAN INSULATORS

Seven new glass insulator styles from Ukraine have made their way to the U.S.A. since the most recent article on "Foreign Insulators" was published in the June 2000 issue of Crown Jewels of the Wire magazine. There are some beautiful pieces among them. Four of the insulators are skirt embossed with Russian letters, which I've translated to English, though I still don't know what they mean. All seven of the insulators have inner skirts, threaded pin holes and smooth bases. Thanks to N.R. "Woody" Woodward, each of them has a new CD number, so let's take a look.

New CD 540.4

This insulator in medium green is very thick and heavy. It is 4-5/8" tall and has a base diameter of 3-1/2'" The skirt embossing on this one becomes "LIB.OBSHCH" when translated into English. I have no idea what it stands for but it is probably the name of the factory that produced it.

Three new CD 547's

The glass color of all three CD 547's is a medium green. The insulator on the left in the photo is 3" tall with a base diameter of 2-1/4". The embossings on both the front and rear skirts have been converted to English. Thus "HBMAHB 3" is on the front skirt with "OXPAH SSID.No 49515" in the same location on the opposite side. 

CD 547 in the center of the photo is also 3" tall with a base diameter of 2-1/8". The English translation of the skirt embossing is "E.GOLCBBEB".

CD 547 to the far right is 3-1/4" tall and its base diameter is just a whisker under 2-3/8". The English translation of the skirt embossing is "D.B.Z" with "No 6" in the same location on the opposite side. Given time and the right person to ask, I will find out what all these letters and numbers are trying to tell us.

New CD's 568.6, 568.7, and 568.8

All three of the these next insulators are unembossed. CD 568.6 on the left is 3-1/2" tall with a base diameter of 2-3/8". It is a pretty delft blue with two small raised dots on either side of the conductor groove, plus one in the middle of the front skirt and another on the rear skirt right near the base. I've been scratching my head wondering what those dots were for?? All explanations or guesses are welcome.

CD 568.7 is in the center of the photo. It is 3-1/8" tall and has a base diameter of 2-3/8". The glass color is green aqua with swirls of golden amber running all through the insulator, which makes it very attractive. 

CD 568.8 on the far left is another insulator in pretty delft blue. It measures 2-5/8" in height and the base diameter is 2-3/8".

New CD 570.5

CD 570.5 has no embossing but it does have character! The glass color is a dark Hemingray blue with lots of black "steam" in the dome and a large swirl of it going down through one side of the skirt. Obviously some graphite got mixed in as the glass was being poured into the mold. The insulator is 3=1/2" tall and has a base diameter of 2-1/2".

New CD 579.5

Hey Quent, 

I hope you like the insulators I send you. I'd like to give you some of my conclusions (as of the country's citizen) of the date of production and origin of some of the insulators. 

The inscription "OXPAH SSID.No 49515" (protected certificate N 49515) tells us that the permit for the insulator production was registered and that leads us to sometime before the communism, before 1920.

The production of this kind of insulators was a private business, what was impossible during the Soviet times. Another inscription "HBMAHB 3" (Nyemon) on the other side, supports the idea of the time the insulator was produced (the last letter "b" was not pronounced) at the end of the word and the 2nd letter "b" (reads "ye") had been in use before 1918.

The insulator with the inscription "E.GOLCHBEB" (E. Golubyeu (or "v"), also was produced by a private firm (Golubevb), seems to be the last name of a producer sometime before 1918. The last name ends with the letter 6. That way of writing had been in use before 1918. 

After 1918 the rules of grammar were changed, so last name "GOLCHBEB" would have been written without the "6" after 1918.

The inscription "D.B.Z" may represent the first letters of some name, family name, and last name. In the beginning and at the end we see some kind of figured edging and that also may tell that the insulators belong to the time before 1917.

According to the 2nd version after the revolution of 1917 all the factories that had had sole proprietorship were nationalized and it seems they started producing insulators with the inscription "D.6.3. " on the old equipment. That may mean the insulators were produced sometime in the beginning of the 1920's.

Though there's no inscription referring to the year of production, the grammar and inscriptions themselves tell us they'd been produced before 1920. 

Quent, I hope some of the information given here will be useful for your business.

Sincerely,
Oleg