MAC's Believe It Or Not!

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 1985, page 10

My "Believe It or Not" story this month is about a piece I feel fortunate to have as part of my own collection. Two things about it are very common: it's a Brookfield, and its aqua. But it also has two rather uncommon features: its CD number is 134.6, and it's embossed Philadelphia/Pat'd April 17, 1896. If you're not a CD "freak," you can find it on page 129 of Milholland's 4th Revision, and it carries the nickname of the Philadelphia "Mad Hatter." To the best of my knowledge, it is "one of a kind." (If any of you know of others, I would be most interested in learning of them.) 

The story of this insulator's travels is fairly uninteresting. It was picked by Ronn Walker of New Jersey and purchased by Bill Cosner of Pennsylvania when he was at the height of his collecting activity. When Bill started to piece out his collection, I was lucky enough to be there to add this beauty to my own collection. Normal enough, right? For some time, I thought that was all there was to the story.

In 1978, we were on our way back from the Reno National, and had heard that if we ever expected to see the Muncie dump, we'd better do it because it was about to be filled to create a parking lot. We knew nothing about Muncie except the name of former dealer/collector, Ken Roach, who lived there. We called, him, and like most collectors, Ken was kind enough to invite us over to talk insulators and give us directions to the dump.

CD 134.6 Philadelphia "Mad Hatter" My wife, Carol, loves this piece since it is from her "hometown."
Left: Front embossing	Right: Rear embossing

Among the many things we talked about while we visited were "unusual insulators we had known." I mentioned the "Mad Hatter", and Ken said he didn't know the piece. I pulled out my Milholland book and proudly pointed out one of my priced possessions. Ken looked carefully at the picture, thought for a minute and then said, "You know, I was in Philadelphia 10 or 12 years ago walking down by the shipyards casually looking around, including studying the insulators in the area. I remember looking up and seeing an insulator on a pole that looked just like this one. It was so unusual, I made a note of the location, determined to come back the next day to get it for my collection. I came back the next day, and it was gone!" The information Ken gave me about the insulator corresponded exactly with the story Bill Cosner had told me about the time, location, and acquisition of this piece. A scant 24 hours difference ten years before and that chance meeting between Ken and me might have resulted in him telling me about a super piece HE had in HIS collection -- the Philadelphia "Mad Hatter." "Believe It Or Not!"

P.S. I stopped to see Ken again last month, and I'm happy to report the he is going to become active in insulators again -- a real plus for the hobby. Welcome back, Ken.