NATIONAL - Fancy Colors

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 2000, (Insert) page 30

Terry Kornberg, Andover, Minnesota

The only thing more colorful than Terry's shirt, was his beautiful display of colorful insulators.

Terry says: I've been collecting color for about six years now. I found my first insulator when I was working as a telephone installer -- just a common CD 121 Am. Tel.. & Tel. Co. It was still on a pole and I brought it back to the office. A fellow installer was a collector and he told me about the different styles and colors and that is what got me started. 

I found a CD 145 H.G. Co. Petticoat on a rail line not far from downtown Minneapolis. It was still on the pole and from the ground it looked kinda different, but when I pulled it down it was just aqua. "Ah, another aqua one." But, it still looked different, it looked like a "dirty" aqua. So, I cleaned it and it still looked like it was a dirty aqua. About a year later, I put the insulator under a set of full spectrum light bulbs, and "WOW" it was aqua but with lots and lots of purple swirls. You could almost say that it was an aqua/purple two-tone.

I would like to find a white milkglass (may be beyond the realm of possibility), jade milk, yellow, pink, straw or sapphire blue -- all in a CD 145 H.G. Co. Petticoat beehive.

Terry Kornberg