The Great Insulator Dig of 1977
by Charlie Angevine

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 1977, page 22

During the long cold winter of 1976 to 1977, I decided that once warm weather returned, an insulator dig would be in order. I had lightly scouted the site, an old power company property, several years back. At that time not much could be done because the ground was still frozen. 

Finally this spring the frost seemed to be out of the ground, so the date of May 7 was chosen for the expedition. The day turned out to be a beauty, with bright sun, but still cool enough to make digging fun. My partner, Norm, and I arrived at the site about 9:45. After a little scouting around we attacked the most likely area. 

The area we dug in contained pieces of steel lathe with the plaster still attached, loose bricks, large sections of brick wall, and other minor debris, as well as insulators. We moved many hundreds of pounds of debris in the process of digging a spot about 12' x 12'. Fortunately this is a surface dump, so we had to go only about a foot deep. 

Except for a short lunch break, the digging continued until about 2:30 P.M. During this time we had unearthed some 300 to 400 glass insulators in all varied conditions. Some were VVNM, some had large chunks out, and others were split into many pieces by the frost. We also found another couple of hundred porcelain insulators which we mostly discarded. Upon cleaning and screening the collection prior to leaving the area we wound up with 56 keepers, including 4 porcelain.

Charlie with the First Intact CD 162 & CD 164

Dig Site When We Were Done

Keepers in the Back of the Truck, Ready to Leave for Home

So, home we went, tired but happy after a good day in the great outdoors doing a fun thing. We were even looking forward to going back again when things were right. But, alac and alas, not all stories have happy endings, at least not right away. The dig was on Saturday, and by the Monday following I knew I had brought home more than insulators and pleasant memories.

My forearms and the backs of my hands were covered with poison ivy (So that's what those vines were we pulled up!) blisters. After a $10.00 visit to the Doctor, an $8.75 prescription and a week of misery, things began to improve. Luckily the weather turned cool, so I had a minimum of itching. Norm, being a real outdoor type, only got about a dozen pin head size blisters. Lucky fellow. 

Once I stopped shedding skin and got all healed, I tackled the job of cleaning the insulators. First a detergent bath and scrubbing. Then an overnight acid dip. And then a scrubbing and polishing. They cleaned up so nicely that it is hard to believe they had been buried since 1935. I didn't mention before that we also found a pile of 1934 license plates, which dates the dump. 

We were amazed when we checked each piece carefully to compile the attached list. Who could have expected to see so many different CD's by so many different makers in the same dump? The line number shown on the list refers to Milholland's 1976 price list.

Insulators Dug May 7, 1977