One of Grampa Mac's Antique Insulator Emporium customers enclosed a copy of Grampa Mac's sales lists from 1978 (that was before Grampa Mac knew he would be Grampa Mac) along with his invoice. I though that you might be interested in some of the insulators that appeared on that list and the prices that were quoted almost 20 years ago.

Then I thought, "maybe the readers would be interested in what kind of an investment those insulators would have been over that 20 year period." So with my trusty financial calculator in hand, I computed the compound interest rate that would have been earned over the 20 year period if, instead of selling the insulators in 1978, I would have held onto them and sold them in 1997.

The table on the next page lists a random sample of the pieces on the 1978 sales list, the 1978 selling price, the 1997 Insulator Emporium catalog price, and the 20 year compound interest rate. As you can see, several pieces sell for less now than they did then, quite a few would have been poorer investments than putting the proceeds in your savings account (about 3% return), many returned less than the current CD rates (about 6%), and very few would have successfully competed against the stock market (10-12%) over that same period of time. 

So while many collectors are surprised at the prices of insulators today, the change in prices over the past 20 years has been pretty comparable to the normal investment vehicles. We've never treated our collection as an investment, but I thought you might be interested to see the comparison for your own amusement. Thanks to Dave Schmidt for sending me my list back. I saw a couple of pieces on it I'd like to have in my collection now (e.g. a CD 134 T.H-E in amber for $70). Believe It Or Not!