The Lowly Telephone Insulator is a Collector's Item

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", January 1973, page 15

(This is a copy of an article by Marlene Adams in The Miami News, August 25, 1972, and was sent in by Alan Rodgers.)

He says he's a polecat.

In fact, they all call themselves polecats--all the collectors of glass insulators, those glinting little objects that decorate the tops of telephone poles and lie in the gravelly stretches where old power lines used to run.

He's Alan Rodgers, 18, of Miami Shores, and he's been collecting the insulators since sixth grade, when a schoolmate sold him his first one.

"I didn't know anybody else who was collecting them," he said, "so I decided to." Since then, his collection has grown, despite a shoestring budget, to over 800 insulators including nearly 250 different kinds.

Alan can keep only about 80 of the insulators, mostly small, colorful glass models, in his bedroom; the rest of the room is occupied by his milk bottle collection, his lightning rod collection, and his antique telephone collection. And there's a corner where he studies, at a desk surrounded by wet- and dry-bulb thermometers, an anemometer, a hygrometer, a wind-direction indicator, and other evidence of his career interest, weather forecasting.

But the sparkling green, amber, purple, and ceramic insulators dominate the scene, and at the moment, Alan. He has constructed a shed for them in the yard of the home where he lives with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Rodgers. Out there, he stores the bulk of his collection, ready to trade with other polecats, mostly by mail.

The insulators, which date back to the invention of the telegraph in the mid-1800s, have become the hobby of thousands of people, including several in Miami. The local "competition" is friendly, but keen, and Alan considers the Dade collections when he plans new acquisitions.

"The next insulator I want to get is a "castle," he said, "because nobody around here has one yet."

The castle is just one of many shapes that insulators come in. Others have been dubbed the bird feeder, the beehive, the bigmouth, and the saddletop.

Though the variety of colors and shapes makes Alan's collection fascinating and diverse, these qualities were never added to insulators to make them more attractive, he emphasized.

The shapes are functional--different uses demanded different styles. Even the rows of tiny beading on the edges of some insulators aren't for decoration: "They're drip points," Alan explained. "Manufacturers thought that rain would be less likely to get into the works if they built the drip points in."

And the colors, ranging from what collectors have dubbed "7-Up green" to carnival-iridescent and "Vaseline" shades, are present because of impurities, or were added to identify different types of power lines. The most common shade, an aqua green, comes from the iron present in the glass--which cost too much to take out. "You see the same shade in Coca-cola bottles," said Alan.

Purple insulators didn't start out that way--they were the industry's attempt to make clear glass. The insulators became purple with exposure to the sun, and Alan said that the really deep shades are found in Florida. He has some northern insulators on the roof now, getting darker.

"When they made the carnival-glass insulators, they weren't after an art object," he went on. "It was an experiment--a gimmick, maybe--to see if they'd behave differently if they reflected a lot."

Most polecats will agree that insulators are mostly "found art"--and they find them by walking along old railroad tracks, or anywhere that telephone and telegraph lines once were carried. Alan's favorite place is in the Jonathan Dickinson State Park, near Fort Pierce.

"There are almost unlimited opportunities for anyone to collect insulators," Alan said. "The only qualifications are that he must be able to walk miles, beg, sneak, climb poles, and talk fast when a sheriff finds him up a pole where he doesn't belong," he grinned.

He explained that with the sudden popularity of insulators, some collectors resort to acquiring ones that are still in use, though he has not. The "good guys" will replace old insulators with new ones, he added; but stealing has become such a problem that several people in Florida have been prosecuted by a railroad company, and jailed.

And occasionally someone gets killed by touching a hot line. Alan rejects such methods because they're illegal and dangerous.

Alan's collection includes insulators from Australia, France, Denmark and Italy, and one that's imprinted "made in Japan." It boasts a huge trolley insulator, made of clay, and others of rubber, Bakelite, and pottery.

Though most of the commonly found insulators aren't worth more than 50 cents or a dollar, some rare items can bring over $500. He has been offered $3,000 for his own collection, but isn't planning to sell. In fact, he plans to develop his specialty, glass insulator spools, though he now displays only eight.

His plans also include studying fulltime at Miami-Dade Junior College in the fall, with an eventual major in meteorology at Florida State University. So his hobbies will grow slowly, hampered by his projected budget problems, for several more years.

Today's power companies are replacing most of the old glass insulators with porcelain ones, where they are used at all, Alan added. Only one company that he knows of is still making glass insulators, and those are mostly for export. So their value will increase as they become more scarce, and as more collectors get in on the hobby.

The collectors are semi-organized, and publish a monthly magazine and yearly directory where Alan's listed. They convene annually, and run local exhibits in conjunction with glass collectors in Florida shows. Alan has exhibited for the past two years, and finds this aspect of his hobby even more rewarding.

"The best thing about the shows isn't the insulators, it's the people who collect them," he said. "I've made a lot of friends."