TRAMPS. CALIFORNIA made three of these. We know them as the C.D. 190/191 TWO-PIECE, the C.D. 200, and the C.D. 201. Of the five or so CAL's that are really rare, these three surely fit in. The TWO-PIECE is one of the rarest, if not THE rarest. There are only about a dozen of these in collectors' hands today. As far as I know, all were found in California, in the south central coast area. I have one of these in my collection. So far, with mine included, I have seen three of these, and so far, no two have matched in color.

The tops are consistently a nice medium dark purple. This is very purple with no smoke. The bases, on the other hand, have yet to even come close to each other. Mine is yellow. A collector a few miles north of here has one with a base that is smoke with little or no purple in it, And I got to peek at one that had just sold, and its base was a nice purple that matched the top. These guys come embossed: on both top and bottom. Every top I've seen has had weak embossing with the "A 021" barely discernable. 

The bases have all had very bold, sharp embossing. The "A 021" on these didn't fare so well as the "CALIFORNIA", but it is quite plain. These guys, like the other tramps and the sharp dripped C.D. 161, are tough to put a set value on. They just don't sell that often, and when they do, the asking price is usually paid. The one I saw sell took $600. It was absolutely mint, without a scratch on it, and the colors matched. I gave four and a quarter for mine. It is in pretty good shape, too, but the colors don't match. I think the purple/yellow combination is fantastic, but most people don't like mismatched two-piecers. 

The 200 comes in two shades of purple. I have one on loan right now that is the more common smoke-purple. They also come in a beautiful medium dark purple much like the C.D. 191 top piece. These are pretty tough to find, but they don't seem to price any differently than the smoke-purple ones. The C.D. 200 really isn't as rare as one might think. They are probably the most desirable CALIFORNIA and are sought by CALIFORNIA specialists and "general" collectors alike. For this reason, the 200 doesn't last long on sales tables. They generally price in the $200-$250 category. I saw one of the dark ones go for $165! 

There are about 75 200's around these days. Most were found in the Los Angeles area and southern San Joaquin Valley. They have been found scattered here and there up the coast all the way to the border. Someone lucked out and brought a bunch down off the top of a building in Tacoma, Washington. I think they found five or ten of them. Poor soul.

The 201 is a super rare one. Thirteen of them have been found. Most of those were found in the L.A., Watts area. As far as I know, they only come in one color, aqua. It is a greenish aqua that really isn't anything spectacular in itself. The only thing that makes this thing desirable is the CALIFORNIA embossing on the small flat skirt area between the lower wire-groove and the base. This area is extremely thin. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these were found with no lower skirt section. I gave $250 for mine. It has two chips of thumbnail size, one on the skirt, and another directly above it on the umbrella that removed a bit of glass. The only other one I know the price paid for, took four hundred dollars. It also had two thumb-nailers on it, both on the umbrella. They didn't take near as much glass with them as mine did. I would think $500 would be about right for a good mint one. 

CALIFORNIA made some oddballs that they didn't make a whole variety of (like their signals) that don't really fit into a category such as "signals" or "communications". Utilizing great creativity and imagination, I call this group "the oddballs"! Under this heading fall the C.D. 187 "THRU-HOLE" and the C.D. 1130 "EGGs". 

The CALIFORNIA C.D. 187 has never struck me as being a very pretty insulator. Their color is always dingy and washed-out, so they never have much "show". I have only one of these. It is smoky-clear. I've seen smoke-yellow, smoke-purple, smoke, and one that had the purple standing out pretty well from the smoke in it. CALIFORNIA is boldly embossed on the flat skirt section. This embossing is upright, so when this insulator was used as it was designed to be, the embossing was upside-down. The folks at the CALIFORNIA plant took these to the grinder after cooling. They were made in a break away mold which left nice sharp edges on the top. All the C.D. 187's I have seen have this top ground off. The one in my collection also had the mold line along the base ground off. I gave $18 for mine. Most others I have seen had $25 price tags on them.

There have been two styles, or sizes, of CALIFORNIA "egg" found -- the number 10 and the larger number 15. It was rumored a few years back that a number 20 egg was found near the coast in southern California. I never heard anything more about it, though. I would imagine if a number 20 "egg" were produced, it would be even larger than the number 15 "large egg". Does anybody know anything about this one? I am certainly eager to hear it if there is a story behind it! 

The number 10 and 15 come embossed basically the same way (see sketch), the difference being, of course, the number. Number 15's carry their number in the same place as the number 10's. I have noticed a lot of difference in embossings within each size number. The apostrophe in "APL'D" on the number 15's leans way forward, or curves backward, or sits straight up and down; and the letter spacing is different on almost every one I have seen. Some come with wide spaced words and letters, and others come all cramped up at one end like they ran out of space. It will be a while before I have a whole bunch of these and can really sit down and figure out what they did here. 

The number ten "egg" comes with plenty of variation, too. There are two definite embossing variations here that are worthy of note. The number 10 "small egg" comes with an embossing error, and the other variation comes with the correct embossing. The error is with the word "PAT", where someone forgot to cross the "T", so you get ''PAl APL'D FOR". I have the correctly embossed variation which is a little scarcer. CALIFORNIA number 10 "eggs" are found only in light green. Not really a sage green, either, just a plain (sagy, if you will) light green. The number 15 "large egg" comes in both this light green and smoke-purple. 

Number 10 "eggs", although one of the rarer CALIFORNIAS, have come way down in value. Where they were once selling for $200, they now go for half of that. I paid $130 for mine and have passed up several others for $100 that were in super condition. Number 15 "eggs", not being quite as scarce as the "small egg", do not command such a high price. These usually sell for between seventy-five and one hundred dollars when in mint condition and of the purple coloration. The green ones go for slightly less. 

CALIFORNIA made their strain-"eggs" in a two piece split mold (see sketch for mold line). Because of this molding process, the insulators are left with a large glass button on them where the glass was not fully forced into the mold and cooled in the injection tube. This "button" was usually ground off after cooling, leaving a nice ground area about the size of a nickel on the insulator. Every "small (#10) egg" that I have seen had the ground spot on the upper left quarter when looking at the insulator from the embossing side (see sketch). Number 15, "large eggs", have them on the upper left and lower right quarters when looking at them from this angle. This "button" was formed in a round shape with one half of the circle on each side of the mold line. This was in accordance with the molding process, where if it were formed anywhere but right on the mold line, the mold would be inoperable, or the insulator would be damaged by the separating of the two mold halves. 

CALIFORNIA didn't do a very good job of making perfect specimens when they made these. I don't think I have ever seen one in either size that was nicely rounded or even close to symmetric. They lie over on their side, or one of the quarters was not fully formed because not enough glass was forced into the mold while it was still hot. Because of this, there is little or no shape consistency amongst these units. They all seem to have their own unique little shape that roughly follows what the mold maker was striving for when he made the mold. Both the large and small "egg" have the same basic shape, so I gave only one sketch. The difference is just in size. The small "egg" is approximately (IT VARIES!) 3" long by 2-1/4" high at the widest point. The large "egg" measures about 3-7/16" long by 2-7/16" high at the widest point. It would be a trick to give exact measurements on these because they are always so misshapen.

12 to 15 number 10 "eggs" were found in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Marvin Collins reports that three were also found in Eureka, California. "These were used on the long gone electric street car lines, and all three had the embossing error." That brings a grand total of between 15 and 18 of these guys in collectors' hands. I would think in such small numbers the small "eggs" would be worth much more. So much for my understanding of economics! 

Quite a few of the number 15 "eggs" have been found, mostly in the Los Angeles area and the southern San Joaquin Valley. As for exact numbers on these, I really don't know. I would like to find out the exact numbers on all the rarities just to get an idea of what is out there. If you've got the time, why not drop me a line and tell me what you have?

I would like to express a big thanks to Orval Smith, Chuck Henry, and Marvin Collins for supplying information for this article. Without getting together and helping out this hobby would go nowhere.