Letters to the Editor
Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", February 1972, page 27
Dear Don and Dora,
Enclosed is a picture of our COMBINATION SAFETY CD 139. We thought you might be
able to use it on the cover of Crown Jewels. (See cover this issue.) It is aqua
and is embossed on the front COMBINATION SAFETY, and on the back PAT APPL'D FOR.
So far we know of only one
other. We would like to hear from anyone who has one, so that we can get some
idea how many are "in captivity". A friend of ours found this one on
the site of an old factory and gave it to us. He searched and searched for
another one--but no luck.
Am also including three other pictures that I thought you might be able to use
in the magazine. The first is an aqua signal embossed E . L. Co. Have seen only
a few of these around. We call it a CD 466, as it really isn't a CD 166.
The second is a ramshorn set in aqua glass. On the backside is a groove (running
sideways) approximately 2-5/8 inches long, 1/2 inch at its deepest point and 3/8
inches wide. These were used in a wood block. The groove is a key-way used to
position and hold the ramshorn in place in the block. A wooden dowel is inserted
through the block and mated with the groove in the glass.
The third is a glass floor tube. (See picture on following page.) It is aqua
glass and is ~-3/~ inches tall, 2 inches wide at the top and 1-1/2 inches wide
at the bottom. It is used to run wires from one floor to another or through a
wall in a building. It is smooth on the inside with external screw threads.
Hope these can be of some use to you. We have been receiving Crown Jewels about
two years now and enjoy every issue. Hope you both had the best of holidays.
Will be
looking forward to the next issue.
Sincerely,
Jarl and Karen Anderson
3842 Acushnet Avenue
New Bedford, Mass. 02745
A very belated Thank You to Steve Blair and Ed Hollar for
setting up the Mid-Ohio in Nov. I've been collecting for only 8 months, so was
thrilled to get a Mulford & Biddle. Also, thanks to you for your wonderful
magazine! I read it before any other each month.
Jan Smucker
210 Webster Park Ave.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Dear Dora.
Your note on page 32 of the November issue of "Crown Jewels" has
finally inspired me to write (although I find it hard to understand how you can
get caught up by soliciting more mail)!
My husband and I have been collecting insulators for about one year now, and
although we have only a modest collection, we very much enjoy reading your
magazine.
Last April, as a birthday present, my husband built for me a
telephone pole insulator display, which I thought you might enjoy seeing a
picture of. The pole itself is an old cedar one, seven feet high, that has two
crossarms with six pegs each. The base is made of half-inch steel plate with a
piece of eight inch steel pipe welded to it. Its total weight is about three
hundred pounds. We have it in our hallway, and it brings some very interesting
comments from our visitors.
Hope to meet you at a show sometime.
Sincerely,
Heidi D. Owens
P.C. Box 05
Westmoreland, N.Y.
13490
A note to clarify our wanting material early. Our printer and publisher lives
600 miles south of us. I gather the material and mail it to them, and they work
it into a readable magazine and print it. All of this takes time, so the sooner
I can mail the material to them, the sooner they can get to work on it and ship
it back to be addressed and mailed to you. Then it's up to our slow U.S. Mails.
I have applied for 2nd class mailing permit, and hopefully by the time you read
this the Postmaster General in Washington, D.C., will have approved it. This is
a lot of red tape, but if it improves the mail delivery to our friends and
subscribers far away from California, it's definitely worth the effort.
Your Editor
Here is a photo showing how we used some insulators for Christmas decorating.
We had a lot of compliments on them.
We enjoy and look forward each month to the Crown Jewels. We learn so much from
it. We just started this hobby back in July, 50 we don't have anything of too
much value yet, except hours and hours of enjoyment. I, too, used the insulator
pictured on front of the December issue for a centerpiece, only filled with
goodies. Just a sharing of ideas. Thank you for the enjoyment we get from Crown
Jewels.
Mrs. Donald Bouee
903 E. Harvard Place
Ontario, California 91764
Dear Dora & Don,
Please renew our subscription for another year.
We collectors really appreciate your efforts in our behalf. Here in cold and
snowy Wisconsin the winter is long, and Crown Jewels really makes the time go
fast until we can hit the trail again.
They were very pretty. We were a little worried that they might be stolen, but
we didn't lose any.
Here in Wisconsin we had our first swap meet in Elkhora on Sept. 26th and had
30 tables sold. People came from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and
Indiana. It was run by Vic and Doris Kranitz, Grove Harkriess and Jim and Bette
Grimm. We had an excellent turnout and a great
day.
It seems insulator collecting is on the increase in our area. Many new
collectors came and really got a start.
Bette Grimm
Bt. 2 Box 212
East Troy, Wisconsin 53120
Dear Don & Dora,
We have taken your magazine for 2 years now and just love it, have answered many
ads and go to the States and take Crown Jewels with us, look up all the
collectors from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and meet the people
and trade with them. All were terrific people.
I started my little boy collecting at 3 years of age. We all collected some type
of antiques and tried to find something masculine for him to collect and
something he could find himself. I bought books and got so interested in it
myself, I have made insulators my collection, so now we have 2
insulator collectors in the house. My little girl, 6 years old, collects Avon
bottles, but she works very hard walking lines and carrying heavy armfuls of
insulators. Since I lost my husband 2 years ago, this fills our time. All summer
we walk the lines. This past summer the children and I walked an 80 mile
abandoned CP~ telegraph line--took us 2 months (on weekends). We ran into a
snake, jackrabbit, cows on the rampage, lots of birds, got a lot of beautiful
fresh air and sunshine and nature study, plus a lot of nice insulators,
including Withycombe and Foree Bain, also purple ones. All three of us love it.
Here is something cute my little boy said one time. For a change I had bought
Delicious apples instead of the usual MacIntosh. Then the next time I bought
Macs again, and he asked, 11Mommy, why don't you get the apples with the drip
points again?"
Anyway, here is a clipping you may use in Crown Jewels if you want. It appeared
in the Family Living section of The Herald Saturday, September ~, 1971. Wish we
were closer to the shows and other collectors. There aren't too many collectors
around here, but it is catching on.
Sincerely,
Vivian Olson
11~0 - 120 Ave. S.F.
Calgary 33, Alberta, Canada
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