Questions Answered  by N. R. Woodward

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", February 1970, page 23

Patrick Sumner asks, "I have seen two Boston Bottle Works with the lettering on the inner petticoat. According to your 1967 Report these insulators were made about 1872. But the petticoat was patented in 1883. So what's a petticoat doing on an insulator made in 1872?

About the Boston Bottle Works insulators with a double petticoat: I've not seen these, but here again, I guess it's human nature to oversimplify and to jump to conclusions. In reading the Report, note: Boston Bottle Works dates were 187Z to 1877. This brings us down considerably closer to the 1883 date. Note also that the 1883 patent provides for a double petticoat with an inner recess for paraffin. This provision would make it possible that the patent would be granted when a few double petticoat insulators had in fact been made previously. We are talking about the same man, Samuel Oakman, all the way through. In actual practice, nearly all double petticoat insulators are definitely subsequent to 1883. But this does not prove, nor have I ever said, that it is impossible that some were made earlier. In fact, the paraffin recess bit would tend to indicate that there may well have been some double petticoats made earlier. In patent strategy it is often necessary to include another feature, as was done here, to cover a pre-existing feature which is really of greater importance.

It would then take a clever researcher to discover that the patent would not actually prevent manufacture of a particular feature included in it: and it would further take a clever attorney and some legal doing if the patent holder filed suit!

Gertrude Wyer asks, "I have another insulator I hope you can identify for me, which I bought in a shop this weekend, It was molded in 3 pieces, signal, and has a crude swirl starting thread which starts at the base, no inner skirt, no embossing, aqua in color and measures 3 7/8" across the bottom x 4" high. 1 1/4" to groove with dome top. The sketch isn't the best, and I'm no artist, but it will give you an idea what it looks like."

Sorry again, I can't add to the knowledge of the Gertrude Wyer insulator. What part of the country it was used in might give an idea, or a look at the insulator itself. But I don't seem to recognize it from the sketch.