In the summer of 1986 I came across seven CD 114.2 Standard Glass Insulator CO. of Boston. I found them at an antique shop in Maine. The lady wanted $2.50 for each one. Boy! The old heart almost red lined at the sight of them. I bought them all! They ranged from VNM to NM. I sold six of them and kept the best for my collection. 

In July of 1987 at a flea market in Maine, I bought a CD 145 rim embossed American with three dates in yellow green. It was mint, and the guy wanted one little dollar for it. I also bought a CD 102 Star pony in yellow olive amber. The base had some damage, but otherwise it was mint. I bought that one for $1.00 also. It's quite a pretty piece.

Last May 1988 I actually stumbled over a good insulator. It was found in a river bank. I was told about this piece by a guy who remembered when Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH), the people who have declared bankruptcy, used to dump some of their old insulators and other junk there. 

One evening after dropping my wife off at her computer class, I went down to the river bank. I couldn't go home because the realtor had people over to look at our house. Good excuse to do some hunting. This spot was one half mile from downtown. I looked down in the river from up on the bank, the tide was out and you could see the junk that was lying on the muddy bottom. I saw a no name CD 162 sticking out of the mud lying on its side. It was an insulator, rare or not, I just couldn't leave it here. I started down the steep banking, when all of a sudden the bank gave way. I rode down to the mud flats. I don't surf, but I didn't do a bad job riding the dirt wave down. I bent down to pick up the insulator that I spotted from up above. I cleaned the mud off, and said to myself, "It's mint and with a Brillo pad you'll shine again."

I looked up where the banking once stood and sticking out of the side ten I feet up was another insulator. It looked like a beehive type, but all I could see was the base. I climbed up and pulled it out of the cindery soil. Wow! It was a CD 143.5 (T-H.E. CO.) and it was mint. Not a bad find! After I calmed down, I looked around down by the water. I found a CD 134 T-H.E. CO., several halves of CD 149 in aqua and yellow green. I dug up some CD 102 Brookfields and some CD 162 No Names and Stars. Then I found a couple CD 170 No Names. I found a lot of common glass and porcelain insulators. When I went to pick my wife up from class, she couldn't shut me up until we got home. Oh, well! 

In the spring of 1989, I dug up an unembossed CD 143 Canadian beehive. It was found on the Canadian National Line coming out of Portland Maine. It was mint and icy aqua in color. The weird thing about this insulator is that the side of the crown has a wear mark. Just like it had been place on the telegrapher's chair. I have a CD 102 Star and Brookfield with these same wear marks on them. Things must have gotten pretty bad back then, taking the insulators off the chair and putting them up on the poles.

I've picked up a lot of good glass in the past three years. I'm always out in the Maine and New Hampshire woods and at flea markets digging and buying goodies for my collection, which is growing bigger daily. I think I am up to 2000 insulators now. You, too, could become a "phantom of the wires".