Last year I wrote a couple of stories about the good old days when insulators were still plentiful on poles. If you were lucky, you could pick some off the ground where the linemen left them. Some linemen would give insulators to you just so they didn't have to take them back to the shop.

I had a lineman once who gave me a bucket full of insulators that he had taken down that day. In the bucket were two Homer Brooke's signals. He thought I might like them because they were a pretty blue. If he only knew! Several linemen would save insulators for me. And once in a while, on a Friday, I would stop off with a cold 12-pack to give them.

If you know any old linemen in your area, talk to them and ask if they threw away the glass and porcelain insulators, and where. I found a dump out at Newark, Ohio by asking the linemen on the railroad where they threw the glass. Trust me, I helped tear down old lines a few times. The glass gets heavy real fast. That's why the linemen would look for a steam, or drainage ditch, or even a cave to hide the insulators.

I have talked to many old telephone and power workers, and they told me they hid insulators all over (the hills in Southern Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. So you know workers did the same all over the country. Linemen were only concerned about the copper wire and thought nothing of the insulators.

In a couple of years when I retire, again, I am going to spend a lot of time in the hills looking for hidden caches of insulators. I have been checking some abstracts of the land in Ohio where I used to live. The route of a railroad was changed in 1870 there. If I can find just one old pole stump, I'll be able to measure out to find the next one. Maybe the pole will be gone and the hole filled up with threadless glass! I just know there remains a lot of glass out there if someone wants to research the lines they might have a chance at finding it.

Ed Hollar, the Old Polecat

Editor's Note: Insulators embossed with the name Homer Brooke's are found in a distinctive color affectionately called by collectors, "Brooke's blue". Brooke's insulators in that color are the CD 133.1 signals Ed described above, as well as the CD 120 style. The diagram shown on this page is from "Insulators Price Guide" by John and Carol McDougald. The Price Guide is the most important reference book on North American Glass Pin type Insulators.