What is more heart breaking than to chip, crack, break or bruise a coveted insulator that either you have had for a long time and it is the only one like it you have in your collection and none of your insulator friends have one like it. Or maybe you have just found a strange, different type or color you have never seen before and it's in good condition and you are elated.

Old Buddies--TAKE CARE!!! This glass is brittle! It may be thick and heavy, may have withstood many a cold hail storm, freezing weather, lightning storms, hot sun that fried it to a crisp and other hazards we don't even know about. But, boy, when we get our hot grasping little hands on it from then on it becomes FRAGILE!

Recently we had an old Brookfield 55 Fulton St./Cauvet Pat W.U.T. get a big bruise on it on the way home. We thought it was wrapped fairly well. We were bringing home quite a few insulators and apparently we must have been careless, of all things, with the oldest and only one of that type we had. They aren't the easiest ones to acquire either, so do pamper and wrap them well in newspapers and pack them in a partitioned box.

Handle insulators with TENDER LOVING CARE whether they are yours or someone else's!

Many of ours get chipped right here in our home by careless or thoughtless friends who just had to pick them up and look at them and in setting them back down (their eyes already straying to yet a different one).

BANG! Into the top or side of another insulator- -Whoops! There goes a drip point or two plus maybe a ding on top or chip on the edge of the wire groove of the one they hit.

It doesn't take much of this to cost you money, temper, and some nasty thoughts about your FRIENDS -- or your kids' friends. Well, you collectors who have had it happen to you know what I mean. When a non-collector enters your home, it's just an irresistible urge to pick up those pretty odd shaped colored hunks of glass and your heart stops beating for a moment and you pray! If it gets set down again gently all in one piece, then you can breathe again.

I have found that styrofoam or felt, under the insulators, helps to prevent breakage. Maybe some of you readers have better suggestions. If so we would like to hear them. Please write, as any ideas would be appreciated to help prevent breakage and preserve friendships.

There wouldn't be much fun in collecting if we couldn't display our prizes and show them a little. It's really fun to have strangers to our hobby walk through our front door and see the expression on his (or her) face when they see our insulators. Most of them just can't believe there are so many different kinds of colors and shapes. One thing for sure, we never lack for something to talk about and few, if any, ever seemed bored. Most people seem eager to learn what we know.

So please remember T.L.C. Handle with Tender Loving Care whether your own or someone else's and there will be less heartbreak and insulator break.