May 1980 Foreign Insulators

First of all, I'd like to correct an error that appeared in my article on New Zealand in the January 1980 issue of Crown Jewels. This was my fault. When I talk, I mumble, and when I write, I jumble! I stated that Lu Farin (Decatur, Texas) has a collection of 3,000 pictures. That word should have read pitchers. She does have a magnificent collection of pitchers in all sizes, shapes and colors, made of every conceivable material -- silver, pewter, glass, straw, eggshells, tin, etc. She has right handed pitchers, left handed pitchers, and pitchers with no handles at all. Sorry, Lu!

But the good news is that during a recent visit to her house, we found the answer to a question I'd asked in last month's article on NGK insulators from Japan. I was puzzled as to who had manufactured a Japanese insulator with a sort of triangular looking logo. Lu discovered that this same logo also appeared on some of her insulators, but with the letters NGK included, plus the date of manufacture. So now we know that NGK used this trademark as well as their usual one. This probably could have depended on (1) the age of the insulator, (2) the consumer for whom it was made, or (3) which of the four NGK plants manufactured it. I don't know the answer to that.

I recently had the good fortune to add to my collection the insulator pictured at the left. I'm really excited about this one. (Thanks, Pete Bishop -- Columbus, Ohio.) It has no real CD number, because, to my knowledge, it's never been listed; but it falls somewhere between CD 104 and CD 124.6. The color of the glass is a real pretty green. (See sketch of this one on the following page.)

The E.S.A. tells us that it is of Spanish manufacture, but the NEXO-6 remains a mystery. Mr. Milholland's book on glass insulators does list an E.S.A. CD 755 similarly marked NEXO-5, same color, which comes from Africa, according to Bill Hungate (Klamath Falls, Oregon). Bill was responsible for this insulator appearing in "the book" to begin with, so I have him doing some sleuthing on this one to see if we can find out what NEXO means. The CD 755 and this new find are the only two E.S.A. insulators we know of, so far, that bear this word NEXO, and I'm assuming they both come from Africa. It is possible that Nexo is the name of the supplier handling the insulators, or the company for which they were made. It is probably a composite word, made up of the first letters of several words. I would also assume that they were made strictly for export, since most E.S.A. insulators have the standard one inch American size pinhole, but these two have the typical small European size, about 3/4" in diameter.

In the midst of all this pondering, a letter arrived from Mel and Marty Harder of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I have their permission to share it with you.

January 29, 1980

Dear Mrs. Albers,

We recently returned to the States after living in Spain for several years. Having renewed my subscription to Crown Jewels after letting it lapse for nearly four years, I was delighted to receive the November issue and read your excellent article on Spanish insulators. My wife and I thought that we were perhaps the only collectors of Spanish glass, but that is what we get for not keeping our "CJ" subscription up to date and thereby in touch with the rest of the world! Your article was most informative and accurate in all respects based on what we learned through the experience of combing the Spanish countryside for insulators during our stay there.

Of all the pictures and listings in your article there was only one item that we had not seen or are familiar with. That being the CD 755 embossed ESA/NEXO-5. I cannot recall ever seeing it in use on the Spanish lines, nor do I remember seeing it at the Esperanza glass factory. I have some catalogs from the Scovi company of Madrid which handles the distribution for Esperanza, and it is not listed as a current item. So if you get a chance I would love to hear more about the CD 755 in regards to use, age, etc.

The CD 803 shown from Mrs. Farin's collection is indeed a nice piece. Have seen them in several colors such as dark green, aqua, pale green and also brown and white ceramic. They are used as a dead end insulator. In the two holes at the top are two threaded bolts with nuts on each end. The line wire wraps around the groove and connects to the bolt. Then it runs to the transformer or house wire from the other side of the bolt. Have seen a nearly identical French insulator marked ELECTRO VERRE in use in Spain and Morocco.

It may be that the CD 800/802 reported by Mr. Shiels are French. There are several styles of French and German as well as American glass in use in Spain. My son found a nice ISOREX gingerbread man on a pole in Cadiz. In talking to some old timers from the Spanish phone company, they believe the reason for so much foreign glass in Spain is due to the widespread destruction and rebuilding that took place during the 1936 civil war. As a matter of fact, one of the frequent finds over there is our old friend the Hemingray 42! I climbed many a rather shaky pole looking for a special find only to come down with a Hemingray.

The CD 154 is one of the most common long distance telephone and telegraph insulators in use. Most are E.S.A. model number 1 with round drips, but if you look hard enough you can sometimes find their model number 7 with a smooth base. They are nearly the same except the model #7 is about 7mm shorter and 7 mm narrower. CTNE (the telephone company) seemed to use mostly the #1 but RENFE (Red Railroad) sometimes used the smooth #7. Both models are still being made by E.S.A.

I am enclosing some snapshots of "aisladores" in action. The one I have marked #1 is what I believe to be rather scarce. In all my travels I only saw or found the two we got from a fallen down abandoned line way back in the mountains near Granada. If you have seen any of these I would appreciate hearing about them. They are almost a 7-up green and are unembossed on the outside. I may separate one of them to see if the top of the inside piece is marked.

Well guess I have rambled on long enough. Mrs. Albers, I would like to have the snapshots returned as I long ago lost the negatives. Hope to hear from you regarding the CD 755.
Sincerely yours,
Mel Harder

I am having copies made of the pictures he sent and will include them in a future article. I sent him a picture of the latest E.S.A. find (NEXO-6) shown above. During a phone call that followed, he said he had seen these in use in Ceuta (Say-u-ta), Spanish Morocco, on low voltage power lines going into houses! So we may have solved the mystery of where in Africa, at least. What could make more sense? At any rate, we will keep you posted. If you're up on your geography, you probably know that in 1975 Spain lost her last vestige of control in Africa when Spanish Morocco became part of Morocco proper -- so it is no more. I feel myself getting hung up on Spanish insulators. Hung upper and hung upper!

As you may remember, I have had some correspondence with Delores and Wayne Dixon in Wiesbaden, West Germany. Wayne made a business trip back to the U.S.A. recently and hand carried three insulators, which he mailed to me from Illinois; one from Poland, one from Portugal, and the one you see pictured on the following page. We swapped -- the Dixons now have an insulator from Russia, one from Iran, and a Japanese porcelain!

The Bundesbahn insulator is used to supply power to the German trains which are electric. The Dixons have several for swapping -- if any of you get the chance to travel near Wiesbaden. The underglaze ink marking on the crown shows the Rosenthal trademark. For information on Rosenthal Industrial Ceramics, please see Matt Grayson's article on German insulators in the June '79 issue of Crown Jewels. He did a lot of research on that one!

I recently acquired two insulators from Grant Salzman of Sacramento, California. These were originally among the group of Russian porcelains and the Persian glass insulators (referred to in the December issue of Crown Jewels) that were supplied by Kurdish tribesmen and then smuggled out of the country! The two I refer to are pictured below. I have also made a rough sketch of one of them on the following page.

These were both found on Russian soil. The glass is a pretty honey color, but it is quite crude and lopsided. They are actually very similar to the ones from Iran (Persia), but are enough different to set them apart. One is unembossed. The other has some very strange letters embossed on the skirt.

At first I thought these letters were Russian, because of the backward N, but then I discovered the other letters did not appear in the Russian alphabet. But just to make sure, I sent it to Donald Fiene, a professor at the University of Tennessee, who teaches Russian and who has made visits to that country. He has quite a collection of Russian insulators himself. A short time later I received the following letter from him, which I have his permission to print. Thanks, Don, for your efforts.

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
KNOXVILLE 37916
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages
Nov. 27, 1979

Dear Marilyn,

I have spent much time staring at the insulator you sent me & trying to figure it out. I also have had two friends of mine look at it -- both of whom know Russian and were recently in the Middle East.

The embossing on this insulator remains an absolute mystery. Our conclusion as to the letters is exactly the same as your, except that we also saw faint indication of one or two more on back side just past mold line. The only indication of a Russian letter is the backward "N", while the two "F"s are definitely not Russian. So perhaps the former really is a backward N, a mistake of the mold maker. The letters make no sense in any combination we can think of. However, we do not know Persian (or Farsi). And somehow I rather doubt that the weird marking on the back is really a Hebrew letter (gimel) or number (3). At the same time, it does not correspond to any Arab number. If the insulator were made in Iran, one would expect Arabic rather than Latin letters. It really does not seem to have been made in the USSR -- and the design is too new for it to have been made a very long time ago (such as before the Revolution). It is simply a mystery. Sorry I could not have been more help to you.
Sincerely,
Don F.

I'm afraid we'll need some more help on this one, or shall it forever remain a mystery?