2004 National Show - Part C
Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 2004, page 40
Kids Korner
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Clay Bledsoe won the NIA's award for the best display by a junior collector.
He exhibited insulators known by nicknames such a frog, castle, overcoat, and
bat ears.
Crown Jewels .also presented an award to Clay, a token of our appreciation
for the hard work that goes into creating a display.
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WALK-INS
SHOW & TELL
One of the exciting aspects of insulator shows is to see what insulators
"walk in the door". Among such items at New Kensington were these
three. The color of the CD 132 Hemingray "bullet" just screams for
attention. The CD 736 E.R.W. threadless "hat", on its original pin,
was purchased at an estate auction by John Mesmer. It had been used inside the
train station in Garrettsville, Ohio. The insulator was rescued just before the
station was demolished in the 1970's. The off-clear CD 1000 glass block is a new
find. Doug Williams discovered it while digging for insulators along the
Virginia Central Railroad. Even damaged, the insulator is a great find.
IDENTIFYING HEMINGRAY-MADE OIL LAMPS
Using shards of glass dug from the Hemingray dumps in Muncie, Indiana,
Roger Lucas displayed oil lamps that correspond to the broken fragments. Roger
says he doesn't believe there are any oil lamps marked with the Hemingray or
H.G. Co. name. But using shards found at the dumps, Roger and others (including
Bob Stahr) have been able to solve the puzzle. Roger says the fact that the
shards were found at the plant site, and not in a public dump, supports their
contention the lamps are Hemingray products. The color of the glass also matches
known Hemingray products.
DANGER: Bill Sutliff exhibited an interesting collection of insulator
go-withs: porcelain signs warning people to stay away from power lines. Among
the wide array of signs displayed were those shown above, many from foreign
countries.
| BACK TO BASICS
Matthew Kancle's display of insulators found "in the wild"
in just the last few years won the NIA's award for Best General Display. |
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Determined collectors: Marco Schmitz-Le Hanne traveled from
Germany, and James Bancroft from England, to attend the National Show. Next
year's national will be in San Jose, California July 8-10; and is sponsored by
the Nor-Cal Insulator Club. Photographs for this article were taken by Kevin
Jacobson & Howard Banks. Color printing was provided by Tommy Bolack.
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