My wife, Karen and I have been digging and collecting insulators since 1968. This year was kind of tough for digging due to health problems.

But then I received a phone call from an elderly man about having some insulators at his farm. He had heard from a friend that I collected insulators but also had an ad I had run hanging up in his wood shed for over two years. 

He said that he had a few different types of them. I almost didn't go but Karen said lets check them out, "you never know". After arriving at an old farmhouse with a beautiful setting, amongst the hillside, we knew we found the right place. They invited us inside the house. Sitting on the piano were several insulators. A few cables, a purple CD 154 Whitall Tatum, and a CD 170. 

He said there were more in the barn, so we went out to see what else he may have. Inside the barn by his tractor was a box full of insulators along with chicken feathers and a empty oil cans. Sitting on top I noticed right off, with disbelief, a threadless CD 718 in olive green black glass. Next I noticed along with some common miscellaneous pieces there was a Roman Helmet cable. 

An assortment of more common pieces and five CD 718s.

By now my heart is racing, and my adrenaline is running high. Looking very carefully, I notice mixed in the assortment, a few more CD 718's! 1 asked what he wanted for all of them explaining to him that some of them were really old. He said he saved them because of the different odd shapes and colors. 

We both struck up a happy agreement. He was very pleased and I know I was ecstatic! He told me the odd colored ones came from a place out back on his property. This rugged 87 year old told me right where he had found them, but couldn't explain their origin but did add that he would take me to the spot.

When he bought the old farm house, it had a wood crank phone in it and there was an abandoned railroad behind the house. It's anybody's guess at this point in time where the insulators were used. 

What's really interesting is after all of this time that he remembered the very spot where he found the threadless insulators 50 years before. I dug around for several hours in the area. 

The area surrounded by a swamp, dense brush and skunk cabbage along with cat-a-nine tails and flanked with white cedar trees.

"Duke" and George find a threadless yellowish green olive
 blackglass CD 718 in the roots of a cedar tree.

After removing most of top covering, it looked like the upper layer was dumped from the old farmhouse. The next layer appeared to have been dumped earlier. It was deeper and I found bottles, barbed wire and old buckboard parts along with battery jars and wire. I was getting tired and almost ready to quit, when I moved a small cedar tree that was growing in the middle of the dig area. It was falling over so all I had to do was turn it in a circle until the roots popped out. 

When the roots popped out so did a bright, shining, perfect cd718! It was yellowish olive green black glass. I couldn't believe how clean and bright it looked after all these years, hiding below the ground in a bed of soft cedar needles. By this time I had a grin from ear to ear. 

An unforgettable experience. This was our first threadless find! We have found some pretty nice glass through the years but never a whole threadless insulator. 

Enjoy searching and don't give up, "you never know" what is still out there.