After the August "Boston" article, which took a lot of time, I thought I'd get lazy and do another update on some past articles and give a little info on the National held in Denver in July. Starting with the "patent" featured in the April '79 issue of C.J., there is more info on the Johnson & Watson. 

The same day I received my April issue last spring, I also left for a research trip to northeastern Pennsylvania and New York State. After arriving at George Lahm's, I found myself literally covered with hundreds of patent copies, catalogues, and various other information which George had collected over the years. The four day visit with George was very educational and rewarding. George and I went to Hawley, Honesdale, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, for two days and did some research on Harloe. We found some history on him, which, hopefully, will open new doors for research. Hopefully, we can piece together some missing info and do a Harloe article in the next few months, so I'll save the material for then. 

Among the many patent copies George had (getting back to my subject, finally) was the Johnson & Watson Patent. It was number 888,616, granted to Chauncey C. Johnson, Scranton, Pennsylvania; and John W. Watson, Pittston, Pennsylvania. It was filed on October 26, 1907, and granted on May 26, 1908. This is a much later date than I had guessed it would be, especially for a segmentally screw threaded insulator. Scranton is not very far from Hawley, and I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps either Johnson or Watson had seen a Harloe insulator and made a "revision" of it.

Spending an entire day in Scranton, George and I could not find any material on Watson; but we did find some interesting information on Johnson. Chauncey C. Johnson was listed in the 1904 Scranton Directory as a lineman. 1905 finds him as an electrician; 1906, a wireman. His occupation is listed under various titles, all referring to working with electricity in later years. In 1930 he was listed as a superintendent of line construction. The listings form 1904 to 1937 were relatively complete. He must have died in 1938, as there is a Margaret Johnson, widow of a C. Johnson, listed in 1939. 

Jack Gooden, Jr., Medford, New York, reported owning a Johnson & Watson insulator also! According to Jack, the top and base are damaged, but it is an excellent example of the segment threads. Damage or not, it's a rare piece, and he is lucky to have it. I'll try to get back to get a photo of it, and perhaps we can make a color comparison someday to see if it was made in the same run of glass. 

The "Corkscrew" was covered in the May '79 C.J. Tom Moulton has since reported another base embossing variation on the small style. He reports he owns one with larger embossing than normal, and also that the base is flat, rather than curved, as is normal. 

Kenneth House, Longwood, Florida (formerly of "Opossumtown Pike" in Virginia -- now that's a real name for a road) reported finding half of a CD 110.5 corkscrew approximately one mile east of Frederick, Maryland, a few years back. It was in a dump near a telephone line which contained CD 121's and 102's, So that makes another area where they were used. Kenneth also reported that the C & P TEL Co item shown at the right was found in the same dump. 

While at the National in Denver, Dick Bowman, Webster, New York, allowed me to photograph his large corkscrew shown at the left. 

Also, mentioned in the "Corkscrew" article was the fact that the CD 104 National had a slug plated area on the back side similar to that found on the arc embossed New Eng Tel & Tel Co corkscrews. Jarl Anderson, East Freetown, Massachusetts, reported his lime green CD 104 National with NET&T embossing also has the slug plated area. I failed to mention there is also a small circle inside the oval slug plated area. Jarl also mentioned another very interesting item -- a CD 104 NET&T embossed unit with an unembossed base, regular threads, which so far sounds common; but it has the same slug plated area on the back as the National! Jarl thought perhaps the mold was sold to another manufacturer who made a few of these. Very interesting, Jarl Anyone else own one of these? 

Now for some info on the National show in Denver. There were many nice "patents", both on display and for sale. Somehow, I managed in the busy weekend to get a small amount of photos for upcoming articles, but regret now that I didn't get more. A cobalt Cal. Elec. Patent, cobalt E C & M, and cobalt "blob" created some excitement at one table, and all of them sold very quickly. One table down, a CD 134 cobalt Patent Dec 19, 1871, changed hands. Directly across from that table 30 cobalt Patent May 2 1893, and Hem 19's were sold during the show. And a few steps away, the cobalt Tillotson, CD 731, raffle insulator awaited its new owner. So we had our own "cobalt corner". Most of the rare items offered for sale were threaded items. This was due probably to the fact that the majority of the threadless turn up in the East. While at the show, I talked with Rodney Wing (Michigan) who once owned the CD 145.6 amber Boston Bottle Works. He stated it may have been found in Ohio, rather than in Michigan, and mentioned he would try to find out for sure. If any more info is found on it, I'll put it in an upcoming issue as an update to the August issue which featured the Bostons. 

Rather than report on the threadless at the National in "Threadless Corner" this month, I felt I would let the other photos in C.J. tell that story. There were so many on display, and a few very rare ones for sale. I also took some pictures of a few of these items, which I'll use in upcoming articles. 

Thanks to Jarl Anderson, Dick Bowman, Kenneth House, George Lahm and Tom Moulton for their help this month. Also thanks to Wendall Hunter and Ken Waehner for large amounts of material which I will use in the future.

Happy Collecting!