There are a lot of interesting porcelain insulators to report. We never seem to get to all of them. And this year I've gotten behind with new PIN articles from all the work on the yard recovering from hurricane Rita. We lost over 30 trees in our yard in southeast Texas but no damage to the house or insulators. Still don't have all the stump holes filled in but the persistent rains have brought us more than a year's supply by August 1, which let the grass cover up all the bare areas in the yard.

One of the reports this month is from five years ago followed by a second find of the same style in 2003, so let's start with that one. In 1901, Ken Willick uncovered at the Lima factory dump (Lima, NY) a damaged specimen of a larger style Eveleth patent 2-part porcelain insulator (8.5 - 4 x 4.5). Ken did a nice repair job on the insulator to restore it to its original glory. To backtrack a bit in the story, the original Eveleth style was M-2202 (7 - 3.5 x 4). These were made for General Electric by the Lima Insulator Co., which was started by Fred Locke in 1904 and destroyed by fire in 1908.

Ken Willick's GE Eveleth patent insulator, M-2505,
which is 1.5" larger in diameter than M-2202.

Charles Eveleth obtained patent 917,031 in 1909 for a unique insulator design. The top skirt was made with deep V-shaped grooves in the top surface, which allowed the insulator to break in a minor way from stones thrown at it without damaging the bulk of the insulator. In other words, a chunk would break off, but the body of the insulator and the crown would remain undamaged allowing it to continue in its service and safely support the conductor.

Robert Winkler found an article about the Eveleth insulator in the "General Electric Company" Bulletin No. 4808 dated Dec. 1910, which indicated the location of line where M-2202 (7-inch style) was used. Mike Spadafora provided this additional information after a long phone call to Robert. In the late 1960's or early 1970's, Dave Ramp removed four M-2202's on the Illinois Terminal Interurban in rural Illinois. They were used in a few select locations only as the support for the primary guide cable for the cantenary on the main line where single wood poles supported the line. The insulator was clamped to an angle iron support arm that was attached to wooden poles. When the line was converted to diesel in the early 1950's, the M-2202 units were removed. This comprises all that now exist (4 or 5). In 2004, one M-2202 was sold on eBay and it likely was from the original discovery. All had some damage and none were mint. The rest were likely smashed when the large iron pins and support arms were scraped. The large Eveleth insulators (M-2505) were used on an interurban line near Baltimore, Md. They were removed in the late 1920's when the line was upgraded for a higher voltage. It is remarkable any of these survived. None had until Ken Willick's discovery of M-2505 at Lima.

Fred Collier's mint M-2505.

View of the top of Fred's M-2505 showing the deep V-grooves designed 
to break off minor chunks when struck by rocks instead of much greater 
damage to the insulator that would render it useless as an insulator for 
the heavy conductor.

Then in 2003 Fred Collier reported getting a nice specimen of M-2505. The dimensions on Fred's insulator were a bit different (8.2 - 3.5 x 4), but still M-2505. It is complete and the condition is VVVNM. Some would call it MINT because the tiny scratches and dings are just that...tiny! Fred said he got it from Claude Wambold who picked it up from a bottle dealer at the March 2003 Baltimore Bottle Show. Claude had removed the metal pin and discarded it. When I first saw photos of Fred's insulator, I thought it was M-2202 and already forgotten about Ken's find two years earlier.

M-3123 Thomas with beautiful glaze. 
Note blue-jean seam inside the bottom skirt.

Very unusual, early Thomas incuse marking on the crown of M-3123.
 Note to usual cracking around the crown from cement expansion.

M-3123 is a rare Thomas style. (Left hand pictures) Only three have been reported and all were unmarked. We know they were made by Thomas since the blue jean seam was found inside the bottom skirt and the style is shown in early Thomas catalogs. The three were found by Al Perry in the late 1960's near the Palmer Gulch mine in South Dakota. I believe all had some crown cracking from cement expansion. Recently Jeff Markwart reported getting a fourth one in Rapid City, SO. What makes Jeff's M-3123 unique is it has an incuse Thomas marking on the crown and it is a marking style never reported before. The marking is one of the most attractive, stylish markings and appears the marking device was handmade.

At least two specimens of U-662 (pictures below) have been reported with a large incuse marking B166 on the side of the crown. Jeff Hogan recently reported that he has one and that he has two other styles with similar markings but different numbers. One is U-296 with B131 and the other is U-171 with B141. Jeff was thinking Westinghouse could have made them, since that company used 3-digit catalog numbers; however, I searched all of my catalogs and cannot find any numbers close to these that match the insulator style. In addition, no Westinghouse catalog I have shows a haystack.

U-296, U-171, and U-662

I then looked through catalogs for all other companies and could not find anything close. Most companies use either a 1-digit, 2-digit, 4-digit, or 5-digit catalog number. So now we are left to glaze and other characteristics. Originally I suspected Thomas for the B166 I have, but the glaze colors on Jeff's two other styles seem to rule out Thomas. Not sure I can attribute them to Westinghouse either. Even thought possibly the "B" stood for Baltimore plant for Locke insulators, but that proved not correct. Hartford Faience marked many of their insulators with numbers like "A128" which were their catalog numbers. Maybe they had a line that used "B" numbers and a different catalog numbering? Basically, all avenues of guesses cannot be substantiated. If you have any insulator with the B-numbering or can offer some evidence as to which company made the three insulators Jeff has, please contact Jeff or me.

Fred Collier is always coming up with an unusual and interesting find as the first insulator we discussed can attest. Most of the gray-glazed multipart insulators that have been found were used in the western U. S. probably because many of the early power lines were so distant from population areas, which afforded a better chance for survival. It simply was not worth the effort to haul out the junk insulators through mountainous terrain when the line was upgraded. Fred loves to go to flea markets and last year he made an incredible find of an early gray M-2470 marked VICTOR.

M-2470 with incuse Victor Marking,

This is the only gray M-2470 that has been reported. The chipping around the underside of the top skirt edge certainly does not devalue this jewel significantly. M-2470 was Locke No. 408B. It was specified on several interurban electric railways in Ohio but the pieces that have been found made by Locke and Lima were brown glazed as well as the only known specimen in Dennis Stewart's collection. The style was also cataloged by New Lexington, Ohio Brass, and Pittsburg, so no doubt many M-2470's were used. Multipart insulators with a gray glazed were used from about 1903 to 1912 with Locke producing gray multiparts into the late 1910's for lines in the northwest. All gray-glazed multipart insulators are very desirable to collectors for their beauty, age, and scarcity. The obvious delicate nature of this tall lily-shell style and cement expansion problems inherent in many of these early insulators necessitated replacement by the 1920's. Those that did survive mostly undamaged for the next 80-90 years lying on the ground covered by soil and debris had to be in rather remote or infrequently traveled areas. In some cases, lone survivors were found attractive by a lineman and brought home to be used as a door stop. But, then the next couple of generations of his descendents had to find them attractive enough to keep from an untimely place in a landfill. If Fred's M-2470 could talk it would have some interesting stories to tell.