Help w. Brookfield Insulators

A friend of mine has about 500 insulators that I recently went through. Here are what I thought were the interesting ones from the Brookfield Company.


1. W. Brookfield 45 Cliff St. NY 9
2. W. Brookfield 45 Cliff St. NY 7
3. W. Brookfield 45 Cliff St. NY/ Pat. Jan 25 (too faint)- this one is really crude and heavy
4. W. Brookfield 45 Cliff St. NY




1. very faint dates Feb. 22 1870 Mar. 18?
2. same as above, also Pat. Jan 1870
3. Brookfield New York


These two I thought were the earliest ones:

W. Brookfield 55 Fulton St. NY/ Cauvet's Pat. July 25 1865 Pat. Jan. 25 1870 Pat. Feb. 22 1870



W. Brookfield 1 55 Fulton St. NY E.R. (near heel)/ Cauvet's Pat. July 25, 1865

You're finding some nice stuff! Most of these are much better than common.

First photo - the two on the left are telephone ponies, CD 102. The crown embossed Brookfields with the 45 Cliff St address date from the 1882-1890 period. They're listed in the book in the 5-10 range for aqua. The 7 and 9 are shop numbers. Glass workers received payment by the piece, so each "shop" (typically a team of one experienced glass worker and two boys or younger, less-experienced men) had their own molds. An employee tallied the day's production of finished insulators by the shop number.

The second two on the right are single skirt signals, CD 134. These were typically installed on fire alarm lines or other low-voltage applications. Lots of companies used these in many areas, so they're not big-dollar items despite being old, maybe a couple bucks. You might be able to persuade someone to give you five for the crude one, if they really like the character in it.

Second photo -

All CD 102. The patent date ones without the Brookfield look like Brookfield products to me, but I know some Brookfield experts who say otherwise so I'll let them hash it out. Anyways, those are pretty good items and are from the early days of the telephone. Book price is 5-10 for most varieties in aqua.

The skirt-embossed Brookfield (far right) is later, probably the early 1900s and produced by the zillions. Those typically don't have collector value unless the glass shows some unusual character.

Third & fourth photo -

Is this the same piece? You're right, that's definitely an early piece and the best of the lot. It's a CD 133 that Brookfield produced for the Erie Railway in the 1870s, hence the ER on the skirt. It's a great item, and yours has the added bonus of bold embossing, which makes it more appealing since a lot of crown embossed Brookfields are tough to read. Book is in the 20-30 range. All the ERs I've seen in this style have shop number 1.

Great info, thanks Bill!

There are two Cauvets, I listed the different embossing above each picture. Unfortunately the ER one has a bit of skirt chipping :-(

Yeah... seems like the nicest insulators attract the rock-throwing kids and bb gun warriors. []

Both the Cauvet pats date from around the same period. The one without the ER comes in several variants in the 5-15 range.