Insulator dump

[appliedlips]

Charlie,if you seen dark red insulators you better go back and get them.

 

[RED Matthews]

Hello, I just wanted to see if you insulator people are familiar about how to tell if the screw threads in an insulator were put in by a manual screw advanced plunger or a machine advanced screw plunger. The hand pressed ones are the only ones I get serious about keeping. The earliest glass insulators were square.
The threadles round ones are very expensive - I only have one of them
The hand pressed round ones, did not have a good way of measuring the dropped in gather of glass. So the step ring below the thread will usually not be filled to a formed shoulder, but over fed or under-fed with the exact capacity of the mold for the insulator. RED Matthews

 

[capsoda]

Great finds Doug. Man, that is a pile of insulators.

 

[RED Matthews]

Appliedlips; That broken green one looks like a hand pressed one. RED Matthews

 

[cyberdigger]

ORIGINAL: appliedlips

Charlie,if you seen dark red insulators you better go back and get them.

Oh, how I wish I could!!! This was around 1981.. some kids from my neighborhood passed the time by throwing railroad track rocks at the poles, trying to destroy the insulators.. this bothered me, so I tried to rescue as many as I could, and the ones I got I kept in a secret hiding spot in the woods.. then one day we moved to a different town and I never got back there.. but I'm sure the "secret spot" is under a housing development by now.. the red ones were small and simple in shape, maybe A T & Ts.. young and foolish I was!!![]

 

[Bixel]

I believe those are CD 134's. An aqua one is worth 15-20 bucks, and the shards look a light yellow green which would be worth 600-700 it looks like. Barrett correct me if I am wrong.

 

[SergioWilkins]

Kyle is indeed correct. Those three are all CD-134s, the light aqua one pricing in at $15-20, and the light yellow green fellows at about $600-700, were they intact.
RED Matthews - I don't know that there's any definitive way to identify a hand-pressed insulator by sight, other than sheer crudity - if the pinhole is off-centre or skewed, the threads are malformed, or if the insulators tend to occur in varying heights caused by different glass pourings, then they would tend to have been hand-pressed. Essentially anything earlier than the turn of the century will likely be a hand pressed piece.
When you say "square insulators", I assume you're thinking of glass blocks, but they are only arguably the earliest insulators. Glass block styles were made right up into the 1910s, or so it is hypothesized, as Brookfield listed them in their catalogue I know until at least 1908. It is believed that some of the earliest insulators known, are these specimens in the Smithsonian:

http://www.nia.org/si/Objects/181409.html
http://www.nia.org/si/Objects/181409a.html

But some glass blocks would certainly be among of the earliest, dating back into the 1840s, along with some of these "ramshorn" styles:

http://www.insulators.info/articles/early/lefferts.htm

There's a lot of information on insulators on these sites:

http://www.nia.org
http://www.insulators.info

All the best!

 

[Brains]

thought you were talkin about a green 145 american, a green 133 is much harder to come by. I dont think i've ever been lucky enough to see one, not even with all the shows i've gone to. Favorite american style would have to be the 156 and 156.1, ut i've never sene a 156.1. Not even an aqua one, just pictures. Odd as the book lists it as a somewhat common insulator.

Regarding hand pressed insulators, i've got one where when the plunger was removed they rattled it out of the pinhole giving it the appearence of having 2 sets of threads, one crooked one and a streight one. Nice insulator

Oh, could you also post pictures of some of the 124.3's?

 

[appliedlips]

Brian, I will try to post the 124's later.Most have some chipping to the base of the skirt.There are 3 different embossing variants.

http://www.nia.org/general/cd_text/cd156_1.htm
When I check the NIA site and look at the 156.1 it says made by the American Insulator Co..They didn't make insulators,correct? I found a site talking about all the shards of these that were dug at the Lyndeborough glass house site in New Hampshire.

I am not a big fan of any theaded insulators unless they are very crude,AND in a good color.My favorite type would be a confederate egg even though they are common after they found piles of them in Richmond.They are the crudest hunks of glass going.I wouldn't mind 718 Tillotson in good shape.

Shout me a PM a day or two before Columbus and remind me to grab that Insulator

 

[Brains]

I'll remind ya just before the show.

Yep, the Americans were made by the Lyndeborough glas works but the styles and all of the insulators features are made by eater American or Oakman. Los of American insulaors show Oakmen patents.
Theres also 156's and 156.1's embossed with postal, not sure who made those ones now that i think about it...
As for the 718's, i think they are far from common. True, they did find lots of them in some warehouse but they were all melted and busted. I consider the ones found in the warehouse uncommon, and somewhat rare. Now if you find one in a dump or along a railroad those are the rare ones.
If you like cd-718 Tillotsons your in luck, thers a line here that used them. I'll find a chunk of one of them someday when i have the patience to dig for insulators. Diggin just isnt nearly as fun as gettin em off a pole.