Insulator Post

The top insulator was made in Canada for the Canadian Pacific Railway.  This diminutive style is unique to Canada and is the only one of its kind in my collection.  The other is a California Signal and was of course made in California.  These are two of my favorite insulators that I obtained last year at the Mid Ohio Insulator Show held in Springfield, Ohio. 

This Saturday I will be getting up bright and early to make my way south to Springfield to attend the 40th Anniversary show.  For a day I will be blissfully lost in insulator heaven.  There will be over a hundred and forty sales tables and many specialty insulator collections on display.  When I attended the show last year for the first time a friendly dealer introduced himself and upon learning that I was new to the hobby he gave me some advice.  He said as you begin your collecting try to narrow down or specialize in one style or manufacturer of insulators that floats your boat and build your collecting activities around that.  Judging by the sheer magnitude of colors and shapes all on display I could see the logic in his words.  Over the past year the two insulators pictured above have become the apples of my eye and it's these types specifically I will be on the lookout for on Saturday. 

I like the little Canadian bullets because they are small and as my collection grows they won't take up as much space as larger pieces would.  As for the California glass there is just something that I like about them aside from the huge array of colors that can be had.  Maybe a bit of symbolism reflecting how pioneering Americans expanded westward and as technology grew the tendrils of our early communications infrastructure made their way back into the heart of the nation across the mountains and deserts of the south-west.  A small token of the tenacity of the people who tamed that rugged unforgiving land.

I belong to an online group called ICON "Insulator Collectors On The Net".  This site is a tremendous resource full of information and thousands of colorful photographs of various insulators.  A link to ICON and more information can be found at this site:  http://www.insulators.info/