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Picked these up last weekend from a nice family that had just bought an old farm.

Nice find Chris! There should be a few keepers amongst that lot.

I should be able to add a few pieces to the collection from this lot. There aren't any super rare pieces but lots of common older glass, basically all 143's. It's a bit of a time capsule actually. The farm was right beside the old CP main that was abandoned in 1988 - the old Ontario and Quebec railway on the section between Havelock and Tweed. I'm guessing the previous owner of the farm had bought a section of poles or wrecked them out at his cost (not sure what the procedure was) - the poles and crossarms would have been used for fencing and the insulators were saved because you never knew if you might need them or could sell them later. Luckily farmers are a resourceful bunch and tend to hang on to things they might need in the future.

The insulators are very similar to what we found along the O & Q back in the early 2000's, just more of it as it wouldn't have been as picked over in 1988. No purples or greys, it seems any rare or scarce stuff was picked by collectors back before the line was wrecked out. I'm happy though, how often do you get to pick up 5 bushel baskets of 143's?

Interesting side note: My great great grandfather was one of the laborers that built the original line in 1883 - 1884 with a a pick and shovel (!) and he may have actually worked on this part of the line, it's possible some of the original glass from the original poles was reused and was in this lot, there's lots of stuff there that's the right age. Makes you think Pretty cool.

Interesting story Chris.

Were there only 143s, or did you just take the 143s?

I just bought the 143's, and some misc stuff - there's a handful of 145 NEGM Co's and one B 145, plus a few diamond and diamond P 154's. There was probably 500 or so Dominion 42's, both 154 and 155, all either straw or peach, so I left those behind. There were 2 Brookfield 152's and a Brookfield 162 that they kept too.

And bonus, you get to keep the baskets!!!! You might also find a double threaded, which would be sweeter than 5 'free' bushel baskets. I care, since I'm a graduate of a basket weaving program.

Shawn

That explains a lot!

No double threads either unfortunately...

"No purples or greys, it seems any rare or scarce stuff was picked by collectors back before the line was wrecked out." This would explain no double threads, but since they are harder to identify than say, purple ones, the possibly of one of the double threads getting overlooked is good. Just not in this case.

Shawn

Hi guys.I was one of the guys to pick that line. Myself and another collecter his name is Rollo Mcdonald.We walked thur there in 1972-74. I remeber it well, I would stay at my dads cottage and go from there.The cottage was near a place called Springbook so I was right in the middle of it.There wasn't a great deal of really rare insulators on it though I do rember taking a few wittles off there in a light purple and gray also few odd colour canadian pacific. Maybe the odd purple, but not many.I don't recall any double threaded at all. One thing that seemed odd to us though at the time was a bunch of 145 GTP with a b on the back,they were dark green We only found these near Tweed

Great score, Chris! It looks like the stuff that was taken down in '88 is very similar to what's still up on other portions of the line. I'm guessing you got lots of RB CanPac's and unembossed 143's in that lot I found two downed poles near the crossing in Norwood and got some similar stuff off of it.

There will be a flood of common 143's coming out of the Cobden area very soon too.