by matthew » Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:08 pm
On a recent trip to Arizona, I had the pleasure of attending the Yuma Insulator Show which was really a great experience. A few days earlier I toured an old lead mining town outside of Yuma that had a great display of 19th century SCA coloured bottles and glassware that would typically used in the bars and restaurants during the years that the mine was in operation. The fallowing day I decided to do a tour of the antique shops around Yuma to gather up any insulator treasures before all of the collectors hit town. As I entered the largest antique shop, I was surprised to see for sale a large selection of bottles and glassware similar to what I had seen the day at the mine except it was all dark or royal purple in colour.The alarm bells went off. When I went through a large crate of insulators, all of the insulators were dark or royal purple, I was surprised at the large amount of Canadian glass that was represented. There were 102 speedy diamond ponies, 145 GTPs,TCRs,GNW TEL COs,1678s,and 143 CNR STANDARDs with the 5/16'' letter height that I recalled only came in aqua.There was also a large selection of royal purple California glass and a weird blue-purple Canpac very similar in colour to one that was on eBay about a month age. When I asked the owner where the insulators originated the only thing that she could tell me was that the insulators were on consignment. Beware that there are a lot of irradiated Canadian insulators lurking south of the 49th.About the only insulator that hasn't been irradiated yet is the Dominion-42.
Jerry