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How often do AM TEL & TEL Co. 121's turn up in Canada, outside antique shops? I acquired several 2 years ago in a crate of glass from a store north of Toronto and assumed it may have been a regional thing, but yesterday I was digging a dump in rural west end Ottawa, and out popped one in one of the older moulds. It is a MLOD and has the appearance of the dome being squished when the glass was hot. A search of the web has revealed others with the same appearance, implying the mould was the culprit. Does anyone know much about these? I can't figure out if these were Brookfield products or Hemingray products. I am assuming this particular type of early 121 is fairly rare in Canada.

Is it crown or skirt embossed?

I remember reading that the crown embossed Amtels are Brookfields, but the skirt embossed MLODs I'm not sure of.

The skirt embossed MLODs seem to be fairly uncommon, even in the US.

Brent on ICON would probably be the best guy to ask.

Lee.

Lee,

It is skirt embossed. I think this photo shows off the "dimpled" dome fairly well. It was buried near a NECAN RB 143 in light green, so probably from the original phone lines installed in the area.

Chris

It looks to be the same as the one shown here on the bottom right:

http://www.insulators.info/pictures/?id=28156673

Lee

Yes, I would say so. it is fairly bubbly and looks like it's the same colour as the one in his picture. It is interesting that it has an exceptionally low book value, yet most comments seem to indicate that it is a very scarce piece.

I work for an independent telephone company and I can tell you from what's left here that AM Tel & Tels were used in the hundreds if not thousands at this particular small telco back in the open wire days. It seems there was a very good market for any surplus insulators back in those days. Millbrook Rural Telephone Company started in around 1885. Apparently back in the mid 1980's before I started here nd before I was into insulators they threw out a few garbage bins full of insulators to clean out the basement. There were a few boxes saved though and I've been able to look at them. It's a real mish mash but I'd say out of maybe 10 boxes of insulators saved there was one full box of Am Tel & Tels including a couple MLOD variants. The rest was a mixture almost everything:

102 BTC, BTCO, Montreal, Diamond, MLOD NECAN, Brookfield, etc
106 Hemingray
121 BTC, BTCO of Can, Montreal, Am Tel, etc
143 NN, Dwight
154 and 155 Dominion and Hemingray

There's more but that's all that comes to mind. We have the old records and many of these insulators were bought as surplus or used at very cheap prices compared to new at the time.

Chris,

I guess this makes perfect sense as many insulators were coming down in the urban areas as early as 1896 to be replaced with cables. When you think that some city poles held hundreds of insulators, they all had to come down and go somewhere! It would have made little sense to throw them away in those days especially since open wire was still being used in the majority of places, and on new installations in non-urban areas. I suspect the ones I am finding were used on the main long-distance line through the Ottawa Valley which ran about 1000' from the dump. In 1948 a new line with clear 129's and other clear tramps was built on a new separate right-of-way in the area. The dump was active in 1945 but not in 1960, so the timeline is right. In 1948 it would have been possible some original phone glass was still in the air (ie: NECAN RB 143's) as well as recycled/surplus glass from afterwards. All in all a fun dump to dig, especially if I start finding INTACT Brookfield 101's in Olive Green (4 busted ones so far).

My 3 Am Tel & Tel's came from the Ottawa area. Never seen one on a pole but did dig 3 up. I suspect early in the history of the telephone insulator manufacturers could not keep up with the demand and any insulator that could be gotten was used.

This past fall I started digging some privy holes at a site where a railway station used to be. I probed depressions in the ground at the back fence and found them to be softer than the surrounding ground and also a bit crunchy. There seems to be quite a few probably owing that bedrock is probably less than 2m.

After digging through lots of broken glass which appeared to be from the early 1900's (broken case gin) I came across a 121 aqua skirt embossed AM. TEL&TEL.CO. non-MLOD with numbers on dome. I know there was a Bell line that ran along here as I have found broken 121 BTCo's. Maybe Bell had a few they were using for some reason? Also dug up a green aqua slug plate Can Pac out of the same hole. It's too bad though that the 121 had a large chip out of the dome and the 143 had a large chunk out of the skirt taking most of the slug embossing with it. Interestingly though they had no etching whatsoever from being in the ground.

Can't wait to get back at it in the spring! Lots more holes to dig.

Happy Hunting!

D.

Last April I was out on a line with Mr.Minicola and we dug parts of these at a few pole sites and found a mint one on the ground.This line was built in 1903.