Just Climb a Pole and Take it, dummy!

I guess I really shouldnt be so surprised by the various fetish properties that people collect. When I was in my early teens I thought that I was going to be a comic book geek and collect all sorts of rare books. To this day I tend to pick up any random junk in the street if it looks interesting (a plastic ring with a monkey on it is a nice recent pick-up).

Nevertheless I was completely shocked by the esoteric fascination with glass insulators. The slightly phallic glass (sometimes porcelain) knobs that were used on telephone polls to protect the polls from the electrical current can still be seen on many older utility polls, and apparently some people like to climb the polls and take the knobs for their collections.

What really baffled me as I browsed this guy's website was the question 'But what do you DO with them?'. As is generally the case with eccentric collectors, the answer is nothing. 'Look at it!' 'Appreciate it!' 'Listen to me talk about the history of insulators!' I expect every family member and friend has been given these commands at one time or another. My grandmother is a notable exception, having not once forced her grandchildren to listen to the stories behind her extensive bell collection. (Probably why when she died there arose many heated arguments over who got which bell. I got no bells…)

But since I am such a weird pack rat, I am oddly moved to go insulator hunting the next time I am at home in small-town Iowa. I remember thinking that there were an awful lot of green glass pepper shakers lining the railroad tracks as a kid; imagine if I had stumbled upon a rare aqua-colored Hemingray E3 and just kicked it aside like garbage; MADNESS!!

For futher reading, see:
www.myinsulators.com (directory of insulator collectors. i would recommend Russ Frank's Insulator Page, Hungarian Insulators, and Rod and Jo's Insulator page. )
www.hemingray.net (one man's devotion to all things Hemingray, insulators and other glass products)
www.lappinsulator.com (insulator manufacturing and sales, in case you need insulators)
Some sites may link to ''THE place to be for insulator collectors'', aka insulators.com, but it is now a generic ad/search page so don't bother.