Hello and welcome from Ohio. Thanks for dropping in on my collectors page. My name is Chris McClelland, I am 33 years old and quite avid in this cool hobby of insulator collecting. I first started into this hobby 26 years ago, I was 7 years old when I found my first insulator, and surprisingly enough I still have it.
We had a track behind the house that had glass laying everywhere in the ditch and on dead poles. I would sneak out to the tracks and pick up the insulators that I found on the ground and worked darn hard to get the ones down off the poles. I did not know what they were, but I thought they were cool. That was the first phase of my collecting I call "sparking the interest". When I got a little older, about eight years old, my neighbor, Duncan Barth who worked for the phone company took me in and taught me more about insulators. He had an extensive collection, and had the whole set of the Telephone pioneers commemoratives and gave me a few for a starter. I was hooked so bad with the insulator bug that I pestered the poor man daily, yet he taught me like a father would with the patience of a saint.
To get my collection off and going, I bought any insulator I could get my hands on with the allowance I was given. Finally, around 1980, I quit buying insulators. I had what seemed like a room full of them. I would still pick up an occasional insulator that I thought I did not have, but when we moved in 1984, I found that moving 350+ insulators was not an easy task. At this point, I lost interest in insulators. I had become a young teen and had other interests, women and muscle cars, so, I sold every one except the two commemoratives. After about a six year break from collecting which was around 1990, I once again got back into insulators. With renewed interest, I took my first track hunt on a track that stretched from Newark Ohio to Utica Ohio, but unlike before, not only did I get to choose what I wanted and decide how to get it down, I also I selected what I collected, I did not pick up just any insulator, just what I knew to be odd or neat. What memories those hunts were! In late 1992 I met Pete Bishop and bought my first good color. I had purchased a CD 162 Hemi 19 in a deep cobalt blue, plus had bought some other CD 162's in the other more uncommon colors.
Collecting todayToday, I specialize in color collecting and collecting oddball insulators, generally I like anything with foreign materials embedded into the glass. I especially like the CD 162 signals and the CD 145 beehives, but finding signals with junk in the glass is quite tough. I have a nice spread of CD 162 signals ranging from clear and cobalt, to purple and orange amber and am actively looking for more to add to my growing collection as I can afford. I also collect any kind of purple insulator, commemoratives, and also collect lightning rods. My favorite rod is my spearhead rod, it is twisted wrought iron, has a cobalt blue globe with a stained glass directional vane in cobalt blue to match.
First off, I would like to give a very special thanks to my wonderful and loving wife Saori who has been so patient with me during my quests for glass, and also for being my inspiration to keep me plugging along when I felt like giving up. After meeting Lee Brewer and Dave Watkins in 96' on the net, my interest had really picked up, Lee was one of the special people to help get me back into this hobby, and Dave was one of the special people to help me fill my" junk in glass needs" and educate me on "the joys of junkers". After that I decided to join the NIA and attend my first show, the Crown Point show in Indiana. The Crown point show was super cool with a lot to see, but it would take me another 4 years to finally make a National.
Newest additionsCollecting in the year ought four has been a wonderful and blessed event, I have added a lot of nice glass to my collection and God gifted me with a new member to my home and to the hobby, Mr. Kenneth Matthew, he was born on Nov 14th 03' and hopefully will carry the torch of collecting when I am too old to go rail running
My favorite insulatorsWell, I guess I can't say I have a single favorite insulator, but I can narrow it down to about 250,my collection;-) There are many many more pieces I like and would love to add to my collection but that will take more time and patience, my baby son needs more attention than my collection these days, so I add what I can when I can which is usually my birthday and Christmas..
You can E-mail me at or by mail at:
Chris McClelland
64 Orchard Hts
Delaware, OH 43015
[telephone not available]
Written by Chris McClelland,
Last updated Friday, May 28, 2004
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