The month of may brought two once in a lifetime acquisitions into my home and a 3rd long sought glass object as well. Left to right...

The M-2202 - I first saw one of these at Gerry Turners house in 1978 when I was in jr high school and I never thought I'd actually get one ... it is very discouraging when there are only four specimens of your favorite insulator and all four have been locked in collections since the early 1970s .. well .. the eBay gods blessed me and here is the 5th one :-) The only known use of this insulator was on a few sections of the once electrified Illinois Terminal Railroad line as a mounting fixture for the primary support feeder for the cantinary wire .The line was converted to diesel in 1953 .

Next we have the holy grail of Fred Locke multiparts... The little gutter ! Once again an insulator I never thought I would actually own. This is the one spout version, M-2335a. About three years ago a rumor began to spread that a second specimen of this existed and for once it was true! This insulator was removed from an old transformer house in Philipsburg, Montana in the late 1940s .Nearby lines had nothing but #2 Provos. A modern substation stands on the sight now. Two of the lineman who rebuilt the station in the late 40s thought the primary insulators inside were so weird they each took one home... Lucky for us!!!

The glass thing, CD 293... In 1988 I was in New Orleans, La. and saw an amazing sight ... Hundreds of vintage Locke glass insulators still in the air ! Most of them were really dirty and it was tough to make out there true color but in my vague memory I thought a few were light purple .. Well it turns out they were and I finally got one! As it turns out those lines were part of a dedicated system set up to pump water out of the city during storms in 1900. This is the only real source of the purple and gray glass Lockes. so far as I have learned. Dreams do come true !