[ Home | What's New | Articles ]
Following is an article by John Muir, a new member of DJIC, who has been digging threadless dot-and-dash CD 723 Wade insulators out of the goop in a riverbed. And one of them has a mint wooden-cover with tie wire and pin!
John contacted Keith after finding him on the Internet (in the WebPage of the world-wide Insulator Collectors on the Net (ICON), the fastest growing club ever, where the DJIC and other clubs advertise!). When he described his find, and the outer surface of the insulators, and the odd wooden-cover, I knew immediately what he had. After cautioning John not to sell, and to expect to be approached by collectors and dealers, I asked him to write up his story which he gladly did for all of us.
We speculate that Federal invaders and their telegraph corps brought insulators with them as they moved through Dixie, destroying Confederate telegraph lines. Since this find, other reports have surfaced of Wades being found near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Our own Ken Roberts told your editor of contacting an inactive collector, also in MS. According to Ken, this old-timer told a story of "buying 4 aqua Wades in Jackson, MS in the early '70s for $10 each. The lady who sold them had bought them for $5 each in Vicksburg and the antique dealer had bought them from a bottle collector who had dug them in or around Vicksburg!" So it appears more of these insulators could surface in the South.
Stay tuned to these pages for more news on all this! From the research done thus far, we believe these may be the first CD 723 Wade insulators ever found in the Deep South.
Return to the Wade Type
Telegraph Insulators page
If you have questions or comments, please use this Feedback Form.
Last updated Tuesday, February 27, 1996
