I took the liberty of snagging the photo of the insulator purchased on eBay by Jason Townsend and am posting it here.

I'm not a big collector of porcelain, so would someone in the know please correct any misinformation? Thanks!

At first glance, this doesn't look like a very practical design. Wouldn't rain water run down from the wire groove, then around the spiral to the crossarm, forming a fairly short path to ground? Or was this intended to be installed with the wire groove down?

For more information, see [id=349298802].