I originally posted this back in October 2005, with the recent discussion on ICON about this particular type of insulator, I decided to re-post the photo and comments:

A small group of a half-dozen Iranian-made "Mehr" CD 505s. These were ovbiously hand-molded, as no two are exactly the same shape or color. Some of these were brought back by soldiers returning from Iraq. These are all arranged so that the "Mehr" embossing is facing forward, note that the top wire grooves are oriented randomly, and some also tilt in various directions.

For those who are wondering what "EMINENCE" is, this is a box that contained a speaker from the "Eminence" company, located (where else?) in Eminence, Kentucky. The whie box made for a better background than the existing wall.

Update 26 Nov 2007:

I showed one of these insulators to an Iranian person, and she verified that the embossing was Farsi script and that it does indeed read as "MEHR". (The first part of her maiden name is "Mehr" as well, so it matches that perfectly.

Farsi is as different from Arabic as German is from English, so there was no room for confusion here... It is interesting to not that most of these CD 505s were brought back by soldiers returning from Iraq and "desert storm" in the 1990s., so thay must have been used there at some time in the past.

[IFONA CD 505]