Here is the story of the newly discovered M-4383 Lima !. As some of you may know, I specialize in collecting mainly Fred Locke and Lima porcelain (The Lima insulator Co was owned and controlled in large part by Fred Locke's family) The story of this insulator is as interesting and unlikely as the piece itself. First off, it's use history is a total mistery. No whole or damaged examples of this insulator have ever been found anyplace in the wild by collectors . The piece when found had a rusted 1- 3/8" standard thread lead head to Lee pin adaptor inside. This is a piece of hardware not known to have been used by any California, Oregon or Washington state based utility on their 60kV lines in the 1904-1910 era... The piece was found by a couple who intended to use it as a flower pot at a yard sale someplace in northern California . The couple who were from Kalamath Falls, Or .After having the insulator kicking around their yard for a wile they l decided to leave it by the trash can for the trash collectors to take . The wife thought it was to ugly to use for flowers . Fortunately the trash collectors failed to pick it up ... Then along comes Mid Norris who lives near Kalamath Falls who spotted it sitting next to a trash can in the peoples yard . Mid makes contact with the owner and offers to buy it ... The homeowner is a bit shocked anyone would pay for such a thing and mid makes them a reasonable offer and it goes home with him .... all covered in water scale from use as a flower pot ! Mid cleaned it up and discovered it was an unreported Lima design that was listed in their1904 catalogue. The M-4383 Lima is interesting in that it utilizes the same lower skirts as the it's bigger cousin the ringed M-4600 and the same upper second skirt and inner skirt as the M-4604 "Balm Patent" and the massive Lima M-4710. This insulator was just reported to Elton Gish who mentiond no examples have ever been found before . Mid is a Thomas specialist who has gotten numerous rare and one of a kind Thomas goodies from me over the years so the flavor was returned and I ended up with the Lima .... boy am I happy!! this was a super way to start off the new collecting year! (photo by Mid Norris)