I have collected a lot of different things over my lifetime, but ultimately those collections have all been sold off or giving away to make room for the next one. All except for the insulators, "Crown jewels of the Wire", and they shine in the sun like a jewel, and still after 35 years are my favorite.
There are so many shapes and colors, they don't break easily, they are fairly cheap, and don't mind being left out in the elements. Simple workaday objects that would last a very long time even if they were neglected, they were designed that way. But these simple objects have great character, not only from their coating of smokey tar, deposited there by the steam locomotive, or from their deeps blues and greens, like the oceans and forest connected by the railroad tracks they were silent witness to for many decades. At one time telegraph wire was strung from tree to tree affixed to insulators mounted on said trees, but this for obvious reasons gave way to the forests of artificial trees, best known as telegraph and telephone poles.
Occasionally, I will pick up an insulator, and looking past its almost comical shape, sense the history that it has seen, the electricity it has helped guide to its destination, the messages it has helped carry. The romance of the rails and telegrams, and wish they could tell me their stories.
