THE 13TH ANNUAL EMERALD CITY POTLUCK, FEBRUARY 9, 2002, KENMORE WA.
This section contains photographs taken at the show.
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Just like last year, I got off to an early start this morning. Go on the net, get some maps, and draw them out in a stenographer's notebook. (The main disadvantage of not having a computer printer!). Chair's fully charged, and I got my insulator book and a camera, and my wallet is swollen & distended with $20 bills. So it's off to the races.

The #307 bus whisks me off to Kenmore, and I start the long, ardurous climb up the hill. But wait! This year, my chair doesn't have the balls to make the hill, and I end up stalling out near 182nd. Time to fire up "Plan B". I head back down, and hit the crossover to 66th NE, and start going back up. The hill is a bit less severe, and the chair makes the climb, just grinding and crawling along at around 0.08MPH for the last block while zig-zagging back and forth on the street to reduce the strain on the motor. The needle on the battery thing was all the way down to "0". A good snail or slug would have been a serious competitor for my chair on the last section of 65th NE!! Finally, I struggle to hop the curb at the Trueblood's driveway (almost tipping the chiar on its side), and I'm in.

This was the first thing I saw when I entered the main insulator room.


This year, there were no insulators in the garage, so I went straight in the house. This table of insulators was first to present itself, though I turned the other way to check out the lighted tables on the far wall first.



This homemade wooden shelf was made from wood harvested in Alaska (I believe it was cedar) and outfitted with rope lights. All kinds of colorful insulators adorned this shelf, at least until people started buying them all. :)



Next to it, this table of mainly power insulators presented itself. There was a Pyrex stacker set at one time, but it was bought before I took this picture. I almost went for that big Coolie Hat before I realised I didn't have any way to get the large and heavy insulator home, so unforunately I had to pass on it.
That "black" CD155 on the front edge of the table is actually a dark red-amber solid pour, that is, the glass was poured into the insulator mold but the threading mandrel was never inserted, so it's just a very heavy, solid piece of glass. There are numerous small bubbles and some steam in this unusual and rare piece.



This lighted display - actually a "tracing table" that was commercially purchased for around $70, does a beautiful job at displaying these colorful insulators. Some of these are expensive as you might expect, but others are $5 insulators, proving that you don't need to smash your piggy bank into thousands of sharp little bits that get stuck inside the vacume vacumn vaccum vacuum vaccume cleaner in order to put some nice color in your collection.



A quick trip to the second, smaller "insulator room" reveals several collectors wheeling & dealing for some fine glass. Look at the purple one the gentleman in the green vest is holding. I bet that one ends up riding in the front seat on the way home.
Most of the insulators in this room were of the expen$ive variety, but I managed to slip away with five or six (paid for, of course) decent, lower-priced insulators from here.
I think that's Jeff Hooper with the pop can in his hand. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.



Back to the main room, and there's a party going on here.
I'm really, really crappy when it comes to remembering names - I think I have that wierd amnesia where you can't associate names and faces - but I can pick out a couple and leave the rest to you.
The guy in the purple, that's Win Trueblood, our gracious host for this day of insulator revelry. The guy in the green baseball cap facing left is Jeff Hooper, the guy by the door picking up a flyer is Bill Ostrander. I bought several nice insulators from him both last year and this year, Nathan Lamkey in the light blue with white T, and I think (but I'm not sure) the man holding the metal signs is Gilberto Hedges. Again, please correct me if I've misidentified anybody here. :-O



DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! DANGER!!
These high voltage signs were brought in by Robin Harrison. The three on the left came from South Africa; and are in English, Afrikaans, and another language local to the region. The big one on the right came from Alaska.



Oh my.. what is that?!? That yellow beehive is just superb, and I wish I had one in my collection. But at $600, I think I can forget about that for awhile. :-O



But that doesn't mean I can't hold it for one brief, shining moment. :-)



They put crazy people in padded rooms so they don't hurt themselves. They put crazy insulators on padded tables for the same reason. Most of the insulators here are rare in some manner or other. Check out those peacock blue ones! They look downright radioactive.



Here's a closeup look at the multi-hundred dollar piece of glass. It's almost emitting its own light.



And check out this little guy. It's a CD100.5, quite uncommon. What stands out is the perfect clarity of this insulator; you'd swear it was made from 24% lead glass crystal!



Another look at part of Win Trueblood's tables. He had an amazing assortment of CDs and colors.



A window shot. Not much to be said here except look at the fantastic colors.



Finally, this is a quick overhead shot of all the bounty I brought home. None of these were expensive, as I had to use up the money I'd been saving for this day to replace my digital camera, which broke in the middle of an important project the other day. My wallet is now rather spindly and emaciated (I think it's been binging and purging, hahaha!), but nobody goes to an insulator show and leaves empty handed, and I'm no exception.

I'll be posting a few pictures of my new jewels in the next few days.