| Attributing No Names to Triangle M (Illinois) |
Okay, here goes . . .this all got started a while back over three blue No Name signals Now these three had a really odd characteristic, they are all fire rested on both the skirt and the petticoat! Weird Huh? Anyway, I asked around and though a few people had seen this a few times, no one had any hints to who might have made these three blue U 268's. Forward through time a bit and I get a few more NN's that are double rested, these are brown U 263's, U 266's & U 268's. Now I have several of these odd little NN's in the same rounded top style (263's, 266's and 268's are all pretty much the same insulator but gradually larger) with the same unique double fire rests. Now about this time I got a copy of Elton Gish' Value Guide . . .so I flipped through to see who might have made these three U#'s . . .listed were 263's=Pittsburg, GP Co & Triangle M. 266's=only Triangle M. 268's=again only Triangle M. Hmmm, looks like these might be Triangle M's. I pulled all of my marked Triangle M's off the shelf to see if any were double rested. . surprise, 3 out of 5 TriM U256A's are double rested! But could these have been made by another manufacturer? None of the manufacturers I have that made skirt rested signals have double rests (G, GP Co, Johns-Manville, Ohio Brass, Pittsburg, Thomas). I did find two more double rests, but more about them in just a sec. Now there seems to be very little doubt that Triangle M manufactured these three styles of double rested signals. Hmmmm, so I dug out all these odd little NN's and poured over them in good lighting (Triangle M's were marked either incised on dome or ink stamped on dome, incuse would have been spotted right off the bat, but ink marks can be hard to spot on dark glazes). Lo and behold the three U 263's were marked (check out marks one, two and three) (one of the original blue may have an extremely faint marking). I feel certain now that all No Name double rested 263's, 256A's, 266's and 268's can be attributed to the "Triangle M" marking phase of Illinois Electrical Porcelain Co. dated appx 1915 to early 1920's. Soooooo. . . what do you think? Drop me a line and let me know |
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