I found this sight back in April, well into the middle of nowhere following a transmission line built back in the 1910s. There's a few details to digest here.

On the bottom row, second from the right, is a lone ST-3524. Manufactured by the Locke Insulator Manufacturing Company of Victor NY, these insulators were the very first to be used on this line.

Thanks to info from Elton Gish, I know a few more details about these insulators. They are shown as catalog no. 2335 in Locke's 1912 catalog. They are also quite rare. Due to flaws in design, these insulators were prone to premature failure. Additionally, the tall inner-most skirt made inserting and removing the connecting pins difficult without breaking the porcelain. In my experience, the inner-most skirt is almost always found broken.

The rest of the insulators are all more modern (1930s-1950s) compression cap suspensions- a mixture of Ohio Brass, Westinghouse, and Locke products.

The first detail to call attention to is the most obvious- just how close this ST-3524 came to destruction! Another string was thrown on top of it, but by some lucky miracle no harm was done to the ST-3524- the extensively broken insulators do suggest that between being removed from service and landing in their final resting place, survival was very luck of the draw.

The second detail to call attention to, is that all the other insulators in the string are much younger. I believe that the line was more or less upgraded in part or whole in the 30s or 40s with more modern insulators- yet, for whatever reason, this one held on!

The third detail is the most bizarre, though- a good half of the discarded insulators around the tower these strings were near were porcelain- the other half were fairly modern rubber insulators. They couldn't have been older than perhaps the '80s. It suggests that the insulators were probably not removed from service any further back than 20-30 years ago.

All this to say... this Locke ST-3524 not only narrowly escaped being shattered by a rough landing, but was likely in active service for a good 80-90 years! This, from an insulator style known to have issues with premature failure. Truly a lucky survivor!

It may well go without saying, this insulator now has a home safe and sound with me.

You can see this insulator in my ST-3524 collection photos from August 2023, it is the middle insulator in the back row: [id=698103489] [id=698103622]