My regular hunting grounds is getting much tougher with several collectors and dealers picking the vendor booths nowadays for insulator jewels. Got to work much harder for fewer items. Here is an interesting configuration with a stout iron-capped wooden strain insulator that was suspended(?) from a six-strand iron guide wire. At the other end of the strain there is a steel eyelet bolt that was fastened to a steel bracket in which was mounted a hard rubber spool insulator. I assume a conductor cable ran through the spool bracket or two guy lines were anchored at a single point with this assemblage. Neat to finally see one all put together!! Fresh from a Santa Rosa, CA barn. Enjoy.

Dustin Logan suggested that this may have been in use on the San Francisco street car system as late as the 1970's. The strain and spool configuration may have been used to help make a sharp angle in the feeder cable system for a sharp turn for the street car.