Altered California insulators from the Dennis Kotan collection at the Helena Regional

By Colin Jung; posted August 21, 2019

View Original (1443 x 1083) 253KB

 


Dennis Kotan liked and collected altered California insulators. I know this because sometimes when I asked another collector about an altered California he owned he would sometimes respond that he sold it to Dennis. Dennis would sometimes ask me about buying an altered Cal he knew I owned.

I don't know if Dennis displayed his altered Cals, but I know some ended up in his garage next to his sales stock and ended up at the Helena Regional. His widow, Paulette, is not an insulator collector, so she would not know an altered insulator if she saw one. I intercepted these three Cals at the Regional. Thanks Paulette! They are all irradiated to grape soda purple-- a CD 260 helmet, a CD 114 keg and CD 161 signal. Don't know if others got loose on her sales table.

Even if the altered insulator is taken out of circulation, sometimes it finds its way back into the hobby.

570977619