Colorado Springs National (2017)

This was my most recent display at the 2017 Colorado Springs National, entitled "Look Closer! A Study on Hemingray Embossing Errors". I had always wanted to do a display on Hemingray embossing errors, but was always afraid to try it for several reasons: 1) Embossing errors typically aren't colorful or exotic pieces, so there's very little to catch a person's eye. 2) It's difficult to draw attention to such a small detail on already small objects. I decided to tackle these challenges by trying to create an eye-catching display and printing out labels between each row of insulators so people clearly knew what they were looking at. I also included several magnifying glasses to help, and moved the ropes in front of the display closer to encourage people to get up close and personal with the insulators. I think it was pretty successful, as my display won First Place for the Specialty category!

Click here to see more photos and read my show journal.

Look Closer! A Study on Hemingray Embossings Errors

Over the course of its 120+ year history, the Hemingray Glass Company manufactured over a BILLION insulators. So, let’s face it—they were bound to make a “few” mistakes along the way!

Embossings were an important part of an insulator. It could show who manufactured the insulator, when and/or where it was manufactured, the style number for reordering, and often included any relevant patent dates or features (for example, “Petticoat” signified the insulator had an inner skirt).

Overall, Hemingray’s glass quality was held to a fairly high standard. But what about embossings? As you’ll soon see, Hemingray was a bit more lenient. I’m sure the Hemingray Glass Company never imagined people would scrutinize what they stamped on their insulators, let alone that people would collect the darned things!

There are over 175 different CD numbers attributed to Hemingray, and over 1000 total embossings. Of those, over 400 embossings contain some kind of error or irregularity. That’s way too many to show in a single display! In the interest of space (and sanity), this display only focuses on some of their really funny and blatant errors.

Why collect embossing errors?

Embossing errors can be fun and challenging to collect! They may not come in a rainbow of colors, but they can be just as rare (or even moreso) for typically a fraction of the price. Many of these pieces have taken me 20 years or more to find. I’ve made a point to examine every single Hemingray embossing I come across—tens of thousands. Granted, considering Hemingray manufactured over a billion insulators, that’s a mere 0.001-0.005%! It’s truly the needle in a haystack.

There are 9 different types of Hemingray embossing errors:

1. Spelling errors — My personal favorite, and the main focus of this display. Engravers misspelled quite a few words on Hemingray insulators. The most commonly misspelled words were “Hemingray”, “Petticoat”, and “Patented”.
2. Style number errors — In a few cases, they embossed the wrong style number on an insulator.
3. Over-engraving errors — Engravers would start spelling something wrong, realize their error, and then stamp or engrave the correct letters or numbers right over it.
4. Missing bars, dashes, and periods — Engravers weren’t always consistent with adding periods or dashes. And sometimes, they’d forget to add crossbars to letters like “A” and “E”.
5. Backwards, upside-down & sideways — Engravers would sometimes emboss letters and numbers backwards, upside-down or sideways.
6. Extra characters — Insulators may have an extra letter or two just “hanging out” where they shouldn’t be. Usually, the engraver started to emboss something in the wrong place.
7. Blot-outs — Blot-outs were used by engravers when a change in embossing was needed, such as correcting an error or updating the embossing.
8. Missing embossings — In rare cases, the engravers would forget to finish the job, or just completely skip embossing a mold.

9. Duplicate embossings — Also in rare cases, engravers would accidentally emboss the same thing on both sides of the insulator.

Row 1 (Top) CD 115 [010] HEMIGRAY 115 [155] HEMNGRAY 115 [170] HEWINGRAY 115 [180] HEWINGRAY 121 [030] HEMIGRAY 121 [040] HEMIGRAY 121 [060] HEMINGAY 106 [040] HEMIGRAY 106 [050] HEMIGRAY 106 [060] HEMINGAY 106 [370] HEMNGRAY 106 [380] IIEMINGRAY 100 [020] CHCIAGO	Row 2 160 [165/170] HEWINGRAY 160 [180] HEWINGRAY 113 [010] HEMIGRAY 113 [015] HEM1NGRAY 113 [020] HEMIGRAY 113 [025] HEMINGAY 113 [030] HEMINGAY 113 [Unl.] HFMINGRAY 154 [030] HEMIGRAY 154 [032] HEMINGRA 154 [157] HEMINGRRAY	Row 3 115 [140] No.16 (error) 113 [190] No.9 (error) 164 [100] 20 over 42 106 [Unl.] Upside-down G 252 [010] HEMINGAY 164 [067] HEMNGRAY 134 [100] HEMINGRY 191 [010] HEMINGAY 190 [030] TRANSPOSITON 126.4 [070] W.E.MFG.OC. 128 [003] HEMIGRAY 122 [145] HEMINGRY
Row 4 208 [070] MADE N U.S.A. 155 [020] MADE IN U.A.S. 122 [135] MADE IN=U.S.A. 106 [150] MADE IN U.U.A. 115 [055] MADE IN U 115 [Unl.] MAD IN U.S.A. 164 [050] PETTICOAY 162 [120] PETTIGOAT 160 [160] PETT1COAT 160 [100] PEITTICOAT 160 [170] PETTIOOAT	Row 5 147 [Unl.] OGT 8 1907 133.1 [020] EC.19.1871 136 [050] PEC.19.1871 106 [233] Upside-down G 106 [340] MAY 1893 121 [080] Smooth Base 121 [096] Smooth Base 162 [230] Missing PATENT 160 [110] PATTENT 121 [140] PATETED 147 [050] PATNTED 106 [290] PATENTE	Row 6 257 [070] JUNE 17 1893 257 [080] JUNE 17 1893 257 [Unl.] JUNE 17 1893 Globe Fruit Jar Lids: "PATENTED 25th 1870" "PATENETED" 154 [020] Duplicate Emb. 122 [010] No Embossing 145 [030] Blot-Out 113 [115] Extra Letters
Table, Left Side: "Uuiversal" Home Bottle "Grême" de Menthe Bottle	Table, Right Side: 280 [030] 9 over two backwards 3s 304/310 [020] MAY 2 1883 121 [093] MAY 2 1899	Unl. = Unlisted Embossing