Auction Status: Open Bidding

Auction opens: Monday, September 15, 2025 at 7:00 AM eastern (4:00 AM pacific)

Auction closes: Sunday, September 21, 2025 at 10:00 PM eastern (7:00 PM pacific)

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If you have registered for any of our previous auctions, you do not need to register again; you only need to log in. If you believe you did register before, but perhaps have forgotten your username or password, you can just retrieve them. Welcome to our 57th Auction.

This auction features several dozen insulators that had been stored away for 30 years from the collection of Grandma Sammis. Who’s That? Her son, William, tells us that Ellen Sammis was born in 1908. She was raised on a farm in northwestern New York. As a girl, she delivered milk by horse-drawn wagon on her way to school in the morning. She became a teacher by the time of the Great Depression. She also started collecting things: seashells, shark’s teeth, marbles, rocks, and especially insulators.

Grandma Sammis was also a world traveler. During the 1970’s she purchased insulators while visiting a number of countries. She had foreign insulator styles that I had never seen before. She passed in 1995 and her collection was stored away until her grandson and his wife delivered them to my house in central Oregon this summer. In the auction descriptions, I will mention items that came from her collection. We’ll offer insulators from her collection not only in this auction, but in one or two more to come.

In putting auctions together, we get by with help from our friends. Listed alphabetically here are the names of folks who helped us in some specific way in creating this auction: Lee Brewer, Ken Davidson, Dudley Ellis, Curtis Erickson, Ron Eshman, Charles & Theresa Fields, Greg Frick, Mike Gaudy, Rob Jackson, Tom Katonak, Dunamis Kobrzycki, Steve Lager, Arne Lazzarotto, Mid Norris, Roger Pollard, William Sammis, Bob Scafe, Jim Sinasek, Freddy Smith, and Tim Wood.

We also thank the 42 people who consigned insulators to this auction. Kudos to Bill and Jill Meier for their website mastery. And kudos additionally to Tim & Joanne Wood, who come over and help us pack things up after an auction ends.

There are in excess of a thousand pictures in this auction. Whether you bid or not, we hope you will take the time to view and enjoy the listings.

Howard & Linda Banks
1073 NW 26th Way
Redmond, OR 97756
541-761-9456
hbanks@budget.net