Jacque Linscott-Barnes Biography

I became interested in collecting in 1970 when Leonard (my first husband who is now deceased) began collecting insulators.  I figured if our marriage was going to last I had better collect something.  So I thought ink wells would be interesting to collect and I proceeded to purchase my first and only inkwell, which I still have.  I soon had the opportunity to get my first old bluebell telephone paperweight, the North Louisiana one, and quite hard to acquire at that time.  It came to me through a trade that Len made with a telephone bell box.  Thus began my bell paperweight collecting.  By research and authoring three books devoted only to the BLUE BELL TELEPHONE PAPERWEIGHTS, I collected a very nice
group of the old blue bell telephone paperweights as well as the TELEPHONE PIONEER BELLS.  All this kept me in the collecting world and enabled me to understand the insulator hobby.  Leonard was very active in the NIA and I became active along with him as we attended and hosted the Nationals all over the USA.  Along with her father's help Laura, our daughter, collected porcelain and was active in the NIA also.