Ask about lightning rods and you will get weathervanes this, glass balls that. Without their attachments, the spare, unassuming copper poles seem to lack something. For the type of collector who must have the original parts, however, a complete set-up demands an original rod. Tracking down the right rod can be complicated by the fact that most lightning rod companies were quite regional. National and Kretzer lightning rods can be found most easily around St. Louis, where they were first produced, and some Nebraska collectors are to this day still partial to the Lincoln-produced Shinn rods.
Lightning rods are a real connection to a rural past.
People today want to keep that feeling alive of what they see as a simpler time. Ted Storb provided the weather vane photos for this article. Eileen Kelly provided all the ephemera pictured above. The Crown Point, a lightning rod collector's magazine.