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CD 154 [160]  MR Hemingray

Full embossing:
(front skirt) MR/HEMINGRAY-42 / [Numbers and dots] (rear skirt) MADE IN U.S.A. / [Numbers and letter]

You can see of a picture of a soot covered on in insulators.info

Notes about production
1.  Molds with and without the MR exist so the MR was added after the mold was used in a particular year since there is no sign of a blot out.  The dash between HEMINGRAY and 42 has been thickened in the MR 20C mold.
2.  Four molds have been identified: 20C, 33C, 36A, 52A.
3.  Two different years of production exist:

4.  These insulators were used on lines.  A soot covered one exists and the Wisconsin pile that two of them came from indicate this.

How many exist?
About 10-30 of these are known to exist.  John Scherzinger reported in September 2003 finding two of them in a Wisconsin pile (mold 52A and 36A).  One was found in Kentucky.  Back in the 1970's about half a dozen were found in a flea market in New Jersey.  There is also a  report of about 20 of them coming from a central Indiana collector who found them on a phone line, didn't think they were worth much and crackled them to sell them at a London, OH insulator show.

What does the MR stand for?

No one knows what the MR stands for at this point.  There is much speculation, however.  The main thread is that it is an abbreviation for something.  Possible names that it could be an abbreviation for include: 

Military Requisition
 The date codes of the MR indicate they were made about 1939 which is pretty late for any interest in these by the military.  No other insulator has turned up with the letters MR on it even though the military purchased CD 113 Hemingray-12s and CD 160 Hemingray-14s as well as IN-56s.
Milwaukee Road
 Although used extensively by collectors, few items were marked Milwaukee Road but where marked with the full name of the railroad: C.M.St.P.& P. R.R. for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific.  The Milwaukee Road may have been in receivership during the time these insulators were made.
M? Railroad
 Examples of railroad names include: Monongahela Railroad, or Madison Railroad (a southern Indiana railroad that did not exist in 1936).Some other railroad line that began with an M is unlikely given that the insulators have been found scattered throughout the Northeast quarter of  the United States including New Jersey, Southern Indiana, and Northern Wisconsin.  It's unlikely a railroad line services all these areas.  The Wisconsin find was from a pile created from a phone line, not a railroad line.  
Mold R?
 The R could stand for Replacement, Revision or Rework
Muncie Reunion
 The M could stand for Muncie, the city of the headquarters of Hemingray.  Maybe R stood for Reunion.  Many cities celebrate homecomings and local companies make mementos of it.  Square-D made little paperweights for some Peru, IN event like this.
Madison Railroad

This Southern Indiana railroad did not exist in 1936.
The Initials of an Employee
 There are several examples from the Kerr/Armstrong/Whitall-Tatum company of bottles being made with an employees name on them so why not a retiring worker getting his or her initials on an insulator at the Hemingray plant?  As of Sept. 2003, no employee has been found that fits this scenario and it doesn't make sense that four molds would be used to commemorate such a retirement when one mold would be enough.  Also the molds used deal with two different years.
Map Reference
 Perhaps the MR letters are large so they could be read from the ground and served to mark which pole on the map they were standing next to.

Revised March 28, 2014