We just featured an excerpt of your work on American Artifacts Blog. Vaseline glass gets its oddly urinous color from radioactive uranium, which causes it to glow under a black light. There isnt anywhere near the radio active uranium in this glass to hurt a fly! Man-made glass Jadeite is safe to wear, and if your necklace is Burmese jadeite youre even safer since its a naturally occurring gemstone. Required fields are marked *. BarnesAndBridge There are too many restrictions on the use of uranium.. thevintagehomelab We used arsenic as a refining agent, John says casually of the worlds most infamous toxic element. var m3_r = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999); From shop MuseEmporiumUK, ad by AuntieHollysAttic Courtesy Bob Harry/Robert Leal; photo via Dave Peterson at VaselineGlass.org. Its a wonder were not all walking around with a few extra ears on our fingers, for all the terrible Radiation were exposed to every single moment of our lives. Someone else would put out the 400 pounds of sand, the 150 pounds of soda, John says, rattling off the main ingredients in a typical batch, and then I would do the finesse, weighing out the 12 ounces of uranium dioxide. While handling the material, John would take the sorts of precautions you might expect a worker in a glass factory to take to protect himself, but it wasnt like he was lumbering around in a lead-lined suit covered with radioactive warning tags. 96.00, 120.00 live and sleep.The glass can also emit some radon gas so the simple It was marketed by such companies as McKee and Jeannette Glass in the 1920's and '30's, but by the time Anchor-Hocking's Fire-King Jade-ite line appeared in 1942, uranium was no longer being added. (10% off), ad by JamiesonCollectibles The main restriction is that 15-pound limit, which, if used all at once in a 1,000-pound batch of glass, would only get the uranium content up to 1 1/2 percent. From shop AchingFoxDeviations, ad by TinkerTinkerTinker Now I stay away from it. After World War II, Fire-King began selling jadeite kitchen and dinnerware similar to those made by Jeannette and McKee (6). Is it safe to use Jadeite kitchenware on daily basis? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more? Yes! '&charset='+document.charset : (document.characterSet ? Just recently, I started collecting vaseline glass. TinkerTinkerTinker Ad from shop 20thCenturyStuff You know if youre looking to start collecting. Ad from shop Sameersuha JamiesonCollectibles If youre a collector or a frequenter of antique stores, youve probably already guessed the identity of our second piece of glowing glass: jadeite, another type of uranium glass. Didnt now a thing about them, but I do know that my Great-grandmother was a fore-woman at a Vaseline factory in or near Pittsburg PA in the late 1800s or early !900s. Actually all radioactive materials increase your risk for cancer. It doesnt matter whether youre the gaffer making footed cake plates in a glass factory, the driver loading boxes of lace-edged compotes onto a truck, or the tchotchkes dealer setting out vintage Vaseline glass toothpick holders and tumblers for prospective customersall of you are being zapped. Conversely, "Depression glass" is a general description for any piece of glassware manufactured during the Great Depression regardless of appearance or formula. if (document.mmm_fo) document.write ("&mmm_fo=1"); if (document.context) document.write ("&context=" + escape(document.context)); Be more afraid of long-term exposure to the suns radiation or your garden (radon) which can both actually increase your risk of cancer. Ad from shop Gillydollvintage Ad from shop VintageDecoUK Vaseline Glass Collectors, Inc. (VGCI) - Major site devoted to Vaseline glass includes definitions, Glass Manufacturers Gallery, UV Blacklight Fun Page, more. (20% off), Sale Price 17.95 For those commenting in disbelief, please trust science over what random collectors or friends and family with no science background say. This Vaseline glass chick salt from Boyds Crystal Art Glass measures just 2 1/2 inches across. At the end of the 19th century, glassmakers discovered that uranium glass with certain mineral additions could be tempered at high temperatures, inducing varying degrees of micro-crystallization. Your email address will not be published. Glickman, Jay L. and Fedosky, Terry, Yellow-Green Vaseline A Guide to the Magic Glass, Revised Edition, c. 1998, The Glass Press, Inc., dba Antique Publications. Fire-King Jade-ite was manufactured and sold between 1945 and 1975 and is highly collectable today (6). Those links will provide you a good start for information about jadeite kitchenware. Beginning in 1930, they produced opaque green dinnerware they marketed as Skokie green (5). In the early days, he says, Boyds was able to purchase raw quantities of U-308, which he says looked like coffee grounds. After the restrictions in the United States were eased several firms resumed production of uranium glass, including Fenton, and Mosser; though uranium was still regulated as a strategic material. Ad from shop DropShedGorgeous Thats the catch-all word describing pressed, pattern, and blown glass in shades ranging from canary yellow to avocado green. Hobbs, Brockunier & Co. and Northwood of West Virginia were known in the late 1800s for their bumpy hobnail pieces, while one of the states (and countrys) biggest Vaseline glass producers, Fenton, arrived in 1907. Beta waves are stronger, although a single pane of glass is all it takes to deflect them, and they dissipate within 18 inches anyway. Mosser Glass, also based in Cambridge, Ohio, was founded in 1964 and is still pressing Vaseline glass, making molded-glass cake stands, mixing bowls, creamers, salt-and-pepper shakers, compotes, tumblers, candlesticks, oil lamps, punch bowls, water pitchers, kittens, hens, and chicks. 'https://www.ecommercebytes.com/new_ad_server/www/delivery/ajs.php':'https://www.ecommercebytes.com/new_ad_server/www/delivery/ajs.php'); From shop BettyPerryVintage, 15.00 From shop PunkJunkStore, 59.99 13.45, 14.95 For Mosser, Vaseline is just another color in its extensive catalog, like Amber or Aqua, Passion Pink or Hunter Green. If it's genuine, the glass should take on a subtle greenish glow as the uranium fluoresces under the sun's ultraviolet rays. NacroRetro Avid readers of the CAP blog might remember our excitement last year when we discovered a piece of yellow-green vaseline glass in the Gunson assemblage. Original Price 100.00 Others, like Dave Peterson, who co-founded Vaseline Glass Collectors, Inc., in 1998 and has written three books on the topic, gravitated to the material for more down-to-earth reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTIvoTiTTSU. Some are drawn to its perceived menace so they can pat themselves on the back for not being intimidated by its unfairly toxic reputation. Even if radioactivity is the thing that makes Vaseline glass cool, its not what makes Vaseline glass glow, says Barrie Skelcher, whos written two Vaseline glass books of his own. For information check out this source: https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/these-people-love-to-collect-radioactive-glass/. FREE UK delivery, ad by CottageAntiquesUK James Powells Whitefriars glass company in London almost certainly beat Riedel to market by a year or so, and Skelcher says hes even found evidence of uranium glass manufactured in England in the 1820s using radioactive rock mined in Cornwall. 32.40, 36.00 Send me exclusive offers, unique gift ideas, and personalised tips for shopping and selling on Etsy. It is 5 1/2 feet tall and consists of jade green and yellow alternating molded geometric pieces of vaseline glass on a bronze looking cast iron sculptured geometric base. And not much will leach out of glass. Ad from shop WhereTheGoodStuffIs document.write (document.charset ? Additionally, most jadeite items were made using presses, which allowed for mass production. FREE UK delivery, ad by 20thCenturyStuff You just cant reproduce that color. Whilst handling a piece is not likely to cause any problems at all, keeping one on a bedside table where it might spend 1/3 of your life in close proximity could be very dangerous. Ad from shop BarnesAndBridge Still, in our post-Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima world, radioactivity gives Vaseline glass a certain badass cachet. By the middle of the century, uranium was deemed critical to the war effort (in the United States, that meant the Manhattan Project), which removed uranium from civilian use from 1942 until 1958. Found this when I looked up Milk white vintage serving bowl. Go ahead and fill those tumblers with orange juice or milk, then serve these wholesome beverages to your adorable children. kissmyglassgoodbye Id wear coveralls, a respirator, and have a fan going so Im upwind from any dust. Ad from shop TinkerTinkerTinker //]]>-->, The Picture Book of Vaseline Glass, 2nd Revised and Expanded Edition, Vaseline Glass: Canary to Contemporary - The Comprehensive Guide to Yellow-Green Pattern Glass, Art Glass and Novelties from 1840 to the Present, Vaseline Glassware: Fascinating Fluorescent Beauty. ", These People Love to Collect Radioactive Glass, Davidson English Pressed Glass at the Glass Museum, Vaseline and Uranium Glass at the Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum Collection, Conservation and restoration of glass objects, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uranium_glass&oldid=1101060069, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 July 2022, at 03:18. HomeCoTreasures (10% off), ad by MuseEmporiumUK FREE UK delivery, ad by AchingFoxDeviations Is there such a thing as blue uranium glass? document.write ("?zoneid=4"); Radioactive Glassware in Your House? Building a Blacklight Display Case for all my Glass. Can you give me some information and/or direct me to a non-selling info website? Do some googling and you can find examples of UR glass containing up to 25%! Uranium glass is some really awesome stuff! In fact, theres more radioactive potassium-40 inside each and every one of us than anyone could ever receive from handling, using, or just plain eyeballing a piece, display case, or entire museum full of Vaseline glass. document.write ("&loc=" + escape(window.location)); Have a really nice very heavy, crystal, flawless, uranium (yellow, but even, deep & beautiful. Well this pumpkin lit up my Geiger to 3823 cpm and had a 2.5mrh, I was surprised Six years later I just read this article and what an excellent read it was! I sometimes shopped at outdoor antiques fairs in open fields, he recalls. "These People Love to Collect Radioactive Glass. An incredibly well written piece. Its kinda weird looking. This contemporary amber or topaz paperweight from England fluoresces green when exposed to UV light (right). Well, you just bought yourself four tumblers full of radioactive beta-waves. The History of Burmese Glass - Explains how Burmese glass is made, with a focus on Fenton. These are third party technologies used for things like: We do this with social media, marketing, and analytics partners (who may have their own information theyve collected). Thank you Ben Marks for such an informative yet enjoyable piece. Other elements such as manganese can produce a similar effect, and sometimes pieces with a relatively large amount of uranium in them will glow less brightly than those with less, depending on the composition of a particular batch of glass. 60.00, 75.00 Original Price 38.00 Not to be confused with, Big Book of Vaseline Glass, by Barrie Skelcher, Pub. It doesnt need to be dangerous, but it can be. The addition of yellow uranium oxide during the initial glass melting process produces colors ranging from yellow to green, though other hues including pink, blue, and white can be obtained by adding other colorants to the mix (2). Not long after the discovery of uranium in 1789, glassmakers began experimenting with uranium compounds as colorants, and in the period between the 1830's and World War II, all manner of objects made of the glass - from everyday drinking glasses, cups, and dishes to decorative pieces and art glass - appeared on the market. (10% off), ad by KentvintageArtDeco Despite its low cost, jadeite is very durable, which explains why it can still be readily found intact in antique and vintage stores (5).