Uranium glass 2
I posted last month about figuring out I had a uranium glass bowl after owning it for ~40 years. Since we didn't go anywhere for Christmas, I wasted a good amount of time online. Stumbled on a forum for people who collect uranium glass, and many were sharing pics of recent hauls and Christmas gifts.
You'd be surprised at the various things made with UG: drinking glasses, plates, lamps, lanterns, marbles, and various knickknacks. So I got out my blacklight and tried it out on the hobnail glass lamps that came from my maternal great-grandmother's family. No dice. A glass oil lamp found in the cellar that used to be behind my house. Nope. The various knickknacks in the glass display of a secretary desk. No... wait... a glimmer. There's a compass my father bought when he was a kid with the needle and points glowing vigorously. Not uranium, but radium. If you want to be horrified, check out the info about the "Radium Girls".
I then remembered I have some marbles that also came from my father's maternal family, just as the bowl did, and I think I got them at about the same time. I have a glass full of them, so shine the light on it and there were two UG marbles. One is very pale clear green, which is a common color. The other is pale clear blue, swirled with opaque white and a bit of light purple. For the latter, just the clear bit glows, and it's relatively faint because the opaque bits cover up a lot of the glow. For the former, it glows very brightly.
I don't plan on becoming a collector, but I do plan on getting a better blacklight flashlight to keep in the car for whenever I got into a charity shop. It's just an interesting thing to see out in the wild.
You'd be surprised at the various things made with UG: drinking glasses, plates, lamps, lanterns, marbles, and various knickknacks. So I got out my blacklight and tried it out on the hobnail glass lamps that came from my maternal great-grandmother's family. No dice. A glass oil lamp found in the cellar that used to be behind my house. Nope. The various knickknacks in the glass display of a secretary desk. No... wait... a glimmer. There's a compass my father bought when he was a kid with the needle and points glowing vigorously. Not uranium, but radium. If you want to be horrified, check out the info about the "Radium Girls".
I then remembered I have some marbles that also came from my father's maternal family, just as the bowl did, and I think I got them at about the same time. I have a glass full of them, so shine the light on it and there were two UG marbles. One is very pale clear green, which is a common color. The other is pale clear blue, swirled with opaque white and a bit of light purple. For the latter, just the clear bit glows, and it's relatively faint because the opaque bits cover up a lot of the glow. For the former, it glows very brightly.
I don't plan on becoming a collector, but I do plan on getting a better blacklight flashlight to keep in the car for whenever I got into a charity shop. It's just an interesting thing to see out in the wild.