Paul,
We had a travelling exhibit of this stuff, along with a hunk of real
Curie-made radium salts, when I was working in Texas. Of course, the pure
radium salts were behind several inches of solid lead, with a viewing port
of foot-thick leaded glass. They were extremely "hot" even after 50-odd
years. I can not imagine them having carried it around in their pockets.
There was also a geiger counter as part of the exhibition, and we put out a
number of commercially available things that are radioactive for people to
check with the counter. Commercial welding rods, lantern mantles, morton
salt, and a variety of other things exhibit low levels of radiation. Very
low and harmless, but detectable none the less. The Fiestaware and vaseline
glass with the uranium salts are similarly low-level sources, and not to be
considered hazards to public safety. Eating off them might be a bad idea,
but more because the uranium salts might leach into the food than the
latent radiocativity.
Not all vaseline glass has uranium salts, just as not all orange(and
pinkish/salmon) colored Fiestaware is radioactive. It depends on the period
during which the stuff was manufactured. In any case, you do not need to
worry about your parents glowing in the dark as a result of their vaseline
glass collection.
Mark Janzen
Registrar/Collections Manager
Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art
Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection
Wichita State University
(316)978-5850
Paul McCoy
<paul-mccoy@COMCA
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OK, new to this conversation. Are you telling me that the enormous (and
hideous) vaseline glass collection my parents have accumulated over the
last 40 years is radioactive? How radioactive?
Paul
--
Paul McCoy
Education Specialist
Historic Carnton Plantation
1345 Carnton Lane
Franklin, TN 37064
(615) 794-0903
(615) 668-0741--cell
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-------------- Original message --------------
Add to the list that lovely greenish 'Vaseline glass', which contains
uranium.
Laura
Laura H. Nightengale
Head of Collections
Texas Archeological Research Laboratory
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station R7500
Austin, TX 78712-0714
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