Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Frank on July 02, 2008, 07:12:19 PM
-
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/vaseline.htm
Unfortunately they don't say why.
-
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Uranium-Responsable-for-Precious-Opal-71729.shtml
seems uranium is used as a marker, so the info could be of dubious quality.
-
Intriguing that by weight, up to 25% has been used in vaseline glass!
The rest of the site is interesting too, quite surprising how many everyday items are radioactive.
http://www.orau.com/ptp/museumdirectory.htm
-
Oak Ridge Associated Universities...as in Oak Ridge Tennessee, AKA Atomic City, home base for the Manhattan Project's Uranium-separating facility for the atom bomb.
-
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/vaseline.htm
Unfortunately they don't say why.
My guess is that some other constituent is a powerful absorber of UV or of the wavelengths emitted by uranium as it fluoresces. Just a guess! :)
Interesting article! "Purists might argue that the green sugar bowl in the picture should not be considered Vaseline glass because an additional colorant (probably iron) has been used in addition to the uranium to produce the green." This implies that true vaseline owes all of its color to uranium, and glass with any other colorant shouldn't be termed "vaseline." I never thought of it that way or heard that as a way to limit the definition.
-
That is the way that many US (and possibly other) vaseline glass collectors view it and they won't consider anything but yellow. The name comes from the fact that Vaseline, as in the greasy stuff, was originally much more yellow than it is today because it was much less refined and not bleached in any way (I seem to remember it so from my childhood). It's shiny translucent qualities provided yet another similarity. Me, I'm not fussy as long as it has uranium in it...
-
it has always been my understanding that true vaseline glass has zinc in it so it strikes to a milky semiopaque at the edges when reheated and then resembles petroleum jelly. This material was extensively used in victorian table ornaments (I believe Leni has an awsome collection of these "thorn vases" in vaseline glass).
I would never use the word vaseline to describe a straightforward uranium coloured item. To me, vayzeleen is an americanism, an ugly misnomer which was introduced very recently. I'll stick to British usage.
-
That probably explains why I am confused by the term vaseline! In my more active days 1980's I was sure it was used for something else in glass and only really came across it in Uranium context in the last ten years. But, as I do not clearly recall what was called vaseline 30 years ago, I am not much use in this debate. :P
-
"Vaseline" may be an American term (we say "vassileen"), but it is by no means recent. This is from a post of mine in another thread:
Wow, I actually found a credible reference for an early date of the term! I'm astonished. A quote from this site: http://www.go-star.com/antiquing/vaseline_glass.htm
"There was also a new petroleum ointment on the market during this time period called vaseline, and the formula for the jelly at that time was the same color as this soda-lime formula of yellow glass, so coincidentally, people started calling the yellow glass vaseline glass. The oldest reference I have found in print is from N. Hudson Moore's book, Old Glass: European and American (c. 1924). On page 349, she writes, 'All the pieces shown in figure 207 are in this royal purple and canary yellow, which, by the way, no real collector would ever call vaseline, a dealer's term.' "
Seems there were objections to it even then!
Another quotation from the same site, the definition of vaseline according to "the only worldwide collectors club for this glass, The Vaseline Glass Collectors, Inc.," doesn't mention anything about zinc, nor does it say that uranium can be the only colorant:
"'Vaseline glass is a transparent, yellow-green glass that will fluoresce a bright green color when exposed to any ultraviolet light source, due to the addition of a 1%-2% amount of uranium dioxide in the original glass formula. The transparent quality may be obscured by treatments such as opalescent, carnival, iridizing, stretch, satinizing, sand or acid etching, casing, inclusion and cutting treatments. Hand painted and applied decorations are also acceptable. These treatments do not change the original transparent quality of the glass. The name vaseline glass is due to the similarity of the color to that of petroleum jelly as it appeared in 1901.'"
Is there a British equivalent for the term besides "yellow uranium glass"?
Intriguing that by weight, up to 25% has been used in vaseline glass!
That is odd!
-
I think Ivo hit it on the head, the stuff with zinc is without uranium. Lots by Powell and others late victorian period. So the US variation was introduced by dealers and ultimately has stuck. Misnomer or not, it has become common parlance and visitors here caught the bug too.
-
I'm confused. "Vaseline glass" in the UK refers to glass with zinc, but no uranium?
I think I misunderstood earlier about the added colorant making it not vaseline. They were saying it wasn't because it's green, rather than just because it has something else in it. Duh, Kristi!
-
See this message (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,2230.0.html) under the Archives forum for a "what's Vaseline" thread from 2005.
-
Still hoping to see some Red Uranium glass http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,19512.msg113360.html#msg113360
-
I swear I have a link somewhere that shows some red uranium glass, but I can't find it at the moment.
I did find a long, dry patent I had bookmarked which talks about UV absorbant and fluorescent materials (and gives lots of "recipes"!). Some may find it interesting: http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2006120663&IA=WO2006120663&DISPLAY=DESC
One passage in particular talks about a number of rare earth metals and the colors they fluoresce:
"(a) Inclusion of praseodymium (Pr) in the soda lime glass composition gives a number of results depending on the light source, white light will give yellow green fluorescence, and U.V. or green/yellow light is reported to give orange fluorescence,
(b) Neodymium (Nd) fluoresces red yellow in soda lime glasses,
(c) Europium (Eu) will fluoresce either a brilliant red or a weaker green depending on the chemistry of the glass,
(d) Samarium (Sm) will also cause the glass to fluoresce giving pink/orange light but the total iron content of the glass needs to be low to prevent the effect being 'quenched'.
(e) Ceria will also fluoresce into the blue region, and this may be the one of most interest, but there are requirements to control the glass chemistry.
(f) Uranium also gives excellent green/yellow fluorescence in soda lime silica glasses but has issues for commercial uses because of its radioactivity. However, a lot of the citron yellow glass from the 50's and 60's is based on adding uranium to the glass."
-
Frank, in reading through Bleeker's patent info, he mentioned "anything from a light Henna to a deep ruby red", so that covers a lot of ground. I think this piece qualifies as uranium glass without being yellow green.
It is a WMF piece (with label), under varying light conditions, including UV light.
http://www.vaselineglass.org/wmftrio.jpg (http://www.vaselineglass.org/wmftrio.jpg)
The little POOCH dog is a piece made by Boyd, in the mid 1980s. They called their color GOLDEN DELIGHT and it is also made with a heavy dose of only uranium as a colorant, and it also glows a very bright green.
KRSILBER: I wrote both of those quotes you found regarding the date of 1924 (earliest reference found) and also helped craft the definition for the Vaseline Glass Collectors Inc.
The Oxford unabridged dictionary gives one of their definitions of VASELINE as a "yellow-green uranium glass" (paraphrased here, but I did find it in that dictionary). It is also the only dictionary that I have ever found it in. If it is in the dictionary as a definition, it must be true!
Dave Peterson
Mr. Vaseline Glass
-
That WMF seems to fit the bill, delighted thanks!
-
And it's in an English English dictionary!
I've heard so many times that "vaseline" is a stupid recent word, coined by ebay sellers or some such nonsense...I wish I'd known years ago that it was used in 1924. I really don't understand why people have a problem with it.
-
it was USED before 1924, in order for it to become commonplace enough for the author to mention it as a 'dealer's term. Fenton was the first American glass company to actually use the word VASELINE as the name of a glass color. I don't have a specific reference handy, but I remember once James Measell telling me that it was back in the early 1930's that they used that color name. They now call their uranium glass TOPAZ.
Mr. Vaseline Glass
-
dictionaries reflect usage. If a particular word has turned up more than once in the previous period, it is included - even if it is a misnomer, as Fenton obviously found out when they switched to Topaz. Widening the definition to include all uranium coloured glass is a recent occurrence, and the ensuing confusion wholly artificial.
-
IVO: I agree. ebay usage of people calling green uranium glass as 'vaseline' has amounted to the definition evolving to 'anything yellow OR green that glows under a UV. There is just as much green depression glass being called 'vaseline' as there is yellow glass.