Topic: Uranium glass grapefruit dish

[Anne]

Found this today, and had a very interesting chat with the ladies in the charity shop about it too...   they were fascinated by the way it lit up under my new UV torch! It was even glowing under the shop's fluorescent lights...

Anyhow, who made it?  I've looked at Christine's gallery and see that she has three similar grapefruits but this one is not quite the same as any of them... 

It's the first one I have found in uranium glass - my other 50+ aren't uranium...

Dimensions: 3½" tall, 3¾" wide at the foot.

[Paul S.]

nope  -  not an inkling of an idea Anne                    These things must have been in very common table use back in the first half/mid C20  -  I see them almost everywhere I go  -  and in a profusion of colours and cuts, and I've had uranium ones too but no idea as to origin.
Outside of up market eateries etc., and of course posh GMB members, I don't think they see anywhere the same frequent use as fifty years ago - perhaps cheap ceramic bowls sounded their death knell..............   social habits have changes and they've probably died along with lidded jam pots, celery jugs, proper butter dishes etc.
I did have a dozen or so but now all gone except my Walsh Pompeian blue bubbled example.

It's tempting to suggest that if British then the date would be prior to mid 1940s - or whenever the U.K. ceased to put U. into glass - and if Continental then maybe later - is U. still used in some countries in table glass?                You don't mention wear, or lack of ??

You have fifty + you say  -  do you think there's an issue there somewhere, or are you intent on feeding the five thousand on grapefruit instead of fishes and loaves.

[Anne]

Hmmm Paul, there could be an issue... did I mention the obsessive collecting???  

There is wear commensurate with its age, as they same. I seem to recall Adam Dodds saying British uranium glass was pretty much all pre-WW2. I don't know when its use was ceased in Europe though.