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Antique Vaseline Glass Beads
Antique vaseline glass is a yellow or green glass that, when
put under
an ultraviolet light, turns a beautiful, fluorescent green. To get the yellow
color, glassmakers added between one-half to two percent uranium dioxide, or
uranium salts, to their formula. Vaseline glass will actually set off a Geiger
Counter, but the radiation involved is low and not harmful.
The history of this glass is rather obscure. Some experts credit
Central
Europe and Bohemia in particular, as being the point of origin for antique
vaseline glass in the early 1800s. In 1836 a pair of candlesticks made of
vaseline glass by Whitefriars Glass Works in London was given to the Queen of
England. During this time period, some glass manufacturers switched from blown
glass to pressed glass, a more efficient production method, and continued to use
uranium dioxide as a colorant.
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Lot of four very cool pressed beads.
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Lot of six beads that don't fluoresce in ultra-violet so I suspect they were made in the 1950s. Still, they're very
pretty beads.
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