uranium glass dr lori column j7

Uranium glass glows under ultraviolet light.

 REALFINTOGIVE | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Many antique lovers ask me about glass of all types: Murano, Depression, Early American Pattern Glass, American Brilliant and Pyrex — and the list goes on. One of the most popular and exciting glass types for collectors is uranium glass.

I like to call it “the green glass that glows.”

Uranium dioxide has been used to make glass for centuries. Pieces of uranium glass have been discovered dating back to 79 A.D. Uranium glass grew in popularity in the 1830s, and the glass type that glows green experienced a collectors’ boom in the late 19th century. Uranium glass has continued to stir market interest.

Uranium glass is a type of glass that has uranium, typically in oxide diuranate form, added to a glass mixture before it is heated. This produces a special color.

For centuries, art glass makers and manufacturers of glass used small amounts of uranium to create glass of a yellowish-green color.

This glass has a translucent appearance that’s sometimes viewed as a “custard” or opaque appearance.

Some of this glass is called Vaseline, jadeite or canary glass. There are various uranium glass types that will fluoresce, or glow under black or ultraviolet (UV) light.

There is an old saying in the antiques world: “It must glow green to be Vaseline.”

Uranium glass

Uranium glass, pictured here under a conventional light, has an oily surface appearance.

Identifying glass

When it comes to identifying uranium glass, look for glass with a translucent and oily surface appearance.

Historically, uranium glass was produced during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This type of glass was produced until 1958, when the U.S. government stopped production.

Uranium, at the time, was a regulated substance. From about 1943 until 1958, because of the events of World War II and the Cold War, U.S. officials did not allow the production of uranium glass, since the government had banned uranium salts from commercial use.

Only after uranium oxide was deregulated did the U.S. government allow uranium glass to be manufactured again.

Uranium glass fluoresces, or glows in the dark, because of the presence of uranium in the glass mixture.

Collectors collect uranium glass actively from some of the best-known manufacturers and distributors, such as L.G. Wright Glass; Buckeye Glass Co. of Martins Ferry, Ohio; Mosser Glass of Cambridge, Ohio; Gibson of Milton, West Virginia; Adams & Co.; Boston & Sandwich Glass of Sandwich, of Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Northwood & Co. in Wheeling, West Virginia; Fenton; Steuben Glass, Degenhart Glass Co.; Viking; Heisey; Fostoria of Fostoria, Ohio; McKee & Bros. of Pittsburgh; Imperial; Westmoreland Glass Co.; Summit of Akron, Ohio; West Virginia Glass & Manufacturing Co.; O’Hara Glass Co. of Pittsburgh; Thomas Webb & Sons; Pairpoint Manufacturing. Co. of New Bedford, Massachusetts — a firm that made Canaria Vaseline glass for a few years only in the 1920s — and Baccarat, known for making crystal, and crystal dichroic, in the 1840s.

Safety questions arise when it comes to understanding uranium glass and collecting it.

In a 2001 report, uranium glass was deemed safe by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. These pieces of glassware emit a very small amount of radiation, but uranium glass is considered safe to store, display and collect.

With a Ph.D. from Penn State University, Lori Verderame is an antiques appraiser, author and award-winning TV personality who has appeared on the TV shows “The Curse of Oak Island,” “King of Collectibles” and “Pawn Stars Do America.” You can watch her “Real Bargains” show at YouTube.com/DrLoriV. She gives appraisal information at DrLoriV.com or call 888-431-1010.

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