How To Identify Uranium Glass? Here’s the Easiest Way To Spot a Vaseline Glass

Uranium glass is popular for its beauty, with some collectors and enthusiasts investing in them. For those wondering how to spot a genuine uranium glass, there's an easy way to do so.

How To Identify Uranium Glass

Uranium glass, also called Vaseline glass, is the term used to describe clear yellow to yellow-green glass or candlestick, whose hue is caused by the presence of uranium. However, sometimes, there is confusion about whether a green glass is a Vaseline glass because it may contain iron, a possible extra colorant, and uranium. In those instances, experts would refer to those items as "Depression Glass," a less appealing product.

Certain transparent yellow or yellow-green glass can resemble Vaseline glass because it has been tinted with substances other than uranium, including cerium oxide. To further complicate things, thorium impurities in this non-Vaseline glass may even make it radioactive.

So, to ensure that you have a genuine uranium glass, you've got to test it, and the easiest way to do so is by exposing the glass to an ultraviolet light source. This is possibly the most accurate method of determining whether uranium is present in it.

The glass contains uranium if it emits a deep green glow. However, in some cases, this might not be applicable. Certain glass that has uranium does not glow when exposed to ultraviolet light, like the yellow glass known as "gemstone," even if it contains uranium.

Compared to genuine uranium glass, depression glass will appear to have a dull color under UV light. However, both may have a similar look in natural light.

Aside from the black light test, you will notice that uranium glass has a yellow-green, oily sheen to it in natural light. Its oily sheen is also why it's called Vaseline glass; petroleum jelly has a slight oil sheen.

Additionally, uranium glass is translucent so that you can see through it. If the glass is opaque, it's likely a depression glass.

Another indicator that a glass has uranium is if it was made in the late 1800s. Manufacturers Mosser and Fenton are also two companies that produce Vaseline glass.

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What Is A Uranium Glass?

The earliest examples of uranium glass were created in the 1830s. It is frequently attributed to Josef Reidel, who named it after his wife. He dubbed the yellow Annagelb and the greenish-yellow uranium glass Annagruen. This glass was manufactured at his Bohemian factory between 1830 and 1848.

With time, additional companies began producing the glass, such as Baccarat in 1843 and Choisy-le-Roi in 1838. Heat-sensitive compounds that turned a milky white color when reheated were first used to make uranium glass later in the 19th century. Because of its yellow color, this glass became known as Vaseline glass.

The 1880s saw a sharp increase in popularity, and Whitefriars Glass Company, situated in London, was one of the first businesses to commercialize uranium glass.

Between 1942 and 1958, a severe uranium shortage caused manufacturing to cease entirely in the US and to halt in many other countries as the government seized uranium resources for the Manhattan Project.

Uranium use was deregulated in 1958, but the production of uranium glass picked up again, but this time, only depleted uranium was used. According to the Oak Ridge Associated Universities' Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity, more than 4 million pieces of decorative uranium were manufactured during this period, which marked the pinnacle of uranium glass's popularity in the US between 1958 and 1978.

Some nations still use uranium as a colorant today, although American glassmakers stopped using it in the 1970s when more readily available materials became available.