Question:
As a sometime collector of vaseline glass, I have become taken with the idea
of owning a necklace made of faceted vaseline glass. I have seen some for
sale on ebay, many of which either look quite old, or which claim to be made
from restrung antique beads. On the other hand, I don't know how to age
beads, so for all I know these are presently being manufactured.
Two questions:
First, does anyone know of a source for vaseline beads? I have checked with
antique stores and bead stores, and even though I've seen a few sold (for
what I'd consider very high prices) on the web, no one in the real world
seems to have ever (knowingly) seen vaseline beads or other vaseline jewelry
items.
Second, while I know that vaseline glass doesn't post as much risk as TV
sets or other emitters of radiation, I for one don't wear TV sets around my
neck, or even old vases. Any cause to think that wearing vaseline glass so
close to your noggin might be unsafe?
Answer:
-I worked for many years in a nuclear reprocessing plant in South
Carolina and live in a town which is the nuclear waste capital of this
area and is also close to the Savannah river site where they make our
nation's weapons grade p[lutoniaum!! One of the ways that nuclear
wastes are managed is a process called glassification in which the
wastes are inbedded in glass. This seems to be one of the best ways
to make these high level wastes inert. I think your beads would be no
more dangerous than wearing one of those old "glow in the dark
watches." I have lots of vaseline glass and love it. I wonder if the
glassified nuclear wastes look like vaseline glass? Wouldn't that be
something? Just imagine an underground storage areas with big blocks
of vaseline glass.
-I've never seen an old vaseline glass necklace, so I can't really
comment on whether they exist in any form but modern, but as to the
danger, my understanding is that the primary risk from vaseline glass
was to the workers in the manufacturing process, not to the end user. I
wouldn't worry about wearing one at all.
-Bead Cats, a bead supply shop, used to sell vaseline glass beads from
Europe. They stopped selling them late last year because they thought it
was a bad idea for people to use them in necklaces , having the beads
spend a lot of time near the thyroid glands. A lot of people who buy
from bead cats make jewelry to sell in shows or galleries. I guess they
figured that most people who buy the finished jewelry pieces wouldn't
realize the beads emit radiation.
