Orange-Red Vintage Art Pottery Glazes -- Chrome Red or Uranium?

Backcountry Notes ^ | May 11, 2010 | Jay Henderson

[jay1949]

Did North Carolina potteries use uranium oxide glazes in the pre-WWII art pottery era? For a long time many students of North Carolina art pottery have held that they did, but this author has been unable to find any verifiable example of such a glaze. There are many examples of chromium oxide red-orange glazes, of course, and the colors of these glazes can be very similar. However, chromium oxide is not radioactive -- uranium oxide is, even in a glaze -- and chromium oxide does not glow under ultraviolet light, while uranium oxide glazes often do fluoresce in the presence of UV light.

[bgill]

Fiestaware:

“The government needed the Uranium that was used to make the red glaze during World War Two, so red was given up for the war effort, until March of 1959, when you could once again purchase uranium oxide in the hills of West Virginia.”

http://www.happyheidi.com/antiques/history_of_fiesta.html

[hennie pennie]

Were actual dishes and cups ever made from this?

[hennie pennie]

Was RED Fiestaware ever actually radioactive???

[moondoggie]

My mom was a long-time collector of the dark orange/brown Roseville pottery. They were made in Roseville, Ohio, but I wonder what was used to color those?

[jay1949]

Yes. There are links in the references in my article and one is also provided in a comment above. Dishes, cups, pitchers, etc., all were made with uranium glazes and were intended to be used.

[jay1949]

Very. Ironically, the most radioactive ware was Fiesta Red made by Homer Laughlin from 1959 to 1972, using depleted uranium which the Atomic Energy Commission had made available for commercial use; depleted uranium is far more radioactive and toxic than sodium uranate and resulted in glazes that produced radon.

[bgill]

I don’t think so.

[jay1949]

I don’t know about that particular Roseville glaze, but Roseville did use uranium in some of its glazes. See: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1506809

[jay1949]

Check these out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SVyLrv-yQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiyI7uWs1z0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGQuSMSkU0Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJf-VpR7foM

[JoeProBono]

[bgill]

Just dang!

[hennie pennie]

Thank you, it's just so unbelievable...... ya know?

LOL

[hennie pennie]

Let me understand this.... the FDA removes melatonin from the market permanently because of one very BAD batch made in Japan, but NO government agency, including the FDA, ever raised a ruckus that Americans were eating their meals off of RADIOACTIVE DISWARE???

Wow...

Has anyone ever done any longitudinal studies on the physical health problems of longtime collectors of this radioactive collectable?

Thanks.

[vetvetdoug]

This was mentioned on Antique Roadshow during an appraisal of some dishes.

[spectre]

Ever hear of Vaseline glass? It has that special glow only a black light can bring out :)

sw

[Varda]

I believe it was but they fixed it since. My sons physics class took a Geiger counter to some other red/orange dishware (3 yrs ago) and it was radioactive.

[hennie pennie]

Thank you, Varda, for sharing such an amazing story; I recall vividly that there was an uproar about Mexican pottery glazes over the past few decades, and now I wonder if the fury of that outrage was to help hide or at least cover our own domestic tick-tick-ticky dishware.

[jay1949]

Sure, and I saw a collection of it displayed under UV light — talk about yer eerie green glow!

[sportutegrl]

We recently visited the CRHEST museum in the Tri Cities area, and they have a hands on display with various items where you can wave a geiger counter. There were common household items like glow watch faces and red Fiesta ware. By far, the most clicks came from the Fiesta ware. I remember thinking how odd that was. Fun waving the geiger counter, I had always wanted to do that.