Can You Take 1900s Clear Glass That Is Darkened and Make It Clear Again
Irradiated Glass / Contradistinct Glass / Artificially Purpled Glass
In contempo years the do of altering the colour of glass has reached epidemic proportions, and is an increasingly confusing and undeniably damaging aspect of the subject of collecting antiquarian or vintage glassware. The fields of American antique bottles, Fruit jars, Early on American Pattern Glass (EAPG), and antique drinking glass electrical insulators have probably been affected by this trend the most, but other fields of collecting are increasingly being afflicted as well.
At that place are several ways in which drinking glass can be color-contradistinct, just the most common, as well as problematic, and highly controversial, is the utilise of equipment that sends germ-killing X-rays or Cobalt-lx gamma rays through food (including fresh produce and spices), killing micro-organisms equally part of increased safe procedures. This process of irradiation (ofttimes chosen "nuking") has been rapidly increasing in use in the United states of america over the concluding few years.
Majestic (Amethyst) Glass
Accurate purple drinking glass has been made for many years, and has seen periods of rising and falling popularity, particularly equally relating to glass tableware. Drinking glass lumped under the term "purple" can range widely from a very pale lavander or lilac, to medium shades of regal, to very deep regal imperial, to virtual "black glass" in which the color can just be seen when a very, very thin sliver is held upwardly to a bright light. (Note: Some purple tableware and art glass may have achieved its color from the use of nickel oxide, not manganese which was the main ingredient used in older glass bottles).
Much of the "clear" or "off-clear" glass made during the 1880s-1920s contains the element Manganese, which was intentionally added to the glass "batch" as a decolorizing agent. The manganese helped to "mask" or "neutralize" the effects of fe which typically causes some shade of light green, blue-green or aqua color in glass.
Manganese, in somewhat higher quantities, also imparts a royal colour to glass. When manganese-containing types of glass are subjected to later irradiation, the glass may plough various shades of majestic. These shades may appear equally an odd "grape-Kool-Help" purple, a blue-imperial (almost leaning toward a cobalt-blue color in some instances) or a very deep royal purple.
NOTE: Glass containing enough manganese may NATURALLY plow some shade of very light to medium regal subsequently several years of exposure to the rays of the sun. This was ofttimes termed "SCA" (sun colored amethyst) or "desert glass" by bottle collectors peculiarly in the 1960s and 1970s. In most cases the shade of colour seen in "desert glass" is quite calorie-free or "pastel". In some cases, afterward long exposure in the sun, the purple color will get rather dark, as is seen occasionally in bottles and other drinking glass establish in one-time mining camps and "ghost towns" of the former West. The shade of color will depend on how much manganese was in the glass batch (recipe or formula) at the time the bottle was manufactured, in conjunction with the length of time the glass was exposed to the elements.
HOWEVER, the bogus purpling of glass (especially when potent doses of irradiation is used) typically causes a decidedly darker or "peculiar" shade of purple to result. Most ordinary commonsensical bottles in really dark purple shades (with some exceptions) were irradiated. Although I would agree that sometimes authentically "lord's day colored" glass can reach a medium/dark shade, IF you detect a large number of bottles of various types, all exhibiting the aforementioned noticeably nighttime purple color, being sold in a flea market or antique mall surround, the chances are very skilful they were non colored by exposure to the sun merely, simply past artificial means. (Run into "Bottle Purpling" paragraph beneath).
Royal EAPG
There are several fields of glass collecting in which the scourge of artificially "purpling" glass has go actually a serious trouble, especially to those collectors who accept a real interest in the preservation of the history and integrity of old glassware. This includes the field of what is called EAPG (Early American Pattern Glass) . Some of these pieces are artificially purpled and offered for sale at flea marketplace booths and on online auction sites. Such items as water and milk pitchers, spoonholders, creamers, tumblers, table salt cellars, sugar bowls, compotes, cake plates, oil lamps, and other forms of tableware in various patterns of the 1880s-1910s accept been irradiated, and are sold to unwary collectors, or casual buyers merely looking for decorator items or something that "catches their eye". Some of these buyers really couldn't care less about the provenance or authenticity of the glass, thus compounding the problem. If/when the nuked glass is re-sold later on, the next purchaser typically assumes the glass was made that color in the outset.
Although some purple glass was produced in a few EAPG patterns, very, very piddling of it was made originally, in comparison to the TREMENDOUS quantities of clear (or an effort to be as colorless every bit possible) early on American glass tableware.
Canteen Purpling
Another field of glass collecting is the study and collection of antique bottles and flasks. Many of the more common types of clear glass bottles of the 1880-1920 menses are at present beingness mass-irradiated and sold at flea markets. If you spot a large number of onetime purple bottles (or jars) inside a item berth in a flea marketplace or antiquarian mall, yous can exist fairly sure they take been irradiated, and were originally colorless, or only a light shade of amethyst originally. Along with the purpled bottles, y'all might seen bottles in odd shades of brownish-dark-green (such as Coke bottles).
The perpetrators of this type of wholesale altering of glass commonly (simply non always) exercise this to a lot of the more unremarkable clear glass bottles such every bit common druggist, soda, ink, chemic, whiskey and food bottles, sometimes those with no brand proper name or urban center on the face, and frequently examples that are completely "slick" with no markings at all.
It is very common for onetime purple bottles such as these to exist ho-hum and heavily stained with a whitish residue or "sickness" on the surface of the drinking glass. This is a strong indication that the bottles accept been dug (the sickness acquired by long burying) , were clear (or very light purple) to begin with, and were afterward irradiated en masse. Reverse to what some sellers might say, there is little reason to believe that these bottles would eventually darken to that casteif they were left in the sun for a thousand years. The process of irradiation is not quite the same as ordinary sunlight, and it is more probable that the glass would not achieve this dark of shade of majestic if purely "sun-colored" naturally.
Glass Insulators
Some glass phone insulators, and some bottles which were originally an aqua or light dark-green color may be altered/irradiated to come out a purple colour, and in some cases (depending on the verbal chemistry of the glass and what ingredients were contained in the cullet used when forming the batch) a peculiar cornflower blue, deadening gray blue, or sapphire blueish may result.
(To make this fifty-fifty more confusing, a number of types of electrical insulators –every bit found in the wild – are seen in accurate medium and nighttime shades of purple, for instance, some of the W.F.K.CO. and W.Thousand.One thousand.CO. insulators from Denver; the AM TEL & TEL CO tolls; the Whitall Tatum CO. No i; and many of the "Diamond" CD 102 ponies from Canada).
Selenium
Clear drinking glass that was originally decolorized by using selenium as the active ingredient instead of manganese (the apply of selenium was detail prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s and afterward) may turn strange shades of "burnt amber" or "smoky slow dark brown" under irradiation, which are colors about unknown in the production of the original glass production. Only for an case: If yous detect an insulator marked "HEMINGRAY-42" and it is in a night brown/amber colour, information technology has been IRRADIATED! (No original Hemingray-42'due south were ever fabricated in such a color).
Recently, Coca-Cola and other types of soda bottles take appeared for sale online that take been irradiated, resulting in a peculiar boring "burnt brownish" shade. The original "Coke bottle green" or "Georgia green" color (light green-aqua) has been changed to this odd, sickly appearance.
Knowledge of exactly which colors are known in the various types of original insulators tin can exist gained by studying value guides, along with searching for information on various webpages that delve into more detail on this subject area. Sometimes, just the exact embossing arrangement (lettering on the drinking glass surface) seen on a detail slice can make a large deviation on whether a color is authentic or not.
"Stained Glass" / Surface-stained drinking glass (this subject isnot pertaining to the more than commonly understood context of "stained drinking glass" equally relating to architectural or ornamental glass seen in church windows).
Sometimes glass(and this pertainsespecially to electric insulators) is surface stained to achieve the advent of a different color, typically an unusual colour completely dissimilar from the actual color of the glass. This has become increasingly mutual on auction sites such as ebay. In many cases the description of the insulator is written in such a style as to deceive or confuse new or unsuspecting collectors who volition presume a color is accurate or "all-the-way-through-the-glass" when it is only a surface blanket. A clear drinking glass insulator of a common type with little budgetary value may appear to be a much more valuable type by adding a surface coating! The color may be achieved by using some type of glass pigment, and sometimes subsequent heating to cause the color stain to adhere more steadfastly to the glass. Thus a "one dollar" insulator may exist wrongly assumed to be worthmuch more because the color is perceived to be "rare".
Most "serious" insulator collectors frown on this practice and encourage other hobbyists to learn more nearly what they are actually buying. Some online sellers may imply in their descriptions that this practice of surface-staining is ethical or highly to be praised, and that the buyer is just obtaining an unusually colored insulator to brandish in their window for mere ornamentation.
There may be zippo intrinsically "wrong" with that, but the problem comes when the piece is RESOLD and the next person who gets it may take NO Thought nigh it'south provenance or whether or not the color is accurate and original. The insulator may be sold for a much higher price than it is worth, if either the seller and/or the buyer doesn't sympathize that the color has been altered.
Here are some webpages that I would strongly recommend for more detailed information on this subject:
Artificially purpled Early American Pattern Glass:
http://www.patternglass.com/sunpurple.htm
Webpages concerning simulated and contradistinct glass insulators:
https://www.nia.org/altered
https://www.nia.org/full general/g_natpt_fakes.htm
https://www.myinsulators.com/magicmist/warning.html
Fake colors in insulators:
https://world wide web.insulators.info/books/simulated/appendix1.htm
Canteen colors:
https://sha.org/canteen/colors.htm#Purple%20to%20Amethyst
Bottles — Irradiated Drinking glass, the Color of Greed:
https://dumpdiggers.blogspot.com/2008/01/irradiated-glass-amethyst-color-of.html
The Chemistry of Purple Glass – past Rick Baldwin
https://ohiobottleclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/THE-CHEMISTRY-OF-Regal-GLASS.pdf
A squeamish reference book illustrating lots of purple drinking glass: P urple Glass: 20th Century American & European, a Schiffer Book for Collectors , (Leslie Pia, Ed Goshe and Ruth Hemminger) illustrates a broad diverseness of purple tableware and art glass, all (or virtually all) believed to be authentic and equally originally fabricated.
Please click hither to go to my Dwelling house Page.
Click here to go directly to the Glass Bottle Marks pages (listings of marks used by glass companies / manufacturers on bottles and other glassware).
Source: https://glassbottlemarks.com/irradiated-altered-artificially-purpled-glass/
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