Radioactive Pottery and Glassware (2010)

Summary

Radioactive pottery and glassware are ubiquitous at antique malls. Most items are affordable, attractive, and retain their utilitarian function for serving food and beverages. Plus, it’s always fun to pass a Geiger counter over a dinner guest’s plate just after the meal is finished and watch his face as the counter roars. The vast majority of such articles can be categorized as shown below. Uranium is present in their composition as a colorant and the radioactivity is merely incidental. Some ceramic quack health products were intentionally radioactive. My collection is by no means exhaustive, but is fairly representative of what a few weekends in local flea markets can turn up. The red stuff owes its distinctive color to a leaded uranium glaze. This glaze is most frequently encountered in so-called “California pottery” of the 1930s-50s, a style featuring bright, solid colors evocative of Moorish tile. The best-known example is Fiesta made by the Homer Laughlin China Company. Red Fiestaware contained natural uranium from 1936 to 1943, when wartime demand for uranium stopped production. Production resumed in 1959 with depleted uranium and ended for good in 1972. The selection in the photo at left includes Fiesta, as well as items made by Bauer, California Pottery, Pacific, and various unknown potteries. Uranium red glazes can produce up to about 30 kcpm on a 2″ pancake Geiger detector. Some kinds of California pottery are collectible and command high prices (e.g. Fiesta), but many uranium-glazed items of lesser pedigree can be found that cost no more than a couple dollars. The yellow stuff, glazed with a transparent uranium glaze, is generally much less radioactive than the red (ranges up to about 5 kcpm on a 2″ pancake Geiger detector), and more stylistically diverse. Examples of the California style can be found (the Franciscan Ware cup and saucer at left), but so can fine English bone china (small Paragon pitcher at center back), floral-patterned ware (Hall’s pitch...