Radiation Detected!

It has been quite some time since my last post, but this weekend was relatively productive.  My wife and I like to visit antique stores, she likes pyrex and some depression glass items, I of course like radioactive Fiestaware, burmese glass, radioactive jadeite, vaseline glass and of course radium dialed clocks.  We have yet to find the rarest of pyrex, at one point Dow Corning had some vaseline glass Pyrex goods.

Since I was urban prospecting, I chose to bring my SE International Digilert.  It is a nice digital Geiger Counter that is sensitive to alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.  It can be pre set to alarm as well, when the count reaches a preset point.  It is fairly discreet in size, and emits a nice "click" with each count.  I also carried my PM1703M, but it rarely will register vaseline glass items unless they are exceptionally hot, or quite large.  Uranium is not a strong emitter of gamma rays.   

The first shop we visited was on NW 39th Street in Bethany.  It is esentually an antique mall that has various displays from numerous vendors.  There where several items that I checked with no avail.  Some Frankoma cups and plates (they have a reddish orange ceramic glaze), a few clocks with zinc sulphide luminous dials, and I was beginning to think that I was going to come up with nothing.  Finally, at about 3:40 PM, after 25 minutes of searching and testing, behind some cups and plates I found an orange glazed prize, a serving plate that made my geiger counter click steadily.  The count was 567 cpm, at about 8 inches.  Nice plate, but a little expensive, it was around 20 dollars.  I found several pieces of vaseline glass, that where fairly hot, about 60 cpm at several inches from the gm tube, but again they where priced a little out of my budget. 

At that point my wife and I decided to get something to drink at a nearby convenience store, so we left.  After I got an energy drink, and she got a soda, we went to another antique mall located at an old skating rink at Rockwell and NW 23rd.  

The weather was very warm, about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and when we entered the store it felt cool at first, but it actually was quite warm inside, so we decided to only go down a few isles.  This antique mall was a relative treasure trove of radium dialed clocks (I found three) and very reasonably priced vaseline glass items.  Interestingly enough I found a "set" of three "vaseline" martini glasses.  Only one of them though was radioactive.  I also found another orange glazed plate, similar to the mall on NW 39th, that was more reasonably priced. 

Overall, it was a fun couple of hours.  My wife bought several inexpensive items, and I may go back and get the radioactive martini glass in the near future...