Radioactive Items

Only a few decades ago, radioactive materials were used relatively freely in various household items.

While they are radioactive, the items do not pose a great health threat, since they do not contain high quantities of radioactive material or toxic isotopes.

Uranium Paint

The first radioactive item I found were some old dishware decorated with bright orange uranium paint. The dishes are quite radioactive and mostly emit beta radiation. I really like the interesting shape of the left piece.

Radioactive dish

Uranium Glassware

Uranium glass was also mass-produced in the last century. It is easily found in surplus stores or flea markets. I also discovered that I grew up having a piece of uranium glass at home. Only a small amount of Uranium is required to archieve the desired color. Uranium glassware therefore only contains very little Uranium and is much less active than the previously discussed dishes. Using ultraviolet light, uranium glass fluoresces in a quite beautiful green light.

Uranium glass

My aunt and uncle kindly gifted me this beautiful piece of uranium glass.

Uranium glass fluorescence

I am not sure whether they expected me to illuminate it with UV light.

Uranium glass fluorescence

I picked up this piece of glassware at a local thrift shop. Thrift shops are a great place if you look for radioactive stuff.

Uranium glass fluorescence

My mom has this uranium glass dish at home. I looked at this piece probably hundrets of times without realizing it was made from uranium glass.

Spark gap Tube

I found this old spark gap tube on ebay. The tube contains a small amount of Caesium 137 to pre-ionize the gas inside the tube and therefore reduce it's breakdown voltage. Since the tube is quite old, most of the activity is gone.

Old spark gap tube

Caesium-137 gamma spectrum

Radioactive rocks

During a holiday in Europe's Black Forest region, I visited the Schmiedestollen tailings in Wittichen. I had previously researched that uranium ore, in particular Uranium Dioxide (Pitchblende), could be collected. I was initially sceptical if I would find anything. Aproaching the mining dump, my geiger counter quickly detected increased levels of radiation. An abundance of other collectors also convinced me that minerals could be found.

Wittichen (Black Forest)

Schmiedestollen tailings

Finding radioactive minerals using a simple geiger counter turned out to be rather difficult. The counting rate on the entire dumpsite was rather high, so it was not possible to distinguish between radioactive and non-radioactive rocks. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that radioactive rocks are very abundant in Wittichen. I was easily able to find large amounts of radioactive rocks, but unfortunately did not find pretty minerals. The rocks collected in Wittichen are easily detectable using my geiger counters. I don't know the exact radioactive mineral contained in these rocks. I created a gamma spectrum of the rocks that indicated the characteristic decay chain of uranium.

Radioactive Minerals collected in Wittichen

Wittichen radioactive Mineral Gamma Spectrum

After a few hours of collecting I had a bucket full of radioactive rocks. I did not find any nice minerals and ended up collecting a few of the smaller pieces.