How much is a uranium glass dish worth?

Uranium glass is glass that contains uranium and fluoresces under ultraviolet light. The thrift piece is often a transparent yellow-green dish collectors call vaseline, or a green pressed piece that looks ordinary until the lamp is on. Color is not the test. Plenty of yellow glass never glows, and some green Depression plates glow and remain Depression glass, pattern and all. Opaque pale green with a Fire-King mark is the jadeite bowl, which can fluoresce and is still that bowl. Opaque yellow custard can glow and is not this transparent dish. Start with the lamp, then the form.

The practical lamp is a long-wave black light. In a dim corner, uranium glass typically gives a strong green glow. Say the lamp and what you saw. A weak glow can be something else. Manganese in glass can fluoresce, more often under a short-wave lamp, which is a harsher light you do not need for a shelf sort and should not shine into your eyes. This page will not print a dose, a safe-hours figure, or a price. The glassware note is the safety reading: it is radioactive glass, do not grind it, and a regulator’s public page is the source. Sold listings of the pattern, the glow you actually tested, and the chips are the market.

What to look for

The glow

Long-wave light, dark corner, strong green. Photograph it only if the photo shows the dark and the lamp, and still write the sentence. A daylight picture of a yellow dish does not contain a glow. If you did not test it, do not put uranium in the title. Vaseline is a color word collectors use. It is not a result.

Transparent or not

This guide is the transparent dish. If you can see through the yellow-green, you are here. If it is opaque pale green, open the jadeite guide and read the mark. If it is opaque white, open the milk-glass guide. The lamp does not merge those objects.

Pattern, seam, chip

Pressed dishes have mold seams. A seam is not a crack. Name a Depression pattern only when you can, and link the two facts: the pattern, and the glow. Feel the rim. A chip on a serving edge is condition. Reproductions of yellow-green glass exist. No glow means it is not this listing, however yellow it is.

Lead is a different test

A glow does not tell you whether the glass contains lead. A flicked ring does not tell you either. A dishware lead test kit, used as the kit is written, is a screen, not a certificate. Do not invent a part-per-million number. If you did not swab it, do not mention lead.

What moves the price

Tested glow

Comp a piece you glowed against pieces described the same way. An untested yellow dish is an untested yellow dish. Buyers of this glass will ask which lamp. Answer in the listing. A short-wave-only story without the lamp in your hands is a story.

Form and pattern

A plate, a creamer, a perfume, and a bowl do not share a price because they share a glow. Depression patterns that glow still have pattern comps. Use both words if both are true. Use one if only one is true.

Damage

Chips, cracks, and a dull dishwasher surface. The glow does not fill a chip. A cracked dish is not a serving dish you “just won’t use much.” Describe it. Do not sand a chip. Dust from this glass is the hazard the safety note is about.

Reproductions

New yellow-green glass is made with and without uranium. The lamp sorts them. A new piece that glows is still new. Look for a modern sticker, a perfect foot, and a mold that has not seen a cabinet. Price it as what it is.

Where to sell

eBay

Say uranium glass only after the long-wave test, name the form, and show the chip. Include the sentence about the lamp. A small chipped dish may not survive the fee. Read sold listings of that form, not of “uranium glass” as a mood.

Local

Sensible for a heavy or chipped piece, and for a buyer who wants to see the glow in the room. Bring the lamp or tell them to. Do not ship a cracked dish and call it a curiosity.

Keep, with a limit

Owning an intact piece is what the public radiation notes discuss. Making dust, or filling a damaged dish with food because a headline said it was fine, is not. Read the authority’s page. This guide will not sign a permission the test did not earn.

What a photo can settle

The dish in daylight, the same dish in the dark with the long-wave lamp visible, the rim chip, and any mold or maker’s mark. Worth can see yellow-green glass. It cannot see a glow in a sunny photo, measure radiation, or tell uranium from a manganese flicker. The lamp and the sentence are the identification.

Questions

Is all yellow glass uranium glass?

No. Yellow and yellow-green are colors. Uranium glass glows a strong green under a long-wave black light. If you have not used the lamp, you have a yellow dish. Sell it as that, or test it. Vaseline is a collector’s name for the color, not a substitute for the glow.

Is it safe to eat off uranium glass?

This page will not give you a safe-hours number. The glass is radioactive. Intact pieces are what regulator public notes describe, in their words, which you should read. Do not grind or sand it. Do not treat a chipped, flaking dish as a food test. A UV light is not a dose.

My green Depression plate glows. Which guide is it?

Both facts can be true. Identify the pattern on the Depression glass page, and say you saw a strong green glow under a long-wave light if you did. One fact does not cancel the other. A glow does not make a common chipped plate into a different object.