Atlanta Antique Gallery - Vaseline Glass

A Bohemian named Joseph Riedel separated uranium salts from pitchblends in approximately 1835. He added these salts to a glass as a colorant, and the result was a bright yellow-green glass that he named Annagelb (after his wife, Anna, and the German word for yellow, gelb). This was during the Biedemeier Era in Europe. It was extravagant glass for the middle classes.
The glass during this time was about 40% lead and was referred to as flint glass. The decorative cuttings were elaborate and excessive. This vaseline color was just one more color to add to the palette of the glassmaster.
Riedel also made a uranium-based color he called Annagrun, which was a bright green and is also reactive to a UV blacklight. Because it is uranium being used, it makes a Geiger counter click, but 98.5% of the radiation emitted is beta waves, which dissipate within 18 inches. A person receives about the same amount of radiation standing in the sunlight.