Share your Radioactive collection

Here are a few things from my collection of Radioactive goodies
So far includes, Uranium, Thorium, Radium, Cesium and Americium.
Not all shown in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q0TmWNWNGI&list=UUAC89E4gWVgLFg0rGT3uzuQ

Edit: New Addition to my collection!!


It glows beautifully in the dark!

I have a 12 inch diameter Fiesta plate made in the late 1930's that is radioactive - Bought it to test my Geiger counter.

15mR/hr Fiestaware plate, 200mg U238 metal, 2" x 1/8" H3 vial, 9mR/hr 1B52 Ra226 tube, 45g Pitchblend Ore, Th232 mantels, Am241 5cUi button, Uranium Glass shot glass set, and a small amount of mixed U more.

Fixed the YT video for you Polonium.

Most impressive collection. I always see green tinted glass at the flea market but I'm never sure if it's vaseline glass or not.

Got a few bit of radioactive stuff I've collected over the years.

A nice uranium glass candy bowl:




Not particularly active, but still measurable over my room's background of 25 CPM.

Some uranium glass beads:




More active than the candy bowl, which given its much lower mass must mean its got a higher concentration of uranium, and/or it was made much more recently (the candy bowl is from the 1920's)

Core of an old smoke detector (contains americium and its decay components):




Not much happening with that either. Americium primarily emits alpha radiation, which my counter can't detect (and alpha wouldn't make it through the metal casing anyways) but its decay components emit radiation that I can measure. I imagine the reading would be higher if I could get the americium pellet out of that casing.

And last but most certainly not least, an nice large uranium ore-laden rock I purchased off ebay:


Looks inconspicuous enough, but the geiger counter tells a different story:


Quite an active specimen! I would love to measure it with an alpha sensitive counter. Its mostly giving off low energy beta radiation so its not particularly hazardous. The main worry is little bits of it breaking off and inhaling or ingesting uranium ore dust and letting that bake my innards.


I would love to get a nice intact radioactive fiestaware plate, but they are a bit expensive on ebay and I've never been able to justify spending a lot on a plate just to make my geiger counter tick.

ped said:

Fixed the YT video for you Polonium.

Click to expand...

Thanks Ped:wave:

The Am-241 also emits gammas, though not at a prodigious rate. I doubt you're seeing much of any daughters using that detector.

The plate I have is 10" dia and measures in at I think 70Kcpm gamma only. I can make my room background level raise from more than 10ft away, haha. Interestingly enough it's rad field is shaped interestingly. On axis there is little emission, but 90deg to axis the emission field peaks. I can thus "target" the bulk of emissions toward or away from a certain detector. A simple SBM-20 GM detector picks it up from about 1.5 meters away if I orient the field accordingly.

At this stage I only have a Glass vase and a couple of bowls but earlier last month I was fortunate enough to travel to a very large rural property in the Gammon Rages South Australia. The property owner and his wife were kind enough to show us their radioactive collection which consisted of one glass bowl and a multitude of different rocks and crystals all of which were contaminated with radioactivity. These had some amazing colouring under the three different wavelengths of black lights with colours ranging from Purple blues, bright greens yellows oranges and reds. Most were from on or near his property which in years past was a sheep station but after the discovery of Uranium by Sir Douglas Mawson many years ago the station owner who also had become a Geologist eventually closed the "Station" and today it is a Wildlife sanctuary which is now run by the son who is also a geologist. To cut to the chase I have been invited back with my black light to head out one night to go fossicking on this place which happens to be right next door to the Beverly Uranium Mine. I gather these rocks are not in abundance but I am sure I will find something to add to my small collection as to which I did not know these things existed before joining this forum!

The Uranium mine is somewhere out in the flat country on the far right of the screen.

This is nifty! How/where do you store your collection? I mean, is it on a presentation shelf or in some sort of shielded container?

Thanks for the video... good stuff!

/c

Gotten enough personal radiation from my navy days and now medically that it's a wonder I haven't gotten some form of cancer yet. Not sure I need any more sources

KapHn8d said:

This is nifty! How/where do you store your collection? I mean, is it on a presentation shelf or in some sort of shielded container?

Thanks for the video... good stuff!

/c

Click to expand...

The Uranium glass and clocks I keep in a glass display case under a UV lamp. My big chunk of Uranium ore is kept in an old ammo can in the garage. When I open the can to show it off I take it outside just in case of any built up radon gas inside the container.

Blarg King said:

Got a few bit of radioactive stuff I've collected over the years.

Some uranium glass beads:

More active than the candy bowl, which given its much lower mass must mean its got a higher concentration of uranium, and/or it was made much more recently (the candy bowl is from the 1920's)

Click to expand...

I love the beads. I have been searching for some for my collection for a long time

Blarg King said:

Core of an old smoke detector (contains americium and its decay components):

Not much happening with that either. Americium primarily emits alpha radiation, which my counter can't detect (and alpha wouldn't make it through the metal casing anyways) but its decay components emit radiation that I can measure. I imagine the reading would be higher if I could get the americium pellet out of that casing.

Click to expand...

Getting at the Americium in the smoke detector is easy, just de-solder the two tabs on the back of the pc board that hold the can in place. The Alpha only has a range of about 3 - 5 cm in air.

Blarg King said:

I would love to get a nice intact radioactive fiestaware plate, but they are a bit expensive on ebay and I've never been able to justify spending a lot on a plate just to make my geiger counter tick.

Click to expand...

My fiestaware is pretty spicy, It make my geiger counter scream lol

I love going to the antique shops around here and hunting for radioactive stuff, not to mention freaking people out walking around with a geiger counter

Polonium210 said:

My fiestaware is pretty spicy, It make my geiger counter scream lol. I love going to the antique shops around here and hunting for radioactive stuff, not to mention freaking people out walking around with a geiger counter

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I bought my Fiestaware on ebay and showed my wife how much it could make my Geiger counter scream, then she wouldn't let me keep it in the house anymore. She put it outside under one of her potted plants!

I have some uranium glass crackle marbled from jayrob...does that count? :crackup:

Do any of you remember seeing the pics of Madmacmo's uranium glassware collection? He had in impressive amount of the stuff. Too bad he went and got himself banned!

nice tread !

btw whats the most active smoke detector available ? i found some 80µci
but is there some more possible?

edit*-seems that the images are gone