Radioactive Beads!!
When I first saw Vaseline beads I was totally bowled over. The glass beads lying on the cold dirty cement floor in front of me were a beautiful soft greeny blue colour that somehow resembled vaseline in texture. This doesn't really make sense for the very quality of glass is hard and cold. And yet these had a warmth that totally denied their substance. The beads in front of me were so desirable but financially out of my reach at the time. These particular ones dated back to the early 1800's and would have been made in Bohemia - modern day Czekoslavakia. The soft green colour was obtained by the addition of uranium salts a process that became very popular in the early 1900's when people in many parts of the world were obsessed with the florescent qualities of uranium salts. True early vaseline beads can be identified by their shape with rondelles and discs were by far the most common , although some do have cut facets. Vaseline Beads became highly sought