08/24/2026
Most vintage lovers know about green Vaseline glass glowing under a blacklight, but did you know antique pottery can glow, too?
Back in the 1930s and 40s, manufacturers like Porcelier often mixed trace amounts of uranium oxides and mineral salts into their glaze formulas to help the finish melt smoothly at high kiln temperatures.
By daylight, this Art Deco coffee pot looks like classic, creamy vitrified china with lovely brown transferware. But flip on a UV blacklight, and the entire piece lights up in a pale, eerie yellow-green glow!
It’s notoriously tricky to capture on a phone camera, but in person, it’s such a neat piece of mid-century science and design history.
It just hit the shop—check out the listing details here:
Under standard lighting, the pot displays an elegant creamy ivory vitrified glaze. Under UV/black light (395nm or 365nm), the pot fluoresces a distinct pale yellow-green due to trace uranium oxides and natural mineral flux agents utilized in Porcelier's pre-mid-century glaze batches.
