Koeth Collection – Consumer Products

Koeth Collection – Consumer Products

Author: Tim

Tim has been collecting radioactive consumer (useful and quack) products since he was 10 years old, some 3+ decades. Most of his items are on display at the University of Maryland where students get an education on our atomic heritage. The following is a good sampling of his collection. This list is not complete and will be expanded over time. Also, no collection is ever complete, so if you are interested in adding to the Koeth Collection, please contact Tim.

Some of Tim’s uranium glass on display under UV lamps.
Cabinet crammed with glazed consumer products on the bottom shelf, radium bearing items on the next shelf up, items pertaining to reactors and atomic weapons above that, and the top shelf is a mixture of the rest. Many of these items have been photographed and appear below.
Another crammed cabinet crammed, this one is full of X-ray related devices and artifacts. Many of these items have been photographed and appear below.

X-RAY TUBES & SYSTEMS

A Gundelach bi-anode x-ray tube
General Electric x-ray tube with x-ray shield.
Assortment of other electron demonstration tubes.
Tim’s shoe fitting fluoroscope.
The Adrian Special.

REVIGATORS

Lifetime Radium-Vitalizer (the source is missing)
Double the fun, making your radium revigators out of uranium glass.
Health Fount Radium Vitalizer – found in a NM thrift shop and hand carried to MD.
Tim’s first Revigator.
Tim’s second revigator.
Tim’s third Revigator, which was given to a friend. This one is special because Tim purchased it from from a real estate person who was planning to use this quaint device to serve lemonade to open-house guests. I got it from her before this happened.

GLAZES & URANIUM GLASSWARE

An assortment dish ware and other consumer products coat with a glaze of uranium in one form or another.
A mixture of manufacture’s dish ware using “atomic orange” uranium glaze.
A mixture of manufacture’s dish ware using “atomic orange” uranium glaze.
Faint yellow and lighter glazes that are still uranium based.
One of my favorite pieces, a raven black candle holder with a U3O8 uranium glaze.
A small mission style coffee table with inlaid tiles, with atomic orange glaze.
As they go, this one is pretty spicy, being comparable to Fiestaware.
These spicy bookends were an unexpected delight
A small vase with a myriad of beautiful colors from the mixed glaze.
Uranium glass.
A calming canal scene glaze onto a tile.
It is uranium that provides this scene the warmth of the setting sun.

THORIUM FOR YOUR MOUTH & EYES

Doramad thorium based toothpaste from the German army.
This is a thorium based lens.

POLONIUM 210

Polonium plated spark plugs, totally a sales gimmick.
The Lone Ranger Atomic Bomb Ring, was a finger mounted spinthariscope. This would be shipped to children after they mailed in enough proof of purchases.

RADIUM: FOR BETTER & WORSE

A postcard with a dab of radium-phosphor mixture.
Assorted radium bearing products, some useful some not so useful.
Radium tipped toggle switches, so as to be able to see them in the dark.
A radium based radio-luminescent chain pull for finding the lamp in the dark.
A radium based radio-luminescent wall-mount plate for locating switches in the dark.
This is truly one of Tim’s favorite pieces, a radium based start map! The idea was to unfold this at about chest height to guide a stargazer through the heavens on a clear and dark night.
Of course the stars, and the connect-the-dots lines of the constellations are all from the radium based self-luminous paint.
All in all, it is not that radioactive.
Radium Star Map – It Shines At Night.
A spinthariscope of sorts, to be view with a microscope. I wonder how many of these have been crushed at the hands of overzealous biology class students.
A bed side clock loaded with self luminous radium based paint.
A pocket watch with a healthy amount of radio-luminescent paint.
The “glowbody” minnow radium radio-luminescent fishing lure.
Assortment of radium bearing items
These are the cylinders and leather case that a medical “radium needle” would have been kept in (radium is gone).
Just a moldable wax for affixing radium application to patients. Interestingly, this is slightly contaminated with a measurable amount of radium.
Radio-Active Solar Pad: this is a radium laced pad that, when placed on your body at the site of an ailment, should reduce or cure the pain.
A portable Radium-Vitre emanator. For travel, when you can’t take you full sized Revigator with you.
Radithor – mixutre of radium and thorium, was the energy drink of a century ago. Read more about Eben Beyers.

URANIUM

A memento from Conoco – the New Mexico Uranium Projects.
A large crystal of Uranyl Nitrate.
A uranium yellow-cake capped ball point pen from Pioneer Nuclear, Inc.
An unused Chicken Delight pencil.
Actual sampels of Uranium Ore.
This is how it comes out of the ground! Uranium in the form of yellowcake.
A fuel pellet neck-tie chain.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Assorted electronic vacuum tubes that use radioactivity as part of its intended function.
A silver dime that was once made radioactive by either a small nuclear reactor or strong neutron source. The half-life of silver is just minutes, so very quickly become non-radioactive and safe to put back into circulation.
Assorted present-day radioactive quackery…