Lambert crystal radios were built in Wichita, about forty miles from where this collection was found. Local rumor has it that Mr Lambert paid school teachers for their used chalk boxes, into which he built his crystal sets.
This bottle holds a LARGE amount of vintage Galena crystal - there's enough here to make over ONE THOUSAND crystal radio detectors! Because it is true crystalline structure, it can be easily cleaved into smaller pieces using just a small hammer and razor blade.
A radio manufacturer would order crystal material in quantities like this to make the detectors used in his radios. The specific qualities needed for radio detectors was less of a gamble from a reputable source.
Vintage, and very rare in original packaging like this, one full pound in a factory sealed 95 +/- year old drug company bottle. As photos show, this laboratory-type brown glass chemical jar contains about 25-30 large pieces.
What is unusual here is, this is laboratory grade material. Purchased a hundred years ago to make Crystal Radio Detectors. Since those radios are long ago obsolete, so too is the market for the Crystal material, and nobody seems to be mining, grading, and packaging for that purpose any more. In other words, if you want ORIGINAL detector material, for making exact replacement, there's almost none to be had anywhere, at any price.
This type of detector is pretty much blow-out proof. If the sun, for instance, were to hit us with an EMP, most glass diodes will almost certainly be blown. But with a piece of crystal, you just move the cat-whisker to another area!
The jar measures 4-1/4'' (125 MM) in height, and 2'' (52 MM) in diameter. Looking through the dark brown glass there appears to be at least one piece over an inch long. Most appear to be about 1/2'' to 3/4'' (12 to 20 MM) in size.
The jar is sealed with a cork, held in place by some ancient reddish substance like a plaster or cement. The seal does not appear to have ever been opened, meaning this ''new, old stock'' is around 95 years old. May be Gutta Percha?
Mallinckrodt had offices in New York and St Louis....they operated at least one lead mine in Missouri, and were responsible for creating or leaving behind at least three Super Fund sites in the State.
(That Super Fund business is one big reason those mines will probably never produce any more of this material)
The company was founded in 1867 by the Mallinckrodt brothers, Gustav, Otto and Edward, in St. Louis, Missouri. I found this information via Wikipedia, which has many links to original sources, for those interested in the history.
Here's a bit from Wikipedia about the area where this material was mined:
The formal geological name for the Lead Belt is the "Southeastern Missouri Mississippi Valley-type Mineral District." It contains the highest concentration of galena (lead(II) sulfide) in the world[1] as well as significant economic quantities of zinc, copper and silver and currently sub-economic quantities of metals such as cadmium, nickel and cobalt.[1] Most of the mined ore minerals are found as sulfides such as galena, sphalerite, and chalcopyrite. Gangue minerals associated with the economic minerals include pyrite, calcite, dolomite, and quartz. Specimens from the Lead Belt are highly prized by gem and mineral collectors and are found in museums worldwide.
