Almost 3 inch tall beautiful deep SUN COLORED AMETHYST (SCA) antique EYE WASH cup. This is a LARGE, FANCY, and UNUSUAL patterned / BEVELED Eye Wash Cup. An ORIGINAL ANTIQUE hand Blown Into Mold - eye cup (BIM), dating well over a CENTURY OLD.
This is a unique and large BLOWN GLASS antique EYE WASH / BATH cup. There are no maker's marks or numbers, nothing. It is in clean condition and was hand blown into a fancy 'paneled or beveled' pattern mold. There are some nice bubbles blown into the glass as well and then there's the color ... You hear about old glass turning purple ... this purple color is the result of having manganese in the glass. Manganese is a mineral, a rock, that was mined, crushed, and pulverized into a powder, then added to vats of molten liquid glass, and acted as a decolorizing agent to turn the natural aqua-tinted glass into a pure crystal clear colorless glass. Then it was blown into a mold to create a vessel, but when exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun or other sources of UV rays, it triggers a chemical reaction and the manganese starts to oxidize and slowly turns a lavender or amethyst color. The end result is what collectors refer to as SCA (Sun Colored Amethyst) glass. The longer it is in the sun the purpler it becomes. This eye wash cup was exposed to some concentrated UV rays which had the same affect as the sun, but a lot faster. It has not been colored, stained, or altered. No matter how a glass vessel has turned purple (direct sunlight or UV rays in controlled environment) they all turn the same purple color as it is the same chemical reaction taking place. The only difference is the time it took to turn purple. What is important is that an item is old enough to turn purple as with few exceptions, only clear glass from before 1915 have manganese in them and will turn SCA. After this, with the start of WWI, manganese was no longer available as foreign imports decreased and domestic resources turned towards the war effort. Selenium sulphate then replaced manganese as a glass de-colorizer and when exposed to UV rays, it turns a yellow / straw color, and a dark burnt amber color. Generally speaking NO MORE purple glass after 1915! Not only does this deep purple/amethyst color make this a great looking antique eye wash cup, but it also authenticates it as being truly antique, check it out!
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