Irradiating bottles to change color

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Johnny M

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I'm on the fence with this practice. It sells bottles for sure because amethyst is an attractive color but deep down it seems deceptive as it was not done through age and time. Some Ebayers are going overboard in my opinion to make a buck. Bottles are as purple as frigging Italian plums!
 
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Roy

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I'm on the fence with this practice. It sells bottles for sure because amethyst is an attractive color but deep down it seems deceptive as it was not done through age and time. Some Ebayers are going overboard in my opinion to make a buck. Bottles are as purple as frigging Italian plums!
I agree, they look fake most of the time.
Very few real old purple bottles out there.
Roy
 

Johnny M

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Yeah. I have even heard that some of these machines are so powerful with uv and gamma rays they even can change coke bottles and fruit jars shades of amber. Guess it's buyer beware :(
 

Roy

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Yeah. I have even heard that some of these machines are so powerful with uv and gamma rays they even can change coke bottles and fruit jars shades of amber. Guess it's buyer beware :(
Johnny M,
I went to a bunch of bottle shows this year and at most of them someone has a table filled with really dark purple bottles. I don't even stop to look at them. Some may think they look great but as far as I am concerned they have for the most part ruined the bottles. I hope I haven't offended anyone on this forum who may have and love the purple bottles but they are of no value to me. I have some sun colored amethyst bottles that I love but they are nowhere near that dark.
Roy
 

Len

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Yes, and as a person with a vowel at the end of his name, I couldn't agree more with Roy on this one.
 
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willong

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I'm on the fence with this practice. It sells bottles for sure because amethyst is an attractive color but deep down it seems deceptive as it was not done through age and time. Some Ebayers are going overboard in my opinion to make a buck. Bottles are as purple as frigging Italian plums!
Personally, I'm not really a fence-straddler on the artificially irradiated bottles (and other glass items) issue.

While I see no problem, moral or otherwise, with altering the color of glass items and offering them for sale if their irradiated condition is unambiguously disclosed, when such items are offered for sale without disclosing that they were irradiated by means other than Sol's rays to produce the color, then it is flatly deceptive. I would go as far as to say the practice is fraudulent should any claims such as "rare color" or "scarce variant" have accompanied the marketing. The most despicable aspect of the practice is, in my opinion, that it preys on the naive and gullible; but then, that is the stock methodology of scammers.
 

macjxl

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I bought a dozen or so zapped (brown) milk bottles before I wised up to the practice. Yup, I'm a slow learner. Personally, I don't see any difference between irradiated & sun colored. Either way, they are modified. Twenty years in the Arizona desert being heavily sun colored, or brief exposure to gamma rays being lightly zapped would give a similar color. All the same to me. I like my bottles un-modified. Each to their own I guess.
 
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Johnny M

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Personally, I'm not really a fence-straddler on the artificially irradiated bottles (and other glass items) issue.

While I see no problem, moral or otherwise, with altering the color of glass items and offering them for sale if their irradiated condition is unambiguously disclosed, when such items are offered for sale without disclosing that they were irradiated by means other than Sol's rays to produce the color, then it is flatly deceptive. I would go as far as to say the practice is fraudulent should any claims such as "rare color" or "scarce variant" have accompanied the marketing. The most despicable aspect of the practice is, in my opinion, that it preys on the naive and gullible; but then, that is the stock methodology of scammers.
Well said my friend. Points to ponder. Johnny M
 
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Hogtown Hunter

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Here's an informative article about artificially induced colors of insulators. It says insulators (or bottles) with high levels of manganese can turn the deep purple color in the sun. To test if it's natural or irradiated use a black light. If it has changed colors by sunlight the bottle will still glow yellow just like a clear bottle. But it won't glow yellow if it's been irradiated. Ill include picture below. I tried it on two amethyst colored bottles I have and they glowed yellow. The purple one I have did not glow. I already assumed it had been nuked. The purple one I got because it was a local soda bottle i didn't have yet and it was cheap. The guy didn't try to sell as some rare color like ive seen people do on ebay.

 

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