Article: Radioactive Collectables

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>]

This appeared in today's Washingon Post.  The original

is at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37112-2003Dec28.html



-- 



 Very Hot Commodities

 

 By Steven Levingston

 

  Here  at the Emporium antique shop in Gaithersburg,

something is spitting radioactivity. 

 

 "Whoa! Did you see that?" cries Ray Johnson, a

sweet-faced man with a trim white beard and 30 years

of experience in radiation safety. The needle on his

Geiger counter has swung right off the scale and a

loud clicking declares the presence of something hot.

 

 Johnson was moving slowly through the shop,

methodically sweeping his pocket-size detector over

juicers and casserole dishes, tea caddies and glass

dinner bells, when he got the hit. 

 

 Few people are as well versed as Johnson in detecting

and measuring radiation. He's got two advanced degrees

from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is

director of the Radiation Safety Academy, a private

training and consulting company. For 15 years, his

staff has calibrated the radiation meters at the

National Institutes of Health and conducted daily

inspections of the labs for signs of contamination. In

the 1970s and 1980s, he was the chief of radiation

surveillance at the Environmental Protection Agency --

the government official in charge of monitoring all

sources of public exposure to radiation.

 

 The sight of a radiation expert like Johnson waving a

Geiger counter through the air -- even in an antique

shop -- could evoke a gallery of nightmare images. The

place names alone ring with dread: Hiroshima,

Nagasaki, Chernobyl. And lately there's a new fear: a

terrorist's dirty bomb.

 

 But on this occasion, Johnson isn't on the job. He's

just having a little fun. He has zeroed in on the

source of the radioactivity: a square-faced travel

clock in a beat-up red leather case. Price: $45. Its

age is unknown; it's probably a relic of the 1930s.

Its value to Johnson doesn't lie in its quality as a

timepiece -- he doesn't even care whether it works.

What fascinates him are the dabs of green paint on the

hands and numbers of the clock face. That paint, laced

with the radioactive element radium to glow in the

dark, was used widely in consumer and military

products early in the previous century. 

 

 Over the screeching Geiger counter, Johnson says

reverently of the sorry-looking antique: "That's

definitely hot." The price is too high, he grumbles.

"But you know what, I'm tempted to buy it anyway.

That'd be the hottest thing I own."

 What Makes Them Tick  

 Collecting radioactive timepieces and uranium ore

isn't quite the same as chasing after bottle caps or 

Beanie Babies. A special tool is required: a Geiger

counter for alerting the user to invisible electrons

and other particles flying off atoms in the process of

radioactive decay. The detector becomes a kind of

mechanical body part providing, as one collector

described it, a "sixth sense." The most fanatical

hobbyists pass their probes over everything in sight,

jotting in their notebooks the radiation levels in cat

litter, camera lenses and old spark plugs. Some prized

collection pieces are everyday consumer items that

just happen to be hot: radium clocks,

alpha-ray-emitting smoke detectors, uranium-glass

butter dishes, Fiesta Ware dinner plates tinted orange

with uranium oxide, Coleman lantern gas mantles

containing thorium. 

 

 Also popular are straight-from-the-earth minerals 

such as carnotite, monazite and pitchblende, the  ore

that Marie Curie spent years boiling and stirring in

her acid-stained smock on her way to the discovery of

radium. A rare specimen known to elicit oohs and  aahs

is trinitite, a glassy, grayish-green material created

from the fusion of sand and earth in the first atomic

bomb blast -- the Trinity test -- at  Alamogordo,

N.M., on July 16, 1945.

 

 For the collector, the lure isn't so much any

particular rock discovered on a mountainside or a

dinner plate found on  eBay. The joy comes in tracking

down and witnessing a mysterious force of nature.

Radioactivity defies the human senses: you can't see

it, smell it, hear it, taste it or feel it. It is this

hidden quality that enchants the collector. When a

Geiger counter chirps intensely over a hot find, the

hunter stops and listens with rapt attention -- as if

the Earth itself is speaking.



 Risky Business 

 Popular apprehension has defined radioactivity since

its discovery more than a hundred years ago. One of

the earliest researchers said it suggested that

Armaggedon now lay at the whim not just of God but of

man as well. H.G. Wells fed the fear in 1914 with his

novel "The World Set Free,"  prophesying the creation

of atomic bombs capable of nearly wiping out

civilization. 

 

 Radiation also was recognized early on for its value

in the treatment of some cancers and other ailments.

But the harmful effects of prolonged exposure soon

showed up in scientists and doctors. Safety

precautions were little understood and not a high

priority. Consumer products containing radium, such as

glow-in-the-dark watches, became the rage in the 1920s

and 1930s. Young factory women who painted the watch

dials licked their brushes to produce a fine point --

unaware of the danger -- and died gruesome deaths from

ingesting the radium. Marie Curie herself suffered ill

effects throughout her life and eventually died of

radiation poisoning. Her furniture is radioactive to

this day.

 

 After Hiroshima, the Cold War sustained the public's

fear of nuclear annihilation with help from a flood of

science fiction movies. In the 1950 film "Rocketship

X-M," a crew from Earth lands on Mars to discover the

remnants of a civilization wiped out by nuclear war.

The low-budget film spurred a genre that capitalized

on radiation terror and gave moviegoers memorable

afternoons with radiation-spawned mutants such as the

giant ants that swarm the Trinity test site in 1954's

"Them!" 

 

 In the post-Sept. 11 world, public fears have shifted

to the possible terrorist use of radioactive

materials. But the small-dose items favored by these

collectors are exempt from federal regulatory

restrictions, according to John Hickey, a senior

technical adviser at the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission. "As for using them for terrorist or

illegal purposes, these are very low-risk materials,"

he says.

 

 The NRC specialist says he's not a collector himself,

but he does own a chunk of uranium ore picked up out

West, and a radioactive Fiesta Ware dinner plate

purchased at a flea market. "The guy in the shop said,

'You know, that's got uranium in it,' " Hickey

recalls. " 'I know,' I said, 'that's why I'm buying

it.' "

 

 Experts say the emissions from collectibles such as a

radium clock or a chunk of uranium ore are so low that

there is no danger of radiation poisoning. That

condition occurs after exposure to a massive radiation

dose from a nuclear explosion or accident and can

produce life-threatening nausea, vomiting,

hemorrhaging and infection. If a risk does exist from

collectibles, it is from the delayed effects of

long-term exposure, according to Paul Frame, a health

physicist and director of the nation's most extensive

public collection of radioactive artifacts, at the Oak

Ridge Associated Universities in Tennessee. 

 

 "Regulatory agencies and radiation safety

professionals operate under the assumption that even

the smallest of doses that a collector might receive

would carry an increased risk of cancer," Frame says.

"But there is no conclusive evidence that this is the

case. At the same time, it is not possible to rule out

that there is zero risk at low doses."

 



[Picture of Green glass containing radioactive uranium

is in the collection of Ray Johnson, director of the

Radiation Safety Academy, a private training and

safety company.  See link to article -- jj]

 



 The collectors try to strike a balance between their

passion and the needs of safety. Kat Rogers, a

24-year-old geology student at the University of

Wyoming, is crazy about rocks. Her apartment in

Laramie is filled with hundreds of specimens,

including a growing assortment that spurts the

invisible rays. Her favorite is a chunk of hyalite

opal. Under ultraviolet light, she says, "it glows so

wonderfully."

 

 When she first started handling radioactive

materials, Rogers wore a special pair of bulky

radiation-proof gloves. But they made it difficult to

handle small or delicate items, and she has since

weaned herself off them, preferring to apply her

knowledge of basic safety precautions. These include

washing her hands after touching radioactive

materials, minimizing any crumbling of minerals

because of the danger of inhaling the dust, storing

specimens in protective containers, and ventilating

storage areas. 

 

 But the strictest precautions won't mollify everyone.

"One of my friends won't bring her children into my

apartment because she fears they'll get sick from the

radiation," Rogers says.



 Nutty Results 

 Tracy Albert grew up on a farm in Saginaw Township,

Mich., with goats and pigs in the yard and a chip on

his shoulder. In his youth he was more of a brawler

than a bookworm -- he eventually dropped out of high

school -- but he always had an aptitude for math and

science. What money he had he'd take with him on long

bike rides to Radio Shack and come home with the

latest electronics kit. Today he can't spell well, but

ask him to explain the alpha ray emission of radon and

you'll hear a learned lecture straight from his own

experiments. Some time ago, Albert tired of building

Geiger counters and moved on to more complicated

devices such as radon detectors. He is so proficient

with his gadgets that the 40-year-old traffic

electrician for the city of Saginaw is certified by

the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a first

responder in the event of a radioactive incident.

"I've got better detection equipment than anybody

around here for 300 miles," he boasts. 

 

 With his wife and two young children in the house, he

takes strict precautions with his radioactive

collectibles: a 1952 radium clock ("the hottest,

baddest thing I ever had"), about 40 thorium lantern

mantles, some monazite sand from Guatemala, and

pitchblende. He keeps it all in an old metal first-aid

kit painted bright yellow and labeled "RADIOACTIVE"

and stores the kit in a locked building away from the

house.

 

 Not long ago, Albert decided to investigate for

himself what experts have long said: that Brazil nuts

are a highly radioactive food. At the grocery store,

he says, "I couldn't find whole Brazil nuts so I got

mixed pre-shelled nuts." Back home, he peeled three of

the nuts, tossed them into a mortar and pounded them

with a pestle until he had a consistent sample in the

form of Brazil nut butter. He spread the butter in a

small container. When he turned his Geiger counter on

the  nuts, he discovered that they registered as much

as 33 percent hotter than the natural radiation level

of the room.

 

 The Brazil nut tree absorbs radium from the soil and

concentrates it in the meat of the nut. Research into

the radiation risks of consuming the nuts is scarce. A

report published in the journal Health Physics in 1968

noted the high level of radioactivity, concluding that

"it is to be expected that individuals who regularly

eat Brazil nuts for many years will eventually build

up elevated radium body burdens." The Food and Drug

Administration has no recommendation on Brazil nut

consumption other than warning of a possible allergic

reaction, as with other nuts.

 

 "I used to eat three to five pounds of Brazil nuts

every year," Albert says. "I still eat some, but not

as many."

 

 Albert is a member of a Yahoo chat group, CDV700Club,

 named after a civil defense Geiger counter produced

by the tens of thousands during the Cold War.

Collectors meet online to share knowledge and

experiences, seek answers to knotty questions and

locate parts. The rules demand that the discussion

remain scientific and cordial, steering clear of

politics. For Albert, the members are a lifeline to

his passion. "They're like reverend brothers," he

says.

 

 Member Jim Hale recently confessed to the chat group

that he was injected with a radioactive substance for

a gallbladder scan. He scoffed when his wife worried

that the medical procedure would leave him radioactive

enough to cook the children. Home from the doctor,

Hale flipped on his new Geiger counter. "It goes

nuts," he says. "I thought, okay, it's broke." Then he

tried his vintage CDV-700 instrument once, twice,

three times, and on each occasion the needle flew off

the scale. Hale had received about 300 millirems of

radiation, equal to the average natural exposure a

person gets in a year. But that burst -- common in

diagnostic tests -- is not strong enough to prompt

serious concern, according to G. Donald Frey, a

professor of radiology at the Medical University of

South Carolina. The usefulness of the scan outweighs

the risk. Within a few days, the radioactive substance

vanishes from the body, Frey says.

 

 Hale wasn't worried. "I may not be the best," he

says, "but as I have demonstrated, I am the

brightest."

 Radioactive Man 

 Back at Johnson's safety radiation classroom in

Gaithersburg, a poster of Bart Simpson's favorite

comic book hero, Radioactive Man, shares wall space

with a chart showing all the known radioactive

elements. The wall reflects the perennial clash

between fear and science. Johnson believes that his

role as a teacher is to find a middle ground. He

instructs high school teachers, government officials,

corporate executives, hospital workers and police

officers in everything from radiation awareness to

nuclear terrorism. Not just a radiation safety expert,

Johnson also is trained as a counselor. "I want to

make people feel more comfortable with radioactivity

by dealing with their fears," he says.

 

 His classroom is lined with collector's items: enough

Fiesta dishes, jugs, cups and saucers, and salt and

pepper shakers to fill the cupboards of a kitchen;

green glass pieces containing uranium -- a horse, a

revolver, a pair of shoes; a shelf of bright yellow

Cold War Geiger counters; 1920s and 1930s radium

travel clocks and watches; and quack cures, including

a radium water dispenser known as a Revigator. Because

his collection is already excessive -- numbering 800

pieces in all and spilling from the classroom into his

home -- Johnson decided against buying the hot watch

that thrilled him earlier in the day. "My son says

we're running out of room, so I need to look for

things I don't already have," he says.

 

 Standing in the center of the classroom 15 feet away

from the shelves, Johnson flips on a Geiger counter.

It barely ticks, registering only natural background

radiation -- proving, he says, that even in a place

jampacked with radioactive antiques, the risk is

minimal. "Radiation is not inherently sinister or

dangerous," Johnson says. "Am I going to convert the

world? No. But if I can talk to one person at a time,

maybe I'll get somewhere."

 

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© 2003 The Washington Post Company





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"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."

Abraham Lincoln



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com



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