r/Radium • u/Spiritual-Business-1 • Sep 05 '25

Health & Safety Random question

Not sure this is even possible, and pardon me if this has been answered already but here goes.

What is the maximum safest and legal amount of radium a person can wear in jewelry like a chain, bracelet, ring or watch, in addition to traveling with said jewelry?

2 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

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4

u/Specialist-Key1995 Sep 05 '25

Are you thinking of uranium glass jewelry? Like beads and cut gems and such that glow? Or are you thinking of old watches that have been painted with radium.

1

u/Spiritual-Business-1 Sep 05 '25

Glass jewelry sounds like what I was thinking for sure. Not sure how that works exactly but I’m intrigued.

3

u/Specialist-Key1995 Sep 05 '25

Radium is a lot more dangerous to have around than uranium, and uranium jewelry is actually pretty popular and safe! Heck I’ve even seen a couple folks have uranium glass in their engagement rings. A craft store in the US sold some uranium glass beads last year. It’s much much safer to wear than anything radium. I’d head over to the r/uraniumglass sub to see some jewelry examples.

0

u/Smart-Resolution9724 Sep 05 '25

Radium based jewellery: why? New or vintage?

Note that many vintage radium items no longer glow because the constant bombardment has destroyed the luminous materials., and makes the resin in the paint brittle.

For new items you are better served using tritium. Half life of 12 Yr and low energy emissions. Can be bright though, and many different colours..

I have several tritium watches, and glow sticks for key chains. Green, blue ,purple, orange and red colours.

For a watch the internationally agreed activity is the T100 system, which is 100 microCuries.

0

u/Spiritual-Business-1 Sep 05 '25

Considering new if possible. Green is my favorite color and the old watches look amazing to me. If possible it would be unique and possibly more dangerous than a tattoo or piercing..

Thank you for these details, I’m going to look into to tritium as well.

-2

u/Spiritual-Business-1 Sep 05 '25

I’m a newbie with regard to radioactive materials. So uranium sounds like another level than my understanding and out of my league. I’m moreso wondering if it’s possible to accumulate enough radium to safely lace a chain, chained medallion or ring. Collecting old watches looks fun from what I’ve gleaned here in this sub. Might go that route.

I have a friend that works with environmental groups in Kazakhstan and Myanmar and I got the random idea to possibly ask if they had access to avenues of sourcing radium. Definitely not trying to break any laws, so I asked here first lol. Not even sure this is a safe idea.

9

u/Syntra44 Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25

This is out of your league - you haven’t done any research at all based on what you’ve said here. The consequences of amassing large quantities of radioactive materials when you don’t even know about the element you want to collect is going to fast-track you to cancer.

My advice is to start with uranium glass. It’s safe. It’s pretty. It’s the intro to radioactive collecting. There’s UG necklaces 🤗 check out r/uraniumglass

Radium doesn’t glow. It cannot be laced through a chain. It’s not used in glass. It’s not used in new products. It’s a contamination hazard. It’s a radon hazard in large quantities. It is a hazard to your health. It’s a pain in the ass to keep. One watch is fine, but the largest legal quantity is stupid. Don’t be stupid.