Insulators Home > List Archives > CREBheads > 2004 > August > 002
Messages:
From: Lee Brewer
Date: August 22, 2004
Subject: Re: CREB
Hi Chris, I decided to respond over the CREBhead list as there have been some questions involving me nuking CREB145's.
You wrote:
> Hey Lee,
> Great work on the CREBhead mailing list. What a
> wonderful idea. Now if only have the chance to you and
> the "other" Chris's!!!
>
> I just wanted to email you to let you take a look at
> an auction which I just won. I wanted to purchase
> these so that hopefully I can spec-tru them and also
> have them available to use for color comparisons. Here
> is the link to the auction:
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6113435702
>
> These pieces (except the Pyrex) look very close to
> true brookfield colors. I'm anxious to receive them to
> see just how close these "fakers" can alter them.
> One I get these and study them I can send them to you
> for further inspection if you are interested.
> Have you seen a nuked 145 CREB or 102 SKEB?
>
> Just let me know.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris Childress
> www.spec-tru.comGREAT!
I had marked these as an auction I was watching and was hoping either:
- No one would bid on it and I would offer the seller what his opening bid was, or
- Someone in the CREBhead circle would bid on them and this way I might be able to get comparisons made.
However, I forgot all about it until you emailed! I remember now that I emailed the guy with the auction. also had emailed the guy and asked him if I could get better photos of them. He said the pieces were not with him, but in Toronto. he also told me he was not sure if all of them were irradiated or not.
SNIP
> Have you seen a nuked 145 CREB or 102 SKEB?
SNIPYes, I have nuked quite a few CREB145's. This was all done with The NIA's main spokesman, Dwayne Anthony (also a good friend), in knowing what is/was going on. I wanted to keep everything above board. All pieces are within NIA specs (especially each are permanently engraved as altered).
Just so you know - and it is a little bit of CREBhead rambling - I was trying to see if I could make a CD145 CREB in an H.G.Co. PETTICOAT sapphire blue. I was told by several respectable people (before I was able to have a positive ID on what Brookfield sapphire looks like with John and the person who first showed John a piece that John then called sapphire) that there was once a show where some sapphire CD145 CREB's (although the nickname CREB had not been invented yet) and other normally-not-sapphire pieces showed up. These people thought this was where the sapphire listing came from. It was this interest in finding a sapphire CREB (that was sparked in me initially because Chris Renaudo asked me if I could find him one) that helped me also to build my general interest in an already spawned idea in my mind and I embarked on the CREB Research Project!
Anyhow - I wanted to see if it was possible to nuke some CD145 CREB's and get HGCO sapphire blue since this is what several knowledgeable people in the hobby told me they had seen. Therefore, I have nuked one of each mould number (save the more uncommon ones - although I DID do a number 14 which is not all that common). The idea was that these were possibly made from sands from different locations (three known - but one of these might have been just SKEB era of production). I theorized that if there were indeed three different types of sand used, then there would be three different reactions when these gems were exposed to something as intense as gamma radiation. I might then be able to tell which mould numbers were made at the same time as others - hoping to get 3 distinct groups.
I have one more box to pick up from the radiation source. They are done, I just need to travel across the state and get them. At the same time I was starting this, 9-11 happened and finding a reactor became as hard as finding horse feathers. In fact, the one time I went there, we were under orange alert and had all sorts of things to wade through in order to get them done..
So what are the results? Some very funky colors - things I call olive sage green, smoke olive green, teal sage green, etc. So far no sapphire - however, I also have not tried a heat reversal on any of these yet as I am waiting until I can do the job right by taking a good pic of all of them and then taking a Spec Tru ID on them all. I have the beginning Spec Tru ID's. When I get done I will have the before Spec Tru's, the nuked Spec Tru's, and the heat reversed Spec Tru's. I will hopefully be able to lay to rest the existence of a nuked HGCo PETTICOAT-sapphire colored CREB 145 (I also have done - ouch - a green and a, - ouch ouch - yellow green - however, I got these at a REAL bargain as the dealers wanted to contribute to the cause of seeing what happens to nuked CREB's - they also were slightly damaged). I also did an odd-greenish colored SN1 and it turned smoky-coffee color.
As to SKEB's - I did some CD162.1 SKEBs with different color to start just to see what the newer Brookfield glass would do as compared to the CREB glass (maybe some would turn the same color and show some SKEB's were made when CREB's were???). the results I got were: http://www.insulators.info/pictures/?id=97800465
The funny thing is I used to dream about climbing a pole and retrieving just this insulator! It was a dream I had many times. I was so shocked when this came out of the case of irradiated pieces! However, none of the CREB145's, so far, have come out blue at all. I am seriously beginning to doubt any of them will. I do not plan to sacrifice a purple one or a gray one to see if it will come out sapphire! My opinion is that the gray ones might turn purple. I have no idea what the purple would turn - I would think the same thing that any manganese impregnated piece would turn - it probably would turn purple blackglass.
I have not done any other CREB CD's than the above mentioned. I admit I do not remember all of the pieces though as they are packed in a box awaiting the day I have all three boxes of them so I can review, make notes, compare with old notes, take pictures, make SPEC TRU notes, heat reverse them, and then Re-Spec Tru them!
Happy CREBbing!
Lee
The King CREB
Insulators Home > List Archives > CREBheads > 2004 > August > 002
Contact: A.C. Walker