Odd glass

Winter blahs. And it's only January. I'm barely inspired to keep up with the 365 project. But I did come across something interesting while cleaning my window shelves. I have a lovely small vase that my daughter bought for me several years ago in Indianapolis. I just love the soft purple. Here is a picture of it next to a sunny window. It's the purple vase on the left. In case you are wondering, this is a picture of my Senk's Anemone African Violet.

When I took the vase off the shelf and walked into the kitchen I freaked out because I noticed it was blue. No matter what light I held it under, it was BLUE!! But the antique stopper I had placed on top, which my grandpa found in the desert probably 60 years ago was still purple! So it couldn't be the lighting, could it? I couldn't figure out what happened. Did the sunshine cause the purple to fade? It was just a really boring pale blue. How sad!!! Here it is all blue, with the purple stopper and next to a purple ink well.

After cleaning up the shelf I went about putting everything back, including my now blue vase. Wait...what??? It's purple again!!! It's nighttime, but even on the dark shelf I can see it's purple again. Ok, this is odd. So I go back to the kitchen, it's blue again, back to the window, it's purple. Hmmm---fluorescent lighting? So I turned on an incandescent (yeah, I still have one), and behold---it turned bright PINK!

So---I wonder what kind of mineral they added to the glass that makes it purple in daylight, blue under fluorescent and pink under incandescent?? That is just too cool. Now I love my vase even more! It's like "magic"!