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| New Glass Balls |
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 WE
OFFER
MORE GLASS LIGHTNING ROD BALLS THAN ANYONE ELSE
IN THE USA!
Our products are the top-of-the line,
highest quality available today, at
incredibly low prices. In most cases,
our products are made on original
tooling.
Prices range from $15 - $55
Note:
All New Old Products' Glass Balls
come with two new copper caps attached
and aluminum caps may be substituted at
the same price, if requested. Balls for
5/8" rods can be supplied with either
copper or aluminum caps to fit 1/2"
rods, if requested. |
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Usually the first thing most people
think of when restoring antique
lightning rods are the glass balls.
Historically, lightning rod balls have
been available in several different
colors, with opaque white being the most
common one. One color has always been
(and still is) more expensive than the
others: Red. Historically, gold (yes,
gold!) was used to create the beautiful
ruby red colors. Today, expensive
chemicals are used instead. |
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If you have clear, light purple or amber
glass balls, they most likely started
out as silver or gold. They originally
had a “mirror” plating on the inside,
with a iron tube running top to bottom
of the ball. The purpose of the tube was
to try to seal the ball to prevent the
mirror plating from being washed out by
weather. Over time, the tube rusted away
and the mirror plating washed out. The
light purple color is caused by
manganese (used prior to WW1) in the
glass reacting with sunlight. Collectors
call this color “SCA” for Sun Colored
Amethyst. New Old Products now stocks
this color. |
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Matching existing lightning rod balls
is VERY difficult to do. Interestingly, this is
not a new phenomenon. Lightning rod balls
slightly vary in color from batch to batch, and
always have, because they are blown by hand.
This means that even when originally installed,
if an installer ran out of balls, his next batch
may be a slightly different shade. Add to that
the fact that sunlight can change the chemical
make-up (and hence color) of a ball over many
years, the probability of being able to match
exactly existing balls is very low, at best. If
you must have all balls match, it is best to
replace all of the old ones with a complete set
of new ones. Even in the “old days” some people
chose to have different color balls on the same
structure! For example, it is very unusual to
see a building with all red balls. Typically
people would only put up one red one (due to the
cost of red balls), and have the others a
different color. |
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