Blue Coal?

ceccil · By: **ceccil** On: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:06 pm

Found it. It's been there as long as I can remember.

tdemps · By: **tdemps** On: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:42 pm

Coal company trademarked their coal by adding color. Glen Alden breakers tinted their coal blue, Reading Anthracite speckled their coal red. Lots of other companies used little paper disks or rectangles mixed in with the coal. These were called "scatter tags".
One scatter tag that comes to mind was used at the Glen Burn Colliery in Shamokin. They were shaped like little red baseballs with the legend "Glen Burn, Ball of Fire". Some of these old tags turn up on ebay once in a while.

mufwapo · By: **mufwapo** On: Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:22 pm

When I worked up at Savitsky's breaker in Atlas there was a pipe with sulfur water coming out of the breaker and if it would run over the coal for a little while it'd turn it a bluish green. It didn't change the coal at all but they sold that for twice as much as the other coal.

Dann757 · By: **Dann757** On: Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:07 pm

Wow,
I found some in the coal I'm taking from an old bin. Looks exactly like chalk line chalk. I was wondering about it!

Richard S. · By: **Richard S.** On: Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:30 pm

Looks ro be it Dan, does a lot of the coal have that? Maybe it was piece in the bin that was buried for along time.?

You have a genuine artifact on your hands. LOL

Dann757 · By: **Dann757** On: Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:48 pm

Richard,
I noticed the blue coal infrequently, dispersed throughout the pile. This coal bin is about 6' wide and maybe 20' long! The owner mentioned the coal was there when they bought the place 30 years ago. Their "new" oil furnace's date of manufacture might give a clue as to this 'last delivery'! I'd like to know how they got it all in there, piled high and along that length, through the window there. The wood slat wall was kicked out at the bottom.

Richard S. · By: **Richard S.** On: Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:05 pm

Dann757 wrote: I'd like to know how they got it all in there, piled high and along that length,

With a shovel. We only had a few places that used that and one or two where it had to be shoveled and man did I dread going to that one house. What you had to do with that was put the shovel by the end of the chute and give it a little blast from the truck to fill the shovel. That way you didn't have to be digging into it but getting exctly one shovel was impossible so there was some amount of digging into the pile.

coaledsweat · By: **coaledsweat** On: Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:34 pm

Does the blue wash off? I bought a bunch of coal that was outside under a blue poly tarp for many years. The tarp looked OK but weathered. The coal looked like crap, not really blue but had a dull gray color. It must have been UV degraded poly as it washed right off when I hit the coal with the hose prior to dumping it in the cellar.

DOUG · By: **DOUG** On: Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:34 pm

So why don't the coal companies dye their coal anymore? :?:

It seems like a pretty neat idea of knowing for sure what kind of coal you are really getting. :idea:

Yanche · By: **Yanche** On: Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:11 pm

Because the EPA prohibits burning paint. My old Reading coal dealer told me Reading couldn't find a EPA approved paint that was affordable and/or wouldn't wash off.

Richard S. · By: **Richard S.** On: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:15 pm

If they really wanted to brand it they could do it with little discs I mentioned a few posts back. They were small paper discs that they would throw into the coal with the companies logo on it. I'd imagine both are not considered simply because of the expense.

crazy4coal · By: **crazy4coal** On: Mon Dec 22, 2008 6:39 am

Back in late 1950's my dad hauled coal by the trailer load for some local dealers. I went with him to a breaker somewhere in Pa. that had a sign on the loading bins that said " Welcome to the Home of Blue Coal ". We backed under to load and as the coal came out there was a nozzle that sprayed blue dye on the coal, after loading we pulled out and raised the trailer so the water and extra dye ran out on the ground. After we dumped the load I looked in the bin and the coal shined blue. My grandfather said that the blue coal burned hotter than the black coal and payed more for it.

Dann757 · By: **Dann757** On: Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:26 am

Speaking of Blue coal, I think I have a piece of red coal. The only one I found in all the coal I got.

VigIIPeaBurner · By: **VigIIPeaBurner** On: Sun Oct 24, 2010 1:07 pm

There's still some out there lurking in our coal-burning predecessor's bins. Woodn'coal and I found both red and blue painted coal scattered throughout the 4 or so tons in the basement find we harvested this September from Avenel, NJ. The coal was destined for the innards of a green Jotul 507 that was still hooked to the chimney. The last copyright date inside the manual was from the mid 70's . That might give an approximate date to the deliveries. I had kept some red painted Reading pieces aside too but I think I might have vaporized them already. The pictures below clearly shows the blue paint and that it's not the iridescent blue coloration we find on shinny hard anthracite.

rockwood · By: **rockwood** On: Sun Oct 24, 2010 9:11 pm

Richard S. wrote:Forget the name of them at the moment but they also had little hard paper discs they would throw in the coal. The discs would identify the source.

They used to do the same thing here. These are about the size of a quarter and are metal, aluminum I think because they're not magnetic.
Currently using one for avatar.

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