Blue Paint on Anthracite Coal? Paper Discs in Anthracite Coal?

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

while poking around old centrailia I found and "procured" this interesting piece.. guess it weighs 45# or so

That looks like the stuff that oozed out of the Kimmels bags I used to buy. Will NOT come out of anything it stains - be it concrete or your clothes. Basically rust. Must be alot of iron in that coal.

Follow this link http://www.sbiii.com/fulthrtl/ and scroll down, read about Blue Coal.

SMITTY wrote:That looks like the stuff that oozed out of the Kimmels bags I used to buy. Will NOT come out of anything it stains - be it concrete or your clothes. Basically rust. Must be alot of iron in that coal.

We used to camp here 40.585777,-76.496987 when we were teenagers. There was an abandoned coal mine on the mtn. A stream of rusty water looking just like the crud on that rock flowed from that tunnel. Quite nasty. But fun times on the side of that mtn.

Cool stuff John. Blue Coal, an amazing marketing tactic!