Why is stained glass so expensive?

In a word, metals. It takes metals to create the colors in stained glass.

Metals are responsible for all those wonderful colors. Below is a simple list of what metals make which colors and their relative prices to determine the cost of glass. The going rate of metals change constantly but you can get the idea of why certain colors are more expensive than others.

Cadmium Sulfide – ($1.00/lb) – makes yellow glass

Gold Chloride – ($1,193/ oz) – makes cranberry glass

Cobalt Oxide – ($13.74/ lb) – makes blue glass

Manganese Dioxide – ($1.03/ lb) – makes purple glass

Nickel Oxide – ($6.24/ lb) – makes violet glass

Sulfur – ($1.50/ lb) – makes amber glass

Chromic Oxide – ($1.22/ lb) – makes emerald green glass

Uranium Oxide – ($38.25/ lb) – makes red glass

Iron Oxide – ($.04/ lb) – makes green and brown glass

Selenium Oxide – ($3.82/ lb) – makes red glass

Antimony Oxide – ($4.30/ lb) – makes white glass

The metals below are also added to make other variations of colors:

Copper – ($2.89/ lb) – blue, green and red glass

Tin – ($7.35/ lb) – white

Lead – ($.97/ lb) – yellow