Beach Treasures

Remember yesterdays post ending with a find on the beach? If you don’t already know it --- there are treasures to be found on the beach. It is called:

Sea Glass

What exactly is SEA GLASS? Sea glass or beach glass is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of fresh and salt water. These weathering processes produce natural frosted glass. Many beachcombers collect sea glass as a hobby and for use in jewelry. Sea Glass is the rage between an ever-growing group of beachcombers. There is a lot of see glass on certain beaches around Campobello Island. and Bea got into it through a neighbour. Now, when we walk the beach our eyes are trained to the ground. And I must admit that I got smitten pretty quick. Once I bend down and started picking up glass shards I was hooked. In fact I think it is highly addictive! But it doesn’t represent any danger other than being outside and breezing a lot of fresh air.   Our own collection – not quite as colorful yet The color of sea glass is determined by its original source. Most sea glass comes from bottles, but it can also come from jars, plates, windows, windshields, ceramics or sea pottery. The most common colors of sea glass are kelly green, brown, blue and purple(clear). These colors come from bottles used by companies that sell beer, juices, and soft drinks. The clear or white glass comes from clear plates and glasses, windshields, windows, and assorted other sources. Less common colors include jade, amber (from bottles for whiskey, medicine, spirits, and early bleach bottles), golden amber or amberina (mostly used for spirit bottles), lime green (from soda bottles during the 1960s), forest green, and ice- or soft blue (from soda bottles, medicine bottles, ink bottles, and fruit jars from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, windows, and windshields). These colors are found about once for every 25 to 100 pieces of sea glass found. Uncommon colors of sea glass include a type of green, which comes primarily from early to mid-1900s Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, and RC Cola bottles as well as beer bottles. Soft green colors could come from bottles that were used for ink, fruit, and baking soda. These colors are found once in every 50 to 100 pieces. Purple sea glass is very uncommon, as is citron, opaque white (from milk glass), cobalt and cornflower blue (from early Milk of Magnesia bottles, poison bottles, artwork, and Bromo-Seltzer and Vicks VapoRub containers), and aqua (from Ball Mason jars and 19th century glass bottles). These colors are found once for every 200 to 1,000 pieces found. Extremely rare colors include gray, pink (often from Great Depression era plates), teal (often from Mateus wine bottles), black (older, very dark olive green glass), yellow (often from 1930s Vaseline containers), turquoise (from tableware and art glass), red (often from old bottles, car tail lights, dinnerware or from nautical lights, it is found once in about every 5,000 pieces), and orange (the least common type of sea glass, found once in about 10,000 pieces). These colors are found once for every 1,000 to 10,000 pieces collected. Some shards of black glass are quite old, originating from thick eighteenth-century gin, beer and wine bottles. So far we have gathered a full jar of glass shards. What we are gonna do with it?  Time will tell. Thanks for stopping by! *********************************************************