Tuesday, May 1, 2012

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
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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.
 
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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, images (2)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!

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13 comments:

  1. That is a great hobby and I knew nothing about sea glass at all. If we ever get to the beach again I'll have to spend some time looking down for sea glass.

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  2. I'm not familiar with sea glass either! I walk the beaches looking for rocks, beautiful shells and sand dollars. I've never seen the sea glass or maybe I didn't know what it was.

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    1. I never saw glass before I trained my eyes and mind to look for it. Once I did, I saw green and brown pieces in between the pebbles. On the first walk ever, I saw a blue, round piece in the gravel. OK, that's a plastic lid, I thought, and walked on. But my friend, who trailed after me, picked it up and it was the bottom of a beautiful blue bottle! So, my lesson that day was: never go by, rather pick it up and make sure it actually is plastic or glass. But it is fun. For my friend it is therapy, to get her mind off sad thoughts.

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  3. I think the best part is just being along the beach looking for it. :)

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  4. Thanks for another educational post. Collecting the sea glass and researching it sure makes a walk on the beach much more interesting.

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  5. I learned about sea glass on our journey around all the great lakes. I have some beautiful pieces. What did
    I do with them? I made necklace and earring sets for gifts...... and they loved them!!

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  6. What an interesting hobby. It makes walking along the beach even more fun.

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  7. Interesting and informative post. The next time we visit a beach here on Vancouver Island I'll have to keep my head down and look for some of this sea glass.

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  8. well whoda thunk it...now I will be on alert when walking the beach...great hobby and very pretty...excellent post...

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  9. I just found your blog and so enjoyed this story. Forgive me if I missed something from the past, but have you been to Glass Beach on the northern California coast? The beach is paved with glass and is truly as amazing at the photos show it to be.

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  10. great lesson on beach glass!..I had no idea!!

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  11. jealous jealous jealous!!!!!

    fabulous collection you have! I have quite a bit myself from the east and west coast of the US. Even have one tiny pebble of Japanese transferware :)!!! I hopped over from the Bayfields to see this blog so thanks to Al!

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  12. Interesting that you classify lime green as more rare than purple! My fiancee' and I have a very respectable jar of lime green, but only a few pieces of purple. I wonder how that factors in with the beaches -- each one seems to have its own particular type of "trove".

    :-) I wrote a similar article to this recently. I'd love for you to check it out.

    http://www.seaglassjournal.com/articles/findingseaglass/seaglass101.htm

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