Sea glass: Gems from junk

Sea glass is my passion and my business. I remember the first time, years ago, I noticed it as I walked on one of our local beaches. It was like gems shining in the sand. I picked up a piece and was fascinated by the little "C" marks in this smoothed, semi-clear glass. From that point on, I started collecting all that I could find. Sea glass and sea china are most commonly used for jewelry or display. In this article I'll just give you the basics of collecting and identifying the difference between real and fake sea glass.

Sea glass is old glassware of any kind; glasses, plates, bottles, windshields, headlights, even stained glass window pieces that have fallen or been thrown into the ocean. Once it gets into the ocean, the sand and waves tumble it around and smash it against rocks. This process is called "cooking". Cooking smooths any jagged edges and leaves "C" shaped chips in it. The glass is now opaque instead of the clear that it once was. The whole process takes about 15 years. If you decide to collect it, make sure it is fully cooked. It is much prettier and worth more if the process is finished.

Sea glass comes in many colors. The most common colors are brown (beer bottles) and white (clear glass). Emerald green (beer bottles) is becoming a little rarer these days. Then there is olive green (wine bottles), seafoam (Coke bottles), aqua, pink, lavender (white glass that turns lavender in the sun), purple, teal, turquoise, yellow and red (fancy glass). There are a few other colors you may find due to art and carnival glass being thrown in the ocean. Red is the rarest color. It's also the most expensive due to the gold content used in the manufacture of it.

Every once in a while you may find other sea items. You may find a perfectly frosted, intact poison bottle (antique), glass Clorox bottle or glass Vicks bottle. You may find what we call "sea glass pottery/china". These are pieces of plates that have been broken and smoothed. They may or may not have a pattern on them. They may have crazing, or lines running through them. Those plate pieces date prior to 1885 when the crazing process was perfected. Newer dinnerware doesn't crack like that.

If you choose to buy sea glass, be sure to do your homework first. There are many reputable sellers out there that sell only genuine sea glass. However, there are a few scammers that try to sell "tumbled" glass as "sea glass". By tumbled, I mean that people break glass and put it in a rock tumbler. A good way to tell the difference between genuine and tumbled is that tumbled will have a perfectly smooth, perfectly even frost. It will NOT have the telltale "C"s in it.

If you're still interested in learning more about sea glass, there are several fine books out there that show great examples and go into more detail than what this article has.