A SEAGLASS LESSON

Our Sea Glass is Genuine

We Hand Make Our Jewelry 

for

 One of a Kind Creations

Each as a Unique "Fingerprint"

 

We make our pieces from beach combed collections of 

Mount Desert Island, Maine & Downeast Shores

207-469-8872 for Custom work with our glass or yours.

Examples of
Genuine Sea Tossed Local Sea Glass in Handmade Jewelry
Sea Glass Art by Lena Hatch (Owner)
by Lena & Beverly Powell (Lena's Mom)

SEE addl' "Tabs" on the Blog for Earrings/Necklaces/Art/Pendants/etc for sale....




The LESSON begins here -
It is thought that a good jewelry quality piece of seaglass 
has been naturally sea tumbled for 40+ years! 
It's always a mystery where it could have "come from" 
This could be a source :

  Pictures by Lena Hatch Photography

Enjoy an interesting article below:

Sea glass and beach glass are similar but come from two different types of water.
"Sea glass" is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of salt water. These weathering processes produce natural frosted glass.
 "Genuine sea glass" can be collected as a hobby and/or can be used to make jewelry.

 "Beach glass" comes from fresh water and in most cases has a different ph balance, and has a less frosted appearance than Sea glass. It is used to make jewelry and is mostly found in the eastern part of the U.S.

Sea glass begins as normal shards of broken glass that are then persistently tumbled and ground until the sharp edges are smoothed and rounded. In this process, the glass loses its slick surface but gains a frosted appearance over many years.
There is only one true type of "genuine sea glass" that can be produced and that is by the sea naturally. Pieces of glass from broken bottles, broken tableware or even shipwrecks are rolled and tumbled in the ocean for years until all of their edges are rounded off, and the slickness of the glass has been worn to a frosted appearance.
Artificially produced glass, that is similar to sea glass in appearance, is being produced. The appearance is obviously different, and at best, only resembles genuine sea glass. It is not to be considered genuine sea glass, and is simply tumbled glass. Pieces of modern day glass are tossed into a rock tumbler or dipped in acid to produce the desired finish. Artificially-produced, the glass is much less expensive and is used for making jewelry, and often passed off as real sea glass.

Locations

Colorful green and blue beach glass found in river in eastern PA. Note the less tumbled edges than some pieces found in the sea.

Sea glass can be found all over the world, but the beaches of the northeast United States, Bermuda, California, northwest England Mexico, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Nova Scotia, Australia, Italy and southern Spain are famous^[1] for their bounty of sea glass, bottles, bottle lips and stoppers, art glass, marbles, and pottery shards. The best times to look are during spring tides especially perigean and proxigean tides, and during the first low tide after a storm.
Glass from inland waterways such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes is known as beach glass. It is similar to sea glass, but in the absence of wave rigor and oceanic saline, content is typically less weathered. Beach glass from inland regions often has prominently embossed designs or letters on it, which can make tracing its origin less challenging.^[2] The outer surface of beach glass shards may also be texturally varied, with one side frosty and the other shiny. This is most likely because they are pieces broken off from larger glass objects which are themselves still embedded in mud, silt or clay, slowly being exposed by wave action and erosion.

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, and white (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.^[3]
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.^[3]
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.^[3]
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.^[3]
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 Schlitz bottles,^[4] 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.^{[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_glass}

A "Basket" of glass Handmade by Lena Hatch $195

Sea Glass Rarity Chart - Values the Natural Finds
Glass Color	Metal or Metal oxide	Sea Glass Occurrence	Rarity
Orange	Selenium and Cadmium Sulfide	1 in 10,000	Extremely Rare
	Silver
	Iron Oxide
Dark Purple	Manganese Dioxide	1 in 10,000
Purple	Nickle
Red (ruby or cranberry)	Gold	1 in 5,000
Orange-red	Iron Oxide
Dark Red (opaque)	Copper
	Silver
	Selenium and Cadmium Sulfide
Turquoise	Copper Oxide	1 in 5,000
	Copper and tin
	Cobalt with copper or iron
Yellow	Uranium dioxide (glows under UV light)	1 in 5,000
	Silver, Chromium, Zinc, Antimony, Iron, Minium, Nickle, or Cadmium – with Sulfur
Pink	Selenium	1 in 3,000	Rare
	Arsenic
	Manganese
“Black Glass” (dark green or dark amber)	Iron	1 in 2,500
	Cobalt and Copper
	Cobalt and Manganese
Teal	Cobalt and Iron	1 in 2,500
	Chromium
	Aluminum Oxide and Cobalt
Gray	Manganese	1 in 2,000
	Nickle
Ice Blue	Copper or Copper Oxide	1 in 2,000
Aquamarine	Copper	1 in 1,000
Lime	Iron	1 in 1,000
	Uranium (glows under UV)
	Chromium or Cadmium
Lavender/Amethyst	Manganese (glows orange under UV)	1 in 1,000
	Selenium
Citron (yellow-green)	Oxidized Chromium and Potassium	1 in 500
Opaque white (milk glass)	Tin Oxide or Zinc	1 in 500
Cornflower Blue	Cobalt Oxide and Iron	1 in 500
Cobalt Blue	Cobalt Oxide and Iron	1 in 300
Honey Amber	Cerium and Iron	1 in 200	Uncommon
	Manganese and Iron
Soft Green	Iron	1 in 200
Seafoam Green (light green)	Iron	1 in 100
Seafoam Blue (light blue)	Iron and Copper	1 in 100
Forest Green	Iron and Chromium	1 in 50
Kelly Green	Copper and Iron	3 in 10	Common
	Chromium and Arsenic or Tin
Root Beer Brown	Iron and Sulfur or Carbon	3 in 10
White (clear)	Manganese or Selenium	4 in 10
	Cerium Oxide