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Authentic Beach Collected Sea Glass, Pottery and Artifacts from the Pacific Northwest
Collecting Sea Glass
To me, there are two distinct parts to collecting sea glass.
First, there is the actual process of finding the glass for a collection. It used to be that the only way to do this was to find a beach and start looking. These days-- thanks to the Internet-- people also "find," build, or add to their collections from an assortment online trade and sales venues, like eBay, Etsy and others. Second, there's the issue of what to do with the seaglass, once you've found it.
"You start with a beach"
I have found sea glass on lots of beaches, in lots of different parts of the world. However, not all beaches are created equal, in terms of being places where you will find sea glass.
For one, your chances are much improved if you choose a beach that is near a population center. Since sea glass is the result of people having thrown garbage into the ocean, you need a place with people. Furthermore, you are best off looking for a place where there has been a population for at least 50 years. Why? Since environmental regulations have become much stricter over the past few decades, you are best off with a place where there were people before these laws went into effect.
You don't really need a large population center-- even 5000 people create plenty of garbage!
A few words about the "shipwreck myth." A lot of people believe sea glass is mostly the result of shipwrecks and garbage being thrown from boats.
Now, whereas it is absolutely true that some sea glass is the result of boat garbage and shipwrecks, this is a tiny minority-- the exception being certain beaches on Caribbean islands and the West Indies. The vast majority of sea glass comes from glass thrown into the sea, from land.
Different kinds of beaches will offer up different kinds of sea glass. The very rounded heavily frosted glass tends to come from rocky/pebbly beaches with heavy surf, while sandy beaches generally yields a somewhat more angular and softly frosted glass. Glass that comes from protected bays where the "polishing material" is mostly sand, clay or oyster/mussel shell will typically have an almost satiny surface, and requires many decades in the water to get rounded edges.
The type of sea glass-- thicker and heavily frosted-- I mostly find here in the Pacific Northwest tends to come from a pebbly environment (photo at left).
As for where and when you find sea glass on a beach, there are as many (valid) theories as there are collectors.
Some people like to browse the high tide line; others like to walk at water's edge as the tide recedes. Personally, I have found that more sea glass gets "hung up" where there are small gatherings of pebbles and rocks on the beach, but I have found glass pretty much on all parts of the beach, at low tide, and at high tide.
Some of the best sea glass pickings often occur after there has been a significant onshore storm, which will tend to move a lot of the beach sand and rocks around.
"What do I DO with my sea glass?"
Of course, there is really no "right" or "wrong" answer to this question. Some people simply put the glass they find into clear glass jars, and then place the jars on their window sills as colorful decoration. I would say the vast majority of collections follow some variation on this.
For those of a more artistic and creative nature, sea glass offers a way to express that creativity. Many many people make jewelry from sea glass, and have even started home businesses as sea glass artists. Seaglass is like a very beautiful and colorful "semi-precious stone" for jewelry making, and because of its story-- a gem slowly polished by the ocean-- there is an element of "romance" that simply doesn't come with mined stones.
If you are interested in learning more about sea glass jewelry and other creative arts made with sea glass, visit the Links page, where I feature a number of sea glass artists who have used some of my seaglass to create amazing objects of beauty!
Building a Sea Glass Collection
My own personal collection is a combination of glass jars containing loose sea glass sorted by color, as well as unique, interesting and rare one-of-a-kind pieces I have just found along the way. Sometimes I will find a piece and simply think "Wow! That is amazing!" and add it to my collection-- even if I already own similar pieces.
On the whole, the individual pieces I keep tend to be unusually large for their color, or unusual shapes, or they have some kind of identifying marks-- part of the fun in collecting (for me) is gaining a sense of where a piece came from, in the first place.
Not all the pieces in my collection were found by me. Some I have traded my way to, through my connections with other collectors around the world-- these are pieces that simply aren't found where I live. Occasionally, I have also purchased unusually rare pieces in colors I have never seen on my beach.
