Sea Glass Collectors- A different breed...

I've been making jewelry for several years, first starting off with commercial glass beads, before I transitioned into authentic sea glass jewelry. And I have to admit, sea glass jewelry makers (and sea glassers as a whole) are a different breed.

For the most part, I have yet to meet several of the collectors /jewelry makers that I've had business transactions with, as most of these transactions have been via the internet. The same goes with many of the collectors that I've chatted with...it's almost always a internet relationship.

But in every single case, I have never come across the competitiveness that I found in several other crafting mediums. Instead, the sea glassing community seems to enjoy sharing info with fellow collectors...and a chance meeting with a fellow collector last weekend was no different.

I went to a craft fair, hoping to come across a husband and wife team of collectors. The wife, is a jewelry designer, specializing in sea glass. The husband is well known around the sea glass jewelry makers as "Bill the Drill" for his drill-press set-up, and how he has the drilling process down to a science.

I came across Bill the Drill and had my DH introduce himself and speak with Bill about his drill-press, while I spoke with his wife Virginia, about sea glass collecting, sharing secret locations, and talking about sterling silver suppliers (and of course we shared our favorite suppliers, looking to get the best price)

When I turned around to see how my DH was doing, I found Bill inviting him to sit down and drill a few holes into a piece of sea glass! How cool is that? Here's a gentleman that is sought out for his drilling expertise, allowing my hubby (who does all of my drilling for me) to try out his system...at a show!

I don't know why I'm still surprised by these occurrences with sea glass collectors, but these friendly people continue to make me happy that my family and I share the love of the ocean, and more specifically, an affection for how the ocean takes a piece of discarded man-made trash and turns it into something beautiful.

Maybe sea glass does contain magical powers...it seems that everyone that shares the love of sea glass is, well, a different breed...a very special different breed!

I Wonder What This Was In It's Previous Life?

I love playing with my sea glass. Taking out a jar or bucket and carefully spreading it out on the table. It's amazing how I can often find a piece that intrigues me...one that that I may have overlooked the last time I looked through them...or perhaps a piece that I scooped up at the beach and didn't pay much attention to when I came across it. Since DH and I are such big fans of blue sea glass, I couldn't believe that we hadn't noticed this piece before and yet somehow this piece has escaped us.

This cobalt blue piece of sea glass is quite different than any I've come across before. In the 2nd image above, there is a raised circular piece with an arrow on it (the image has been enhanced to show the arrow, thus the washed out color of blue) and the reverse (top image...this image shot through a 10x50 magnifying glass for detail...again washing out the color of the glass) shows a pattern of ooooooooo .

While this piece of sea glass will never be mistaken for jewelry quality, it did make for an interesting search for what might have this shard been before it was discarded into the sea. Being a big fan of sea glass, my interest is still piqued and if anyone knows the origin of this piece of deep cobalt blue sea glass, I'd love to hear what it may have been before the ocean got her hands on it.


'til next time...
R

PS- Yes I did a little jewelry-making this weekend also... images for my next blog entry : )

Is It Just Me or.... Recent Observations on Sea Glass Collecting....

Is it Just Me or....

Has the prices being realized on the sale of sea glass gone through the roof? The economy has been just awful and from what I've gathered, I'm not the only sea glass jewelry maker that has been experiencing slower than usual sales. So what gives with the insane recent prices?

My hubby thinks there has been a huge number of jewelry-makers that have noticed that sea glass jewelry is a niche worth looking into. He's come across several listings on eBay where the sea glass is quite questionable (disclaimer- it's sometimes very hard to tell if some shards are authentic or not...but in most cases, he believes the sellers that are 100% legit do a great job showing their offerings to be authentic sea glass...and he questions those sellers that don't take quality pictures to be those to watch out for... he feels they are hiding something...Hmmm, tumbled, craft ???)
He's also noticed some rather questionable to blatantly fake pieces of sea glass jewelry over the last 4-6 months. Since he is a huge part of my operation (the main sea glasser, hole driller and has taken over the ordering of all supplies needed for my little biz) he has started to question people as to their knowledge of sea glass, where specific pieces were found and so on. He's gone as far to tell vendors that some of the pieces they are selling shouldn't be listed as authentic sea glass, rather be called altered sea glass because they've been tumbled, treated with some sort of oil, or they are just "undercooked".

Is It Just Me or....

Is everyone selling jewelry made with "sea glass" lately? I've come across several jewelry-makers that use several different types beads as their focal piece and lo and behold, there is the odd sea glass jewelry creation.

In some cases, the vendor remembers finding the piece at the beach when they were little, or on summer vacation. The answer flows freely, and they often have a story about walking on the beach with friends or family when they came across it. Most admit to not knowing much about sea glass ... until they found sea glass jewelry online or at a craft show and realized she had a great focal piece for a jewelry creation (and could get decent $$ for it).

But others know very little about sea glass, claim to have been given it, purchased it at a yard sale (?), but most likely checked out a site like Etsy.com, saw the prices being asked for authentic sea glass and they figured no one would know the difference between tumbled glass and authentic. Perhaps I give them too much credit... in many cases it looks like the packaged "stuff" that can be purchased from their local craft store for a few dollars. Or bought a cheap lot of sea glass on eBay, not knowing what they were buying.

In almost every case, the vendor knows nothing about sea glass and often, it's the greed of the vendor that gives them away. Instead of sticking with a common color, they go for the rare Red colors (because the asking price is usually quite high compared to a Heineken green) and figure their asking price of $25 or $30 for their "authentic" Red sea glass necklace will sell immediately. After all, I always find that sea glass jewelers only have red sea glass...and nothing else.


Perhaps all of the above is due to the fact that authentic sea glass is exactly as Richard LaMotte described for his book... vanishing gems. In New Jersey, pieces wash up on the beach almost every day, but they are usually the common colors.... Budweiser browns, Heineken greens, and Corona clear. The surf here isn't rocky, nor rough, and most of the sea glass we find is not jewelry quality (but still so much fun to find!) Every so often we come across a rare color shard lying in the sand, but with the exception of a few key sea glassing days, finding those rare colors are few and far between.

Searching for sea glass has become a more popular beach-going event than tossing a frisbee. In the past few years, the amount of people who seem to be looking for sea glass has more than tripled. And with the popularity of the "Vanishing Gems" comes the perceived value...and worse, what some people will resort to, to find sea glass before others. I've watched people with nets, scooping along the shell beds in the surf, sometimes within just a foot or less of other people!

Not everything I've observed over the last few months is a negative. I have viewed several gorgeous pieces of sea glass... the owners of the shards were more than happy to show me the "gems" of their collections. I have also found some of the new sea glass jewelry makers to share the same sea glass values that I have (authentic only) and a few of them are quite talented!

No longer is the sea glass on the beach left to myself and a few other collectors. Being one of a few offering sea glass jewelry is a thing of the past also. Despite dwindling supplies, sea glass continues to move toward the mainstream and with it, the value continues to go up. ( and in the last few months, the value has sky-rocketed) But I'm always confident that there is a gem waiting for me at the beach, and as always, you can find me at the beach, looking down in hopes of finding it.

'til next time...

R

Sea Glassing After A Full Moon

On New Year's Eve, we had a Blue Moon which was accompanied by a brutal blast of cold air with vicious winds from Canada. The combo of western winds and a full moon led to something I don't recall ever seeing before... a low water level warning that was in effect for about 60 hours over the past weekend.

Now there was no way I was going out searching for sea glass, but Kevin doesn't have any problem roughing it (I guess all those years of playing hockey has made him a bit tolerant of the cold, but...)
And boy did he ever "rough it".

25 degree temps with 30 miles (wind chill temp was a brisk 9 degrees) per hour winds, gusting to 40mph+...at least the water was a balmy 38 degrees. Worse yet, the low tide was in the late afternoon, so very little warming effect from the sun.

The first trip yielded about 75 or 80 pieces of sea glass including several blues (cornflower, cobalt) a bunch of greens (mostly kelly, but he did find a couple olives and a pretty lime green) and lots of browns and whites...one of which was already turning lavender in the setting sun.

One of my favorite finds of the that trip was a blue shard with printing on it. Kevin found it behind what was once a barrier placed in front of the dunes. The last time I was out on the beach, I went behind this barrier to search the shells that were left behind from the Nor'easter that wiped out the dunes. Kevin happened to be passing the barrier on the way back to the car (trying to get close to the dunes to cut the wind) when he noticed a huge pile of shells left behind from a recent high tide...and there is was, a huge shard- very light cornflower blue, and about 2.5" in length, by 2" wide. It is lightly frosted, but I'm not sure if the shard was buried in the sand and uncovered by the severe tides we've experienced this fall/winter, or if it washed up.
But trying to uncover the mystery of what this shard was in it's original life will be a fun winter project!

The 2nd trip for Kevin was a bit rougher... steady winds in the 30-40 mph range, an hour later in the day and it was pretty much overcast...so not even the slightest bit of warming from the sun. And that isn't even the half of it....

When Kevin arrived, he was a bit disappointed that the ocean didn't appear to be as far back as he thought..but there was still opportunity for sea glassing. As he walked to his favorite stretch of beach, he noticed a blue piece of sea glass in the surf. He was timing the waves and made his move... as he was reaching for the piece (which he estimated at nearly an inch in length...and cornflower blue) he felt a rush of very cold water soaking his right foot. Distracted, he looked down to notice that the water was only about 3-4 inches up his boots...as the receding current took the shard back into deeper water. Walking back out of the water, he wiped the sand off the boot and noticed two gashes on his right boot, about an inch long...he must have had a shell or something slice into the boot on his last trip out : (

Despite the cold water soaking his foot, he stayed out on the beach, searching the shell beds and came home with nearly 50 more pieces of sea glass. But he was quite disappointed because he said there were at least that many more in 5 or 6 inches of water that he couldn't get to. The winds, dropping temps and a soaked foot made it tough for him to stay out much more than an hour (I would've been back in the car after 10 minutes) but he did bring home a couple more cobalts, and a 2" piece of very dark olive green. He still upset for not snagging the blue piece that got away, but the two day outing yielded over 120 pieces of sea glass, and a couple are jewelry quality pieces.

I guess I should grab him a new pair of boots... : )

Happy New Year everyone!

'til next time....

R

Clear Skies and Another Full Moon...

After the worst November nor'easter I can recall, the sun has come back out (well it appeared for a little while very late yesterday) and the temperature is supposed to be near 70 today.

Tonight will be another full moon, so I believe that calls for another trip to the beach tomorrow. I stayed away from the beaches since the storm. From what I have heard, the beach erosion was quite severe in many places on LBI and I could only imagine how much work the towns were doing on the dunes trying to keep homes from being destroyed.

There were several spots where the dunes were badly damaged and reports that the sea could come over the damaged dunes and out into the streets at high tide...so I was quite nervous about going to LBI on Friday and again yesterday. But I will venture out there tomorrow and see what I can see...hopefully a few more winter pieces of sea glass.

I'll bring my camera along... speaking of camera, the images above are from my trip to the beach two weeks ago : )

'til next time...

R

Sea Glassing After A Full Moon

For those that follow this blog, you already know that this is a key week for sea glass hunting. The sun and moon are at their closest points to our planets and with this month's new moon, the tides were much more severe than usual.

In New Jersey, we had a very strong wind from the east on Tuesday. The high tide was extremely high and the area was under flood alerts. Wednesday, saw the winds calm down a little bit and I gambled that low tide would pull out just a bit farther than usual. This year, I made the correct choice, but when I arrived, I thought I missed my chance at some nice pieces.

As I stepped on the beach, it was clear that the public work dept in LBI had been out early repairing the beach after a couple of days of rough high tides. The beach had been torn up, turned over and all of the high tide sea glass buried until the next severe Nor'easter.

But the they could do anything to prevent the moon from pulling the sea out a few extra yards and exposing some of the shell beds that normally sit in a foot or two of salt water. So there they sat, exposed shell beds and a bit farther out, another stretch of shell and rock beds that had the had the tiniest of waves gently washing over them... it was perfect for sea glassing!

We spent about an hour walking back and forth along the same stretch of beach and found more sea glass between tow jetties than we normally find all summer long! Most of the pieces were browns, but they appear to be very old browns because they are quite thick and well-frosted, along with the browns, we found a few amber, several greens & whites...which we expected.

What we didn't expect were the light "Coke bottle" blues, a couple of very pretty soft teals and since hubby drove to what he calls "Cobalt beach", I found 3 cobalts...one that is about 2" in length, over an 1" in width at it's widest point and quite thick. Hubby also found 2 cobalts, one was over an 1" in length and also fairly thick. That is far and away more cobalt sea glass than we've found in New Jersey in the last 2 years!

Most of the sea glass was not jewelry quality (tho we did find a couple that will be wrapped and made into necklaces...and maybe a couple smaller pieces will find their way onto a bracelet or used for earrings) but that is to be expected from Jersey sea glass.

In all, it was a fun trip...the weather wasn't awful, the sun was shining...my face feels a bit wind-burnt...but I'll be having fun washing my finds from this afternoon and hopefully have a few images to share later this week.

'til next time...

R