Sea glass is a term that is given to glass that washes up along the coast of bodies of water. Humans began creating glass before 2,000 B.C. It’s common to find sea glass in places all across the world. However, most of the sea glass that you will find is likely to come from either the 19th or 20th century. Sea glass collecting has risen in terms of popularity in the last decade. If you’re out looking sea glass, it’s wise to know unique sea glass identifiers. Here are four unique ways that can be used to help you find out where your sea glass has been.
- Lettering
One of the most popular ways to identify sea glass is by looking for letting. There are many types of beach glass that will wash up on shores. Certain types of sea glass are old jars and glasses that have been lost at sea. Many people look at sea glass colors to help assess where this material originated. Combining coloring and lettering identifiers can drastically improve chances of finding where your pieces of sea glass jewelry came from. - Melted Glass
Seeing melted glass may not work well for finding out where a piece came from. However, seeing warped glass can tell you something about what happened during its journey into your hands. Many pieces of sea glass should have a somewhat distinct shape that is smooth in appearance. However, certain pieces of glass can end up being struck by lightning. Other pieces of glass may have accidentally been placed by a large bonfire. Seeing warped pieces of sea glass jewerly often means these pieces have survived both water and fire. Some people may want to utilize the uniqueness of sea glass jewerly that is warped in appearance. - Embossing
Sea glass is often tossed around in the sand for a length of time ranging from 5-50 years. Over this amount of time, jagged pieces of glass become sanded down and smooth. You’ll find the smoothing process is why many people long for sea glass jewerly. However, you may find a piece of potential sea glass jewerly that hasn’t been smoothed by the sand. It’s wise to check a piece of sea glass for any designs that hint to what the glass was used for in the past. For instance, a small piece of sea glass with wide embossed lines may have been part of a jar or bottle before breaking apart. - Bubbling
There are many reasons that excessive bubbling is noticed in a piece of sea glass. You might that a bubbled piece of this material makes for a perfect piece of beach glass jewelry. It’s common to find that air bubbles happen as the result of repeated wearing to the surface of a piece of glass. Many people are amazed at seeing air bubbles trapped inside of glass pieces.
In summary, there are several ways to learn about where sea glass has been before it was found. It’s common for someone to immediately look for any type of letting on sea glass. This type of glass is often smooth from continually brushing against the sand. However, there are cases where letting is easy to make while seeing a piece of sea glass. Lettering can help someone identify many things about sea including where it came from and which company produced the piece. Warped pieces of sea glass often take on this appearance because they ended up being hit with fire or lightning. Checking for embossing on sea glass can help you figure out if this piece was used as a jar, bottle, or another type of container. Bubbling is incredibly rare to see when finding sea glass but it can happen. Bubbling can happen when a piece of glass is worn down which exposes more of the surface area. Air being trapped at just the right moment creates sea glass with bubbles. One reason many people collect sea glass is to learn where these amazing pieces originated from.