I know there are folks on this forum who also collect bottles, and I have found several since I began beach-combing two decades ago. But on a storm swept beach finding intact bottles doesn't happen very often. Instead the glass comes ashore as shards that have been tumbled, frosted, and transformed from sharp to softly ground edges related to the environment and the structure of the glass itself. The more aggressive the wave action, the composition of the beach bottom (sand, gravel, boulders, etc.), and the length of time the glass has spent in its briney bath, all contribute to the level of surface corrosion.
I've been collecting sea glass far longer than I've hunted for artifacts and fossils, and confess the glass is easier to find if one knows where to look. My favorite stretch of beach throws up glass from underwater dump sites, so while I'm hunting points, my eye is calibrated to spot the sparkle of sea glass among the shells, detritus, and rocks that litter a Chesapeake Bay beach.
Sea glass can often be dated by color. "Black glass", which is really a deep olive green when held up to the sun, is filled with tiny bubbles and and predates the 1800s. Shards I've found date from the Colonial period and came from hand-blown bottles. Reds, yellows, and orange are considered rare, with origins that may have come from Depression glass to railroad lanterns. Cobalt blue was popular for medicinal remedies, while aqua glass may have started life as a soda bottle or a Ball jar. So called clear glass often changes color-- purple, lilac, straw, pink-- depending on the chemicals present as the glass is exposed to seawater and sunlight.
I've collected pounds of glass, over the years and thought you might like to see some of it.
I've been collecting sea glass far longer than I've hunted for artifacts and fossils, and confess the glass is easier to find if one knows where to look. My favorite stretch of beach throws up glass from underwater dump sites, so while I'm hunting points, my eye is calibrated to spot the sparkle of sea glass among the shells, detritus, and rocks that litter a Chesapeake Bay beach.
Sea glass can often be dated by color. "Black glass", which is really a deep olive green when held up to the sun, is filled with tiny bubbles and and predates the 1800s. Shards I've found date from the Colonial period and came from hand-blown bottles. Reds, yellows, and orange are considered rare, with origins that may have come from Depression glass to railroad lanterns. Cobalt blue was popular for medicinal remedies, while aqua glass may have started life as a soda bottle or a Ball jar. So called clear glass often changes color-- purple, lilac, straw, pink-- depending on the chemicals present as the glass is exposed to seawater and sunlight.
I've collected pounds of glass, over the years and thought you might like to see some of it.
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