Sea Glass Article in Down East Magazine (Hancock, Eastport: apartment, live)

[roadrat]

There is a very good book on sea glass that I bought for my DW last x-mas, it tells you everything you will want to know about sea glass.
Including the best time of year to search for it (winter,after a good storm!) it's true but dress warm.
Amazon.com: Pure Sea Glass: Discovering Nature's Vanishing Gems: Richard LaMotte, Sally Lamotte Crane, Celia Pearson: Books


bill

[Adream]

My DS gave me a beautiful candle in a jar, surrounded by sea glass. It's gorgeous.

[Elcarim]

Originally Posted by shipwreck_ink

There is a lot of tumbled and acid-burned glass for sale on eBay and in shops, but these shards only mimic sea glass. By definition, sea glass is the result of glass items (bowls, drinking glasses, bottles, etc.) that have ended up in oceans or riverbanks for numerous reasons-- shipwrecks, storms, dumpsites-- and eventually wash up on beaches and riverbanks. The journey through years and sometimes centuries of tumbling in the ocean, abraded by sand, salt, stones, and rocks creates sea glass. So don't be fooled by the fake stuff. The mystery of that journey appears in rounded edges, and a pocked and frosted surface.
shipwreck_ink (author of A Passion for Sea Glass; and Sea Glass Chronicles: Whispers from the Past).

I'd rather find my own treasures! That's what makes my rocks special to me. I find them, pick them up with my own hands, tumble them around in my pockets for a while and they become MINE. The personal touch is so lacking these days!

[Maineah]

Best place in Casco Bay to find seaglass of high quality are the windward (ESE) sides of the islands. Lots of old seaglass there. You need a boat to get out there though. Fake seaglass made in a tumbler is rounded and does not look real. Fake seaglass made in a vibrating polisher though is so close to the real thing it's hard to tell the difference. There's lots yet to find. We filled a mason jar last spring just in a small 75 X 75 foot sandy "beach" and we weren't even trying! It was just there. We found a piece that was almost completely black. I thought it was ceramic but when held to the sun you could see light through it. It was the darkest glass I have ever seen, far darker than welding glass.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Danielle Renee'

Hello,

Well this is one forum I feel right at home in.
I am a New Englander and an old beach bum. I have collected sea glass since the early 1960's and have always found it to be very soulful. The first article from this thread made me feel as though she was writing from my own heart. Very beautiful to share. Thank you!

I have been making jewelry with my treasures from the sea for several years now and I have also tiled with sea glass.

I will share with you one of my designs.

Danielle Renee

That is a beautiful pendant! You're quite talented. Thank you for sharing it with us!

[toadling81]

Eastport has some awesome spots for beach glass. I know there are more spots but my favorite place was always the little beach at the old Wass Factory (a huge wooden building jutting out over the water, I think someone bought it and is turning it into apartments?). The beach there is all rocks and glass, and when I was a kid my dad owned the building and we lived right across on Water Street, and my mom even had a short-lived business venture called 'Mermaid's Tears', where we'd fill old fashioned mason jars with sea glass and then water, and stick them in the window.
Upon our return to Maine last year I took my hubby for his first sea glass hunting trip, and we went to that spot - great finds as always, as it's a very exposed spot. Plus lots of Victorian bricks and porcelain plumbing pieces, all kinds of strange stuff!

[Coaster]

One story I've heard about Eastport's sea glass -- Lubec's, too -- is connected with the region's long history of smuggling from Canada. Supposedly during Prohibition smugglers would bring boatloads of Canadian whiskey and other potables across from New Brunswick. If they were approached by revenue cutters, the smugglers dumped the whiskey overboard and scooted back across the border. Much of the sea glass in the area supposedly comes from those old whiskey bottles.

Of course, people on both sides of the border commonly dumped their trash in the bay until recent decades, too, and that probably supplies a lot of glass as well. But the illicit whiskey smuggler story is more fun.

[BoundtofindME]

Originally Posted by shipwreck_ink

shipwreck_ink (author of A Passion for Sea Glass; and Sea Glass Chronicles: Whispers from the Past).

Wow! I found info on-line of where to order your book "A Passion for Sea Glass" and will treat myself to it after the holidays. I can't wait to see some of the creations in seaglass that you've amassed for this book! My sister has a copy of your other book which is just exquisite! Welcome to the forum!

[crazyworld]

I collect it in Rhode Island and MA and my Day turns it into jewelry, ornaments and other little whatnots and sells it. The white brown and some greens are pretty standard but when you find a different color grab it.

[willb]

Until this year we used to spend part of our morning walks in spring and summer collecting beach glass on different Eastport beaches and then putting it in mason jars and selling it at our store for 10 or 15 dollars a jar. This was the best job ever and we could easily get 2 or 3 jars on our walk. South end has a lot of purple/pink, and Carl Young told us that Clark's ledge used to be the dumping ground for bottles so there's a lot of green, brown, aqua, and the old dump out by the Boat School has tons of blue (as long as you have had your quota of kids, because there is a certain slime there). Lis loves pottery/china shards which are usually found in different places on the beach than the glass and she has quite a collection of interesting ones. There's a diver who has a place in Lubec and is always diving behind the Motel East, and he always comes up with the coolest things from the Eastern Steamship Co, and sometimes that stuff washes up.