Obsessive Sea Glass Sorting

It is wintertime, and even though our climate here in the Pacific Northwest is generally pretty mild, going beach combing this time of the year is generally not such a pleasant experience. Driving rain, strong winds and 40-degrees is not such a good time, especially when the journey to the good "beach combing bits" on our beach involves climbing across fallen trees, mudslides and basketball sized rocks covered with slimy slippery sea weed that might offer up a twisted ankle if you're not paying attention. Besides, the days are short, and the good low tides tend to be in the middle of the night when you can't see anything, anyway.

Sea glass marble sections

I have been using part of this winter to "get organized." Which basically means I have been sorting "old pickings" from years gone by. I am slowly getting to a point, now, where I no longer have "random stashes" of unsorted sea glass from days gone by.

Maybe I have gotten a bit obsessive about getting everything sorted... but I have felt the need to get organized because-- as a seller of sea glass for jewelry and art-- I get more than a few "special requests" for particular colors of sea glass, and in specific sizes... and half the time I "don't know what I have."

Of course, I never really set out to "have a business" here, and being able to find enough glass to sell some is really more of a hobby... but still, I decided that since I do some "business like" things, maybe it would be appropriate to have a better sense of what I have available.

I am pretty close to having it all done, now. On one level, it makes me happy to know what I have... on the other, it makes me a bit sad that I have no more "secret stashes" I can pull glass from, when I get a special request. But that's just how life works out, it seems... there are always two sides to every story.

Grading Sea Glass-- the long trip from beach to sale

Many of my friends think it's a lot of "fun" that beach comb and periodically sell some of the sea glass I find on the beach. A few suggest that they'd "like to do that, as well."

Can't say that I blame them... being able to make a few extra dollars from one of your hobbies is certainly a nice thing. But it's really not as simple as it looks. At least not if you take the "trade" seriously. In other words, there's more to it than walking around on the beach... and "BAM!" it's suddenly sold and you have money for a nice dinner.

A "choice" quality group of bright teal (or "lagoon blue-green") sea glass.

Did you know that every piece of sea glass is actually inspected FIVE TIMES before it goes out to a potential buyer?

First, I have a good look at everything when I pick it up on the beach. Anything with obvious chips or damage immediately gets tossed back.

Second, when I get home and sort the day's pickings by color-- and have better light-- more obviously defective pieces are rejected. They end up back in my backpack, and get tossed back in the ocean next time I am out.

Third, the "main" quality control step takes place when I select glass for a "lot" that will eventually end up on eBay or Etsy. Each color is sorted into "A" grade (about flawless), "B" grade (standard jewelry quality), "C" grade (minor faults, good for mosaics) and "D" grade (faulty rejects, going back to the beach).

Fourth, the glass gets a good looking over when I lay it out for photography. Sometimes I end up taking out a couple of flawed pieces and replacing them with something better.

Fifth, I look at each piece again when I have it out of the "lot envelope" to measure and describe it for sale. Although everything is pretty much "as it should be" by then, I do occasionally exchange a piece or two. This creates a bit of extra work because then I have to go back and take a new photo, reflecting the change.

The responses from aforementioned friends typically range from "wow, that sounds like a LOT of work!" to "why do you BOTHER?"

Well, it is a lot of work... and I "bother" because it is important to me to offer high consistency both in terms of color and quality. It's a system I used to build a couple of collectibles businesses... both of which have done well as a result of happy clients who always could feel confident that they would receive exactly what they were promised. When I decided to start selling sea glass, I saw no reason not to adapt the process to fit this particular "collectible."

In other news... I will probably be "out of the loop" for a while. My wife, Sarah, goes into hospital next week for surgery on her right shoulder. So I am going to "be her right arm" for a while... so I doubt there will be much time for sea glass, for a while.

So just in case, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, a Joyous Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

A New Year!

So, here we are. It's 2012-- a new year lies ahead. 

Some people believe this may be our last year on this planet, and that the world will end on December 21st, 2012, because the often talked about Mayan Calendar ends then. It seems to me that a segment of humankind has always been obsessed with "the end of days." Last time, it was the millennium, when people thought the world would collapse into chaos because computers at the time used a two-digit system (instead of four-digit) to register years. Of course, the world didn't end... a few systems powered themselves down, and were then restarted. Life continued, pretty much as it had been before.

I don't tend to get into "new year's resolutions" and the whole attendant circus. I think we end up placing too much emphasis on unrealistic goals ("this year I am going to lose 50lbs and run the Boston Marathon") and then we end up feeling bad about ourselves, because we failed. I'm all about creating and setting goals I can succeed at... not "wishful thinking."

My "wall of sea glass" in my new home office

Now that we are permanently moved into our new home, I have been focusing on organizing my home office in such a way I can spend less time "getting ready" to do things, and more time "doing" them. 

Most of my sea glass-- from many different unsorted buckets and bins-- has now made it into neatly organized plastic tubs where the glass is sorted by color, size, quality, shape and more. It may not be as visually pretty as glass jars on a windowsill... but it's imminently more practical, if someone contacts me and wants to know if I have "50 pieces of cobalt blue sea glass the size of a dime." 

Sorting everything-- which remains an ongoing process, as there is still MUCH to be sorted-- has also allowed me to separate "my own collection" (of particularly nice/unusual pieces) from what I have come to think of as my duplicate stock (for sale). Being able to do this offered a certain sense of relief, as I came to realize that I am not really a "hoarder" (like on those TV shows) of sea glass, but an actual "collector." 

My primary goal for 2012 (NOT a "resolution") is to use the time I am going to save as a result of being better organized... and spend it actually finding things on the beach, as opposed to wishing I had time to find things on the beach, because I feel too busy being lost in my own office. 

I think that's a worthy goal.

Happy New Year!