How is that POSSIBLE??

Occasionally, I receive slightly "accusatory" letters (emails) from sea glass collectors. Usually, they have recently looked at my sea glass sales listings and have concluded that I "must be selling fake sea glass."

The reason?

They insist that it's "not possible" for me to have as much high quality sea glass-- and in rare colors, to boot-- as I have. At least, it's "not possible" if the sea glass was actually "real."

Of course, all my sea glass is "real." What is missing from the equation is a sense of perspective.

I live near the beach. As the crow flies, the ocean is about 100 yards from my back porch.

I beach comb... a lot. Because I am self-employed, and my work is not dependent on "business hours," I could pretty much beach comb every single day, if I wanted to. As it is, I'm probably on the beach 150-200 days a year.

Beach combing isn't a "short stroll" for me. Many of my outings cover 15 miles over 10 hours... or more.

I've been beach combing since I was a child. 45 years, give or take a few. Not everything I offer for sale was found "recently."

So let's say-- for example's sake-- that I find 10 pieces of sea glass per hour. A lot of collectors can look at that and say "Yeah, I find that on MY beach, too!"

Then, let's extrapolate: That's 100 pieces in a 10-hour day. Or-- conservatively speaking-- fifteen thousand pieces a year. Now, let's extend that and just talk about the last 25 years of my adult life... that becomes four hundred and fifty thousand pieces of glass! Keep in mind, I didn't start seriously trading/selling till 2007-- so many of those years I simply "accumulated" glass, common and rare.

I hope this post doesn't come across as sounding too defensive. I just wanted to illustrate that it's all a matter of perspective. If your perspective is that you beach comb once or twice a month during the summer, for about an hour each trip, then of course it seems like I have an "unreasonable amount" of sea glass.

As for the rare colors, I am fortunate to live in a place that has had an active seaport since the 1850's, so all colors of "old" glass can be found here... which is not generally true of places that are "newer" population centers.