Remember to Look UP!

As much as I enjoy "finding things" on the beach, beach combing is really a form of meditation to me.

It's easy to get so focused on what's on the beach, and what I am finding, that I forget all about everything else... including the fact that I am there to "get some downtime in." I am by nature (no pun intended) a bit of a "nature nerd," and I have always found that being outdoors is one of the best ways for me to recharge my batteries, especially when life seems hectic and stressful.

It's also a simple truth that beach combing involves a lot of "looking down." After all, if we're to find stuff, we have to look at what's underfoot. The "danger" is that I tend to become so focused on "finding" that I forget to enjoy all the natural beauty around me... things I will only see when I look up. Not mention, of course, that there's the real danger of running onto an overhead branch from a fallen tree! I've done that. More than once.

So, today's "advice" to beach combers is this: Remember to look UP, from time to time.

Because I enjoy nature photography, I sometimes bring along my camera as a "reminder" to look up and see things other than sea glass. There is SO much beauty around us. It would be a shame to miss it all, just because we are always looking down!

Sea Glass Auction: Ending March 11th

After a rather long absence, I'm pleased to announce that I am having my first sea glass auction in almost a year!

As always, this is an "eBay event," with a nice range of high quality and rare individual pieces of seaglass, as well as "lots" assembled with artists and jewelers in mind.

My specialty is very high quality rounded and well frosted sea glass, suited for jewelry making, or in what I'd call "collectible quality." I always return the sharp, chipped and "junky" pieces to the ocean, so they can be collected by future generations of sea glass enthusiasts.

I just finished posting a total of 50 different lots-- I like to post sea glass for auction in large batches like this, as it gives potential bidders a chance to save on shipping costs, when they purchase multiple items at the same time. Once the "base" shipping charge has been paid, each additional lot only adds 75 cents to your shipping cost.

Every lot is listed with a low opening bid-- but if you're not into the "auction format," you can also purchase items you like with the immediate "buy it now" option. Just a reminder: buy-it-now only remains available until someone places a bid-- after that, it becomes "bidding only."

You're more than welcome to "mix and match," meaning that you can buy some lots up front and then bid on others-- and you don't have to pay for anything until after the bidding part ends... again, so you can save on postage. A lot of people like to do this, as you can make sure to get the "must haves" immediately and then place bids on the "maybes" and take your chances that nobody places a higher bid. Of course, some people just enjoy auctions!

Bidding/buying is now OPEN, and the sales run till Sunday, March 11th, 2012 with closing times in the late evening. Here's the direct link:

North Beach Treasures sea glass auctions

Hopefully, you will find something of interest! Pictured here are a few highlights from the current selection.

"Shards" of sea glass

You know, I don't like the term "shards."

The common lingo among sea glass collectors seems to be that we go out and find "shards" of sea glass. At the NASGA annual Sea Glass Festival, they give awards to the "Shard of the Year."

These are not "shards," of glass!

I have never liked that word, from the first time I heard another sea glass enthusiast use it.

"Shards," to me, is what you end up with after you drop a bottle on a tile floor: Lots of sharp angular pieces of glass that will cut your hands to shreds, unless you handle them with extreme care-- or kevlar glass gloves.

To call a beautiful, soft, rounded and frosted piece of sea glass a "shard," just seems very unkind to me-- it's far too "rough" a term, to describe such a beautiful gem-like object.

I am also a rock and mineral collector. In mineral collecting, the freshly broken stones/crystals from a mine are referred to as "rough." Anything that has been "worked," at all gets a new more "polished" name: cabochon, slab, sphere, cluster...

Sea glass HAS been worked-- even if it isn't by humans. The ocean has "polished" it. Even if it's a pretty boring  description, I'd rather refer to my sea glass as being "pieces," rather than "shards."

Just saying...

A Winter Day on the Beach

In the wintertime, I take my beach combing opportunities when they come. As they say, "beggars can't be choosers," and during January the days with low tides during daylight hours are few and far between. Yesterday was one of those rare days, and it even turned out to be a fairly clear day-- although pretty "frosty."

Bright teal green

Now, to say that a day is "good" for beach combing during January had to be taken with a grain of salt. What it actually means is that I get to leave the house around 12:30, make a mad dash down the beach (about 3.5 miles/5.5km) while the tide is still quite high, in order to spend a couple of hours at my favorite beach combing spot... before it gets too dark and I have to make for home, again.

It's nice when these January outings happen to come on a clear day, as it affords me at least an extra 45 minutes of daylight. On a rainy day-- or even a day with heavy cloud cover-- it gets too dark to see what I am doing quite early. I know some people beach comb with a flashlight, but I have just never had much success with that.

It turned out to be a quite rewarding outing, even though I had my doubts, for a while.

The beach presents an ever-changing landscape, around here. Frequent storms and tides that fluctuate up to 12 feet between minimum and maximum means that rocks and sand constantly get moved around. On my walk out, I found myself having to traverse slippery soccer ball sized rocks, most of the way... and there was a thick layer of washed up seaweed in places-- the result of recent storms. Large rocks and seaweed are a combination that rarely bodes well, when your objective is to find sea glass.

Fortunately, as I got closer to one of the areas where I usually find some glass, some sandy patches started showing between the piles of large rocks. As the tide receded, a long thin line of sand and gravel stretched out before me... and I knew it was going to be a good day!

As most beach combers know, every day has it's own "character." Yesterday was a "lots of glass but few rarities" sort of day. Had I been interested in doing so, I could probably have picked up five pounds of clear and brown sea glass. Which, to most people's way of thinking (including mine!) is a LOT of sea glass. However-- aside from very unusual or perfect pieces-- I am really not very interested in the "common" colors, anymore.

Nugget of Amberina orange/red, as found yesterday

It was not until the very end of my day that a couple of lovely pieces found their way to me: A very BRIGHT and perfect nugget of red and orange "Amberina" glass-- a considerable rarity-- caught the dying rays of the sun and lit up like a little beacon. I tried to take a picture of it, but the effect was impossible to photograph. And just five minutes later, I found a beautiful nugget of vibrant blue-green glass (pictured at top)-- a shade of teal I very rarely come across.

And then it was time to head home, in the murk of a winter evening.

It felt good to be out there... and I felt pleased that this first outing of 2012 turned out as well as it did. I then paused to remind myself that as much as I enjoy finding sea glass, walking on the beach has always been "a meditation" for me. I'd still be "out there," even if there were no sea glass. However, the sea glass does offer a nice incentive!

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!

Wintry Mix...

There's not much beach combing around here... during the month of November.

I decided to brave the elements because I wanted to see what had washed up after recent storms, and today offered one of the few tiny windows of opportunity for a beach trip... with a slight dip in the tide level starting around 2:30pm... and continuing till dark, which occurs about 4:30 these days.

It has become rather wintry in the Northwest, over the past couple of weeks. Amazing fall foliage has given way to bare trees, cold rain and high winds. As I made may way to the parking lot by the beach, I didn't realize that it had also snowed a bit, overnight.

There are a lot of "microclimates" at the end of our peninsula. I have often seen it be completely dry at our house, only to find a day of pouring rain-- or snow-- in town, less than three miles away. Today it seemed like the central ridge got 1-2 inches of snow, while nowhere else did.

Being the weekend, there were lots of cars in the parking lot. However, I expect most of them belonged to people taking their dogs to the adjacent state park.

The tide was still very high as I set out-- only a narrow band of large rocks separated me from the waves... and it made going very slow. I think of this as an "ankle breaker" beach, and I did not look forward to making a 3.5 mile trek along that type of footing. And things did not improve. After about 15 minutes of slow going, I realized that the storms had not only "rearranged" the beach... but had also beaten the offshore kelp forests to bits, and now I found myself waking on large rocks covered with a six inch layer of slippery seaweed.

This didn't bode well for my day. Even if the retreating tide were to leave behind a decent expanse of beach, a thick layer of seaweed makes it all but impossible to get to any washed-up treasures. The fact that I was probably the only one beach combing today offered little consolation.

A large vibrant deep turquoise glass bead

Fortunately, my favorite stretch of beach-- which it took me almost two hours to reach-- was not entirely covered by seaweed. Sadly, though, the long time it had taken me to get there also meant that I had less than 90 minutes before I started to lose the light.

As the light fades, the darker colors become invisible first, and eventually the only thing you can make out are the clear pieces, which look a bit like moonstones in the semi-darkness. One exception to this is the fairly rare "vaseline glass," a pale lime green which seems almost "illuminated from within," in low light.

In the end, the findings of the day were fairly modest-- the storms had not turned up large volumes of new treasure, and I'm beginning to think that maybe this piece of beach has simply been "picked clean," largely as a result of the repeated "exposure" from newspaper articles. A "secret" doesn't remain a secret for very long if everyone knows about it-- if you know what I mean.

A few highlights of the day included a large bright turquoise oval bead (pictured above) in perfect condition-- with the hole intact and free of sand-- a nice find, and in a rare color. I also found a nice aquamarine "cat's eye" glass marble, a larger piece of pastel yellow (the only "rare" colored piece of the day) and a large (about 1 1/2" long) clear "egg" piece. I can only speculate as to its origins-- perhaps a finial or "knop" from some kind of glass serving dish? It was perfectly symmetrical, and in lovely frosted condition. Who says clear sea glass can't be interesting?!?!

The remainder of the day's finding were quite "ordinary" and now await sorting, at some future date. I had hoped to find more large pieces-- often the case after a storm-- but most pieces I saw were quite small, and uncommon colors were few and far between. There also seems to be a lot of damaged/chipped pieces-- which I always throw back, so they can "cook fully."

Of course, there is more to beach combing than merely "finding sea glass." I go for the exercise and fresh air, as well as for the cathartic and meditative qualities of being on the beach for several hours. As I turned around to head back home (around 4:00pm), I was treated to a beautiful winter sunset, and the sound of bald eagles in the treetops, settling in for the night.

It was quite dark by the time I made it back to the parking lot at 5:45. The last half hour was very slow going, not only because my legs were tired, but because the footing on softball sized rocks covered in wet seaweed-- in the dark-- was treacherous.

This will probably be the last (and only!) time I get to beach comb, this month. The tide/daylight combination is about at its most unfavorable for beach combing, at the moment. There will be a very small window of opportunity again at the beginning of December... and unless the weather is absolutely horrible, I will be out there, looking to sea what new treasures the ocean has washed up!

New Home!

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone, but moving is stressful!

To say that we "have moved" is certainly correct in the strictest interpretation of the word, but in reality we are a long long way from having "moved in."

I'm grateful to have a dedicated room for my sea glass and businesses that will eventually graduate to being called "my office." For the moment, it looks more like a bomb hit, with boxes, bags and packing materials everywhere.

The view from the deck of our new house

We love the house, however! We've moved from living seven blocks from the beach, to living two "rows" back from the waterfront. Previously, we couldn't actually see the water; now it's right in front of us! It gives me great comfort to be able to see the water, and I realized today that even though I have lived all over the world, I have rarely been more than a hop, skip and a jump from the beach.

In Denmark, when I was little, we were a five-minute walk from the beach. When I was little (also) our house in France was on a bay in the Mediterranean. In the UK, we were either a short walk from the Atlantic coast in Devon, or a short walk from the beach, in the Bournemouth/Poole area. As a teenager in Spain, I could see the sun set into the Mediterranean from our terrace, with the Rif mountains in Morocco as a backdrop.

The only time I did not live by the sea shore was during my years in Texas. However, there was lake (formed my a flood control dam on a creek) at the end of my yard-- for some time, "beach combing" was replaced by "fossil hunting." Although it wasn't perfect, I am almost as much of a "rockhound" as I am a beach comber, and I would make regular pilgrimages to the Texas Gulf coast to get on the beach.

It has been a long time since we last "owned our own piece of dirt." There is something very comforting about that... a sense of "permanence" you just can't get while you are renting.

Moving

We are moving.

Pretty much everything is turned upside down, and my office is largely disassembled. Within a few days, we will be at our new house, and hopefully we'll not have to move again. Ever. Period.

I suppose preparing to move has been a good exercise. I have come to realize that I am not nearly as well organized as I'd like to think. I have also come to realize that I have made lots of attempts at "getting organized," and each time I have failed to do so... the "problem" seems to mostly have been about me, overengineering "how organized" I need to be.

In other words, my "systems" take more effort to keep organized than it took me to waste time looking for things I couldn't find.

I have a lot of sea glass. In bins, in boxes, in bags, in jars. Problem is, I have basically "the same thing" duplicated over and over.

It's a small wonder I have felt challenged when someone has written to me to ask if I could help them out with some specific piece of glass for a project... and been unable to locate something I knew I had.

At the new house, I will have a much larger office space, as well as plenty of shelving to use for all the glass. It will probably take me a few months to get everything unpacked and organized... this time with the difference that the organization will be much simpler...

Sometimes, less is more...

First Beach Trip of Fall

Beach combing in the fall is seldom easy. I thought I'd share a bit of a "log" of today's outing, to explain a bit more what I mean by this time of the year being the "least friendly" time of the year to gather sea glass, around here.

Bright green marble from today's trip

I've been wanting to go on a beach combing trip, ever since the first couple of "good blows" have come through. During the summer, we ("we" being the regular beach combers around here and hundreds of tourists) sift through whatever can be found in the top couple of inches of material on the beach. Most days here are still, and there is very little wave action to churn up rocks and sand. As we approach mid-September, the pickings become extremely slim, as we all continue to look for "treasure" on an extremely overpicked beach.

Then-- by late September or early October-- the weather breaks. And for the first time in probably four months, the beach is pounded by some serious waves... serious enough that the entire topography of the beach changes, and sand, pebbles and glass that have been buried two feet deep are brought to the surface.

Alas, October also means that low tide occurs at 5:00 in the morning, when it's pitch black outside. So... what's a beach comber to do?

The alarm rings at 5:00am. I make coffee, and get myself ready to go. Outside, the sky is heavy with low clouds, but the rain of last night seems to have abated. Still, I'm not counting on a dry day.

At 5:50am, I'm out the door. Five minutes later, I'm at the parking lot by the beach. It is still completely dark.

Beach combing is almost a "competitive sport" around these parts. As I walk across the parking lot, I see a car that has just pulled up and a couple of people with flashlights are getting ready for their day. There's another car already parked, and I wonder if it was left overnight-- but a quick touch of the hood, which is warm, tells me it was driven recently. Whomever it belongs to is already out there, ahead of me. At 5:50 in the morning...

A good day at the beach!

It's about a four mile walk across rocky uneven terrain, loose rocks up to the size of basketballs and piles of seaweed to just get to "the good bits" where I like to beach comb. For most people, that means a two hour trek... in broad daylight, in favorable conditions. In darkness...

... I make it in about 50 minutes, and thank my background as a former competitive distance runner and sometime race walker for being able to move fast. A few times I almost lose my footing, skidding on seaweed on wet rocks; not seeing a log; bumping into a boulder in the darkness. About two-thirds of the way out, I pass the fellow with the "other car" in the parking lot... one of the "usual suspects" on this stretch of beach.

The tide is already on its way in. It will only be a dark gray pre-dawn by the time I reach my favorite stretch of beach... and I will have to turn around within just a couple of hours and almost run the four miles back in order to not get caught by the rising tide. There is no "land access" from the beach I go to; no place where you can "park the car above" and hike to... only a vertical wall of banks, some 200-400 feet high... so keeping an eye on tides and time is essential for safety's sake. Sure, there are places where you can wait out a high tide (and I have done that) but sitting for six hours on a cold wet rock is not my idea of how to spend a Thursday evening.

In low light, clear is the first color you can see. Other colors require full daylight before they gradually become visible. By about 7:45, it is finally daylight and I can begin searching in earnest. It looks like it will be a good day! Not only does the beach have a nice cover of pea-sized gravel mixed with small rocks, it is very clear that the recent storms have turned over the "stale" leftovers of summer... I can tell because the scattering of small mostly chipped pieces of glass I've been looking at for the past couple of months have been replaced with more smooth-- and larger-- pieces of sea glass. And that makes this mad-dash-out-and-home a worthwhile endeavor.

A large and thick nugget of red-- find of the day!

I never stop moving, because time is scant. The glass is good, although it turns out to be one of those days where I seem to find a lot, but no "great rarities." The best finds of the day are four sea glass marbles-- on most days I'd be fortunate to fine one or two-- and an exceptional "nugget" of bright red. Whereas I do find red seaglass, the pieces are usually fairly small and thin-- this piece is larger (about 7/8" long) and quite thick and rounded, like a large jellybean or gum drop. I wonder what it was once part of, since red was rarely used for objects that required "a lot of glass." Art glass, perhaps?

In the end, I get in just over two hours of fairly intense beach combing before the tide reaches a point where I--reluctantly-- have to leave. Not a moment too soon... I make it back to the parking lot with dry feet... just. There have been a number of major slides in the past year, and in some places I have to climb over fallen trees and large piles of ancient clay.

I once wore a GPS device, while going beach combing. On a day like today-- counting the hikes in and out, as well as all the criss-crossing that goes with beach combing-- I probably covered about 13-14 miles (21-22km) in total. Tired legs are the order of the remainder of the afternoon. On the whole, it's not the distance that's exhausting, but the extensive traversing piles of gravel (a bit like walking in deep snow) or soccer ball sized rocks covered with fresh wet seaweed (incredibly slippery) that takes it out of my legs.

From here until mid-December, the tides here will only get "shorter." In another month or so, there will barely be a couple of hours of semi-low tide during daylight hours.

Waning Tides of Fall

It seems almost funny, to be speaking of fall, already.

It's September 15th, and we hardly had any summer in the Northwest, this year. A little bit of dry weather and sunshine started in August, and seemed to run out a few days ago.

A large shard of milk glass from a recent trip

Fall is the least "friendly" season for beach combers around here, at least as far as favorable tides go. As we progress towards October and November, low tide opportunities during daylight hours become few and far between. This is not only due to the shorter days and the (eventual) arrival of Daylight Saving time... but also due to the moon's annual migration in our skies.

Just like the best tides-- in terms of low tides during the day-- occur in late spring and very early summer, so the worst tides occur in late fall. Typically, November beach combing involves a mad dash down the high water line at a couple of hours before sunset, to enjoy maybe 90 minutes where the water level drops slightly... followed by an hour long trudge home in darkness.

Of course, this assumes beaches like the ones I frequent, where it takes up to 90 minutes to even get to the "good spots."

Still, I don't let it put me off. Being on the beach is a form of therapy and meditation for me, even when time is short. And-- of course-- the waning tides of fall just represent the turning of the year... and serves as a reminder that there will be longer days ahead. By the end of January, it will once again be possible to spend a couple of hours at my favorite spots...

When the Beach Gets Picked Over

The nice thing about beach combing in the summer is that the weather is typically nice-- even here in the Pacific Northwest. The not-so-nice thing is that the beaches around here are frequented considerably by the tourist trade, and by mid-August (where we are now) the beach is pretty picked over. Add to that that it has been months and months since there last was a good storm to churn things up, and you end up with long trips to the beach yielding not very impressive results.

Sea Glass marbles from today's beach trip

Today, we spent 6 1/2 hours out there, trudging some 12 miles, all in all. Apart from three fairly nice marbles (better than "usual"), there was really not much to write home about.

It always gives me a bit of a sinking feeling to go to the beach and have a day like this one. It makes me think of the way genuine sea glass is a "dwindling resource," and I wonder whether the winter storms will really "refresh" the beach, this coming year-- or "has it all been found," already? Of course, I have wondered that for years and years...

I did manage to pick up a pretty stout sunburn on the back of my neck-- sleeping will be less than comfortable tonight! Reminds me a bit of my childhood-- my parents were eternal "sun chasers" and I had very fair skin (still do) that would burn to a crisp. So they would be out in the sun on some tropical beach, baking, while I'd sit-- fully clothed and sweating-- under the nearest shade tree I could find.

I expect I will not be going a lot onto the beach till late fall. Since we will be moving in September, I will have other things to occupy my time. Still, if I can squeeze in a few shorter trips I will-- since walking on the beach largely serves as a meditation for me.

Always Organizing Sea Glass

I am home in the Pacific Northwest, after 3+ weeks in Europe.

Before we went on vacation, I'd been working on organizing my stock/accumulation/collection of sea glass. It has been a major project, since I have been keeping 40-odd years' worth of glass in about six separate locations, according to six previous ideas of what the "best way" to organize would be.

The result?

Chaos.

Since I don't just collect sea glass for myself, but also sell glass to artists and collectors, at least a minimal degree of organization has become important.

This recent organizational effort arose because I grew increasingly impatient with myself when people would send me email and ask me things like: "since you sell sea glass, do you have any such-and-such glass?" and my only real answer would be "I am really not sure, I'll have to check my stock."

Maybe that's a fair enough response, but "checking my stock" had become a major project.

Many moons ago, I had a gift shop. Whenever we got a request and were not sure if we had the item in stock-- and had to spend time searching-- we used to joke that we'd "started the black hole clock." Time counted off on the black hole clock was the wasted time we spent, looking for something we should have been able to find, right away. Sometimes the "clock" would run for just a few minutes... at other times, it would run for days, as several people wasted their time looking for something "we all remembered" to be somewhere in the stock room.

My black hole clock has been running far too often.

Hence the need to reorganize.

Maybe I will never be perfectly organized, and maybe such a thing is not even possible. But at least I would like to be able to respond to inquiries with some degree of confidence and promptness.

Sea Glass in Denmark

This June, I have been visiting my native Denmark, for the first time in seven years.

Although I didn't exactly start my interest in beach combing on these shores, Denmark is the place where I had most access to the beach, for the greatest number of years.

Sea glass is relatively uncommon in Denmark, at least in the areas where I have looked. Denmark's social policy of environmental awareness is quite old, so it has been a long time since much glass was discarded on the shores, here. In addition, most glass bottles in Denmark have had a hefty deposit for more than 50 years (when I was little, one of the ways we'd make extra money was to search the side of the road and garbage cans for empties), further discouraging the trashing of glass containers.

Most Danish sea glass is either clear, brown, or a shade of olive that has been used for beer bottles here for almost a century. What we think of as common ("Heineken") green is relatively scarce here. Seafoam is also scarce. Any other colors are extremely difficult to find.

Surprisingly, sea glass is not very common (or very nice) around Copenhagen, even though it's a major population center. Copenhagen sits on a narrow strait and the beaches are generally a very fine powdery sand (few rocks) as a result of which there is neither enough wave action or good abrading material to create nicely rounded sea glass.

All that said, I have enjoyed walking along the shores of my childhood, thinking about days gone by. As a testament to the relative scarcity of sea glass in Denmark, the picture above is all the glass I have found on three trips to the beach.

Two Years Later

It has been a couple of years since Memorial Day 2009.

I remember that day because it was the first major holiday weekend following a large article in the Seattle Times about sea glass. Of course, I had no objections to an article about sea glass... I just had objections to a couple of people's decisions to openly disclose the best beaches on which to look for sea glass to the newspaper readership in a metro area with some 3 1/2 million people.

Those who so openly shared this information should have known better, although I suspect they simply did so in service of being "open and forthcoming" about our wonderful hobby... but forgetting the possible impact of their words.

I could also blame the reporter for writing about the way "people make money on eBay" from selling sea glass... but people of the press are generally about telling the story and rarely possess the ethical fibre necessary to think through to the lasting impact of their words. The typical argument is that "today's paper will line tomorrow's bird cage." Whereas I personally see that as an "abdication of accountability," I don't care to get into a deeper philosophical debate about it.

I was interviewed for that same article, but I very carefully chose to speak only of sea glass and its origins... and in spite of being "prodded," staunchly declined to share where I'd found anything. I ran a retail business for 13 years... I've dealt with the press, in the past.

Any resource that is "overharvested" (be it the clear cutting of old-growth forests, strip mining or telling millions of people where to find sea glass) suffers lasting damage, and we ALL lose.

Two years have passed.

The crowds that descended on the beach-- in large numbers-- during that summer (and to a lesser degree for another 18 months) have mostly disappeared.

Sadly, so has most of the sea glass.

Of course, there is still glass there, but I'd estimate about a quarter the amount that used to be there. The rare colors seem more affected; the common browns and clears are still there... although a higher proportion are chipped-- the "common rejects" that were thrown back.

I definitely still enjoy my walks on the beach, but makes me a little sad. I know for a fact that this particular stretch of beach was frequented by collectors since the 1960's, and all was well, for almost 50 years. Then, in less than two years, the "resource" was decimated.

What makes me sad is less the lack of glass to be found, than the manifestation of human greed.

Sea Glass Photo Albums

I have been considering how to create a kind of online encyclopedia of sea glass, based on the many photographs of sea glass I have accumulated over the years. I've been sharing photos with collectors for a very long time, and have often heard things like "Oh, you should publish those!" or "why don't you create a book?"

Truth is, it would be nice to have an online reference of different sea glass colors and unusual pieces. There have been times when I could have used a reference, myself, when I have found something unusual.

For the moment, Flickr seems like the most useful option, as a lot of people already have accounts, and it would be relatively easy to organize the photos by color. In addition, people can view basic Flickr photo collections without having to have a Yahoo or Flickr membership.

I currently have more than 10,000 photographs of sea glass, most of them close-ups of individual pieces, in almost every color imaginable. These include a lot unusual rarities and unique pieces, including my collection of sea glass marbles.

Of course, this will very much be a "labor of love" and will probably take months-- if not years-- to complete. I just doing what often helps me get a project rolling: making a public commitment to the idea.

A Fresh Start

This past year has not lent itself much to beach combing. The seemingly endless travel, tumultuous personal situation and various other things seemed to largely relegate "fun stuff" to a back seat role.

This is not exactly a "New Year's Resolution," but I am hoping that 2011 will be a calmer year... a year in which my own path forward will be less entangled in "Other People's Issues."

Of course, there are not so many good tides for beach combing, in the winter... but come mid-January, there might be a few late afternoons I can get out there.

Introducing the Sea Glass Book Store!

Just for fun, I have decided to add a small online "book store" to the blog and to the North Beach Treasures web site. You can find it by clicking on the "Sea Glass Bookstore" link, above, or by following the link at the end of this post.

Although the popularity of sea glass-- both as something to collect, as well as a medium for jewelry making and crafts-- has greatly increased over the past decade, it still remains very much a "specialty" item. As such, not many books have been published about the subject, and 8 years after its publication, Richard LaMotte's "Pure Sea Glass" remains the standard against which all other books about sea glass are judged. If you don't own a copy already, I highly suggest you click on the link and buy it, now!

The Sea Glass Bookstore is actually about more than just sea glass-- it's a collection of my favorite books (and related!) about beach combing and coastal nature, which has been such an integral part of my life, for the past 40+ years. I've also included a few art books, and art instruction books.

I'm not really doing this to "make money" (although I'd certainly not complain if you decided to buy a book, or two!), but more as a way to share some of my favorite books and make it possible for people to get "instant gratification," rather than just read about a book and then wonder "I wonder how I get my hands on one of those?"

For the moment, there's only about 25-30 titles listed, but I think they are worthwhile ones. I will add more, as I find them.

Visit The Beach Comber's Bookstore!

Keeping a Sea Glass Blog

I have recently been considering the whole issue of writing a blog about sea glass.

I have been a blogger for better than ten years, and have developed several blogs with followings of hundreds-- if not thousands-- of readers. I have also have a couple of "specialty" blogs-- one about collecting stamps, and one about the Enneagram-- so writing about a "specialized topic" is not new to me.

But why keep a blog about sea glass?

As a life-long writer, I am always considering the purpose of my words.

In part, this blog exists simply because I enjoy writing, and I enjoy beach combing... and it's fun to keep track of what happens on the beach, so I can go back and look at "highlights and lowlights," at a later date. So that's a reason I keep the blog-- for me. Of course, I also enjoy taking pictures of sea glass, and posting them online...

For others?

I have to ask myself the question "Why write this as a public blog, and not just as a private journal?" The answer I come up with is much the same as the answer I came up with, for my stamp collecting blog: To share with other collectors... which, ultimately, is a way of saying "To connect with other beach combers and sea glass collectors, and to be part of a community of people with similar interests."

Of course, with that established, the next question becomes "So what should I write about? What will other people find sufficiently interesting to come read this blog?" Again, I consider the same process as I considered with my stamp collecting blog: I ask myself what I would find interesting, as a reader, when I look around the web to see "what others are doing?"

• I enjoy "tall fish tales;" that is, stories about people's amazing/interesting finds.
• I enjoy reading about "really rare" stuff I may never get to see, myself, in person.
• I enjoy reading about "the finest and the best" that's out there.
• I enjoy (or at least find it useful) to be able to read "community news:" Are there any shows? Has someone won an award? Any new discoveries? New dealers/businesses? New books I should buy?
• Specific to sea glass-- which is so often used in an artistic manner-- I enjoy reading about (and seeing) people's creativity.
• Last but not least... since I am in the "business" of periodically selling sea glass, the blog-- at least in a small way-- serves as a way to make announcements about new items I have for sale.

At this point, you might be wondering why I am writing these words.

As a writer, I find that I must periodically take stock of what I am doing, and assess whether the words I am putting out there serve a purpose-- or are helpful/useful-- or are merely self-indulgent drivel. No matter what your field might be-- a human, a writer, a business person-- it's important to sometimes ask yourself why you are doing something. I've always found that taking these thoughts-- which typically bounce around inside my head-- and actually putting them down "on paper," tends to clarify what I am thinking, so I can find a sense of direction.

So, since this blog is somewhat over three years old, I was just pausing to take stock.

Looking at Colors: Red

For many sea glass lovers, "finding a piece of red sea glass" can be the highlight of a beach combing trip. For some, it can even be the highlight of the entire year, or an entire beach combing career.

Red is, indeed, both very rare and quite beautiful-- and it is perhaps this combination of scarcity and beauty that makes it particularly sought after. But just to "put the record straight," though-- Red is NOT "the rarest sea glass color." That said, it is commonly estimated that a beach comber will have to pick up between 3000 and 5000 pieces of sea glass to find one piece of red. In addition, red glass (due to its chemical composition) tends to be "softer" and more "brittle" than many other colors of glass, and thus even when a collector does find a piece of red, the piece is often quite small, and not necessarily in nice smoothly frosted condition.

So, what's the story with red glass?

For starters, red simply isn't a color that has been used very often, for commercial glassware. There are a couple of reasons for this: Red glass is costly to make, and difficult to work with. And, ultimately, "difficult to work with" also drives up the cost of making red glass objects.

As I have written in other posts, colored glass is typically the result of adding metals and minerals (in oxide and chloride-- powder-- form) to sand and silica mix that is glass before it is molten. The simplest way to obtain a medium to deep red glass color is by adding gold-- in powder form. And, at $100s per ounce, this has generally not been an economically viable proposition for glass manufacturers. As often as not, when we run into red glass in an antique store, it is more likely to be "art" glass than manufacturer production glass.

Because of the cost of using gold, alternatives have been explored. Most successfully, highly purified iron and cupric oxide has been used. However, new challenges arose.

Some years ago, I was proprietor of an art gallery, and one of our specialties was blown art glass from small studios and individual artists. In the course of ten years or so, I got to know a lot of glass blowers-- and often noticed the absence of deep red glass in their work.

Knowing that there were alternatives to using gold for red glass, I asked "why no red?" And learned that even though there are non-gold options to make red glass, they can only be used in extremely controlled furnace environments. The raw materials have to be extremely pure and highly processed-- and that quickly becomes expensive. One glass artist described red glass as "too temperamental," explaining that he could make a "pot" of red glass, but if the furnace got just 10 degrees too hot he'd "end up with brown soup." Keep in mind what it might take to calibrate in 10-degree increments in the context of glass having a melting point of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. I also learned that red glass-- in its molten state-- is extremely corrosive and damages the "pots" used in the furnaces, meaning that they have to be replaced more often than when working with most other colors.

As an example (again, returning to my days at the art gallery), in 1987 major Finnish glass manufacturer iittala decided to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their world famous "Aalto" glass vase by making a special limited edition in deep red. The original intent was that the edition size was to be 1000 signed and numbered pieces worldwide. After extensive experimentation and numerous failures, the edition size was cut short to just one hundred pieces, due to "manufacturing difficulties."

Red sea glass, as beach combers might find it, comes from a very limited number of sources. Some can be traced to automotive tail lights and lenses from warning lamps and ships' lanterns-- most often, these pieces have some kind of texture on one side, put their to increasing the reflectivity of the lens. A small amount comes from Victorian- to Depression-era production and decorative glass, with a few other pieces coming from decorative art glass. Finally, a tiny amount of commercially produced red glass (most often made by Anchor-Hocking in the 1950's) might show up "locally" in various parts of the US, for example from one particular type of Schlitz beer made during the 50s. In all cases, very limited quantities were made... and red was often the color chosen for various "special" or "limited edition" objects.

As an interesting aside, red glass was often used as "tiny accents." For example, when I look at sea glass "objects" such as buttons or beads (which in and of themselves are rare to find), red is a relatively "common" occurrence. Perhaps a full one-quarter of the sea glass beads I have found have been red... but it's very much a "relative" thing, as the chances of finding any sea glass bead is maybe 1-in-2000! Although beads are not exactly rare, most are never picked up because of their tiny size-- beach combers see a piece of glass less than 1/4" in diameter and think "why bother?" not realizing that the tiny round piece has a hole through it, making it a miniature treasure.

"Cranberry Glass" as sea glass

I am occasionally asked why there is not more "cranberry glass" found as sea glass. People point out that when you go to an antique mall (for example) there is far more cranberry glass-- essentially a "pinkish/purplish" red-- than pure red glass. Most likely, the answer lies in how glass is used, and how we-- as "consumers"-- treat the glass we have around us. Whereas cranberry glass was made on a fairly large scale during the first half of the 20th century, it mostly was made into decorative objects. As such, relatively little of it was actually broken, and subsequently very little of it found its way to trash dumps. The same is true of colors such a deep amethyst and bright orange, which was used for decorative objects but is extremely rare as sea glass. Think about it, for a moment: If you chip a glass canning jar, what happens? You throw it away. If you chip your favorite cranberry glass vase, what happens? Unless it's seriously broken, you probably try to fix it. Or leave it out, with the chip facing the wall...

The bottom line is that most sea glass-- probably 99% of it-- comes from commercial glassware. That is, glassware that "contained" something, and/or was "used" for something... after which its utility ended, and it was discarded.

Whatever its origins, red glass is definitely a "treasure" for a sea glass collector, as well as for the few jewelry artists who are bold enough to use it in their work.

To see more photos of red sea glass (and I have many!), please visit my Red Sea Glass Photo Album on Flickr.

The Ebbs and Flows of Life on the Beach

For the past few months, I have spent much less time on the beach than I could wish for. And I have spent much less time "playing with my glass," than I could wish for. In more ways than one.

Beach combing has always been a catharsis-- the beach and the sea have healing properties for me. Maybe that's not true for everyone... however, I start feeling a bit "disconnected" from the world, if I am away from the beach for too long.

Sarah (my honey) recently commented "You really should get a web site going, for your sea glass." We've talked about it, for a long time... a place to write about sea glass and its origins, and showcase some of my sea glass photography. I already have the site "reserved;" I already have this blog. But getting it done has become yet another thing I "wish I had the time for." Although I don't really do "New Year's Resolutions," definitely something I would like to get to, in 2010.

It seems that not only do the tides of the beach ebb and flow, often LIFE itself ebbs and flows. The "stuff of life" has been keeping me somewhat away from my photography and beach combing.

The aftermath of my mom dying (she lived overseas) in August has been time consuming. Making a living in a depressed economy has been time consuming. Dealing with some personal stuff in my life has been time consuming. Creating the "platform" for a better future has been time consuming.

Aside from "tides of life," the beach itself has been "ebbing and flowing," too. Mostly, it has been ebbing.

An article in the Seattle Times (which reaches close to a million people) back in May offered a lot of exposure to sea glass, but unfortunately gave all but "perfect directions" to a piece of beach previously only known to a limited number of hardy enthusiasts. Of course the beach is public property, and I recognize that-- but "over use" of ANY resource is never a good thing; regardless of whether we're talking about fishing, mining, or collecting sea glass.

On one day during this past summer, I counted ONE HUNDRED people on a stretch of beach where I used to perhaps see a single person, every few hours. Many were not "beach combing." They were there with buckets and rakes and shovels and coolers and "manpower," like they were trying to run a "strip mining" operation on the beach.

I take a small amount of solace in knowing that I was not the person who told the journalist where I usually beach comb. His wife beach combs there, too. I wonder if she's as disappointed as I am...

This all brings me to ponder the ebbs and flows of life, again-- and how "a secret" stops being "a secret" when EVERYone knows about it. That amazing hamburger joint around the corner gets featured in the Sunday paper, as a result of which their "amazing" hamburgers become "mediocre" because they have to assembly line mass produce them.

The landscape of the beach changes, too. I mostly beach comb at the base of tall escarpments made up of sediment from the last ice age. These (sometimes 300 feet high) slopes are largely made up of compressed sand and clay, and the erosion and slope collapses have been extensive during the past 12 months-- which means a layer of fresh 10,000-year old sand is laid on top of the material/rocks that contained much more recent material... including sea glass. People often think it is heavy storms that bring down the slopes-- more often it is heavy rains followed by a hard freeze. The water gets into the ground, near the top, expands when it subsequently freezes, and cracks start to form. Eventually, a chunk of compressed sand the size of an apartment building gives way and lands on the beach, changing the topography of everything as the sea and tides eat away at it.

As some wise person once observed: "The only constant in life is change."