Santa Cruz Sentinel - "Sea of Color"

by Leah Bartos

October 6, 2007

This year’s festival, sponsored by the North American Sea Glass Association, runs today and Sunday at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Cocoanut Grove and features artisan vendors, lectures, workshops and the opportunity to win $1000 in the “Shard of the Year” contest.

Sorting through bins of colored glass shards on a daily basis, sea glass experts like NASGA president Mary Beth Beuke can easily distinguish between the dark hues of a Victorian era medicine bottle and the lighter shades of an early 20th century canning jar.

“Each piece has a history. You can learn a lot about an area by looking at the sea glass there,” Beuke said. “And a lot of people think that it’s just garbage.”

A lifelong seal glass collector, Beuke owns West Coast Sea Glass, a company based in Puget Sound, Wash. and distributes sea glass products to 38 galleries and shows across the nation.

In addition to scouting the sea glass shards by kayak or by foot along the Pacific Northwest coast line, Beuke has also dedicated herself to studying the history of the area to better appreciate her discoveries. Drawing on methods common to archaeologists and historians, Beuke can see in her shards an emerging picture of the Pacific Northwest settlement patterns and the historical impacts of the logging and shipping industries.

But, unlike her scholarly counterparts, Beuke finds a sense of mysticism surrounding sea glass culture.

“Identifying sea glass is a challenge between history’s truth and one’s imagination, because there’s a little of both involved,” Beuke said.

For those curious about the history of their own sea glass shards, the festival also will have experts on hand to identify the possible origins of the pieces.

Among the sea glass identifiers will be Richard LaMotte, a NASGA board member and author of Pure Sea Glass. LaMotte spent several years collecting and researching sea glass, and estimates he has 40,000 sea glass shards in his Maryland home.

Since the book’s publication in 2004, LaMotte has traveled all over the country for book signings and has met thousands of other sea glass enthusiasts, many of whom are eager to share their stories about sea glass. As LaMotte has found, many collectors have a strong emotional tie to their beachcombing discoveries.

“For a lot of people, it’s more than finding something to put in jewelry.” LaMotte said, recalling several stories collectors shared with him about losing family members and finding a piece of sea glass to commemorate their death. “It really represents a healing process for a lot of people.”

In addition to networking opportunities or the chance for early holiday shopping, undoubtedly many will be drawn by the allure of a $1,000 prize. In fact, last years winner is still reaping the benefits.

“We built a half-pipe for skate-boarding in the back yard. It was kindof a family thing,” said 13-year-old Bailey Ryan, who won last year’s “Shard of the Year” contest with a perfectly round, turquoise bottle stopper she discovered on a family vacation in Hawaii.

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Sea Glass Marbles: HOW DO GLASS MARBLES END UP ON THE BEACH?

By Mary Beth Beuke • June 17, 2022

HOW DO GLASS MARBLES END UP ON THE BEACH? There are several theories about why historical glass marbles occasionally wash up on the world's beaches, even today. Reason #1 : In the late 1800's an inventor named Hiram Codd designed a glass soda bottle that used a marble as the stopper at the top. Similarly, the Japanese glass Ramune bottle was also sealed-up with a marble stopper; many times blue ones! These two bottle styles were used in the US and around the world and likely account for a great many of the beach marbles that have been found (and can occasionally still be found) along shorelines globally. When a bottle was discarded, often into the sea, the bottle would break against the rocky shore and the marble might stay intact and tumble for years and likely decades! Historically, marbles were like playtime currency for children! Finding a bottle, and breaking it to get the marble out was quite common. Reason #2 : Decades ago marbles were one of the most popular toys used. Young children played dozens of marble games; Taw games, marble races down a beach slope and marbles were even used in sling shots as ammunition. The shore is usually the lowest spot in any beach town or community. Toy marbles roll downward, down stream, down sewer pipe, down runoff trenches, culverts and more. Gravity accounts for many a marble journey toward shore. Additionally, the beach made a great place for target practice. Some children played games by floating a "moving target" piece of driftwood off shore then shot their marbles out into the water toward the target. Some seagulls often became the moving targets also. The resulting marbles which landed just offshore, one day washed beachward. Reason #3 : For a span of years, post-industrial-era in the US, marbles found along the railroad lines are most likely the result of dumped over freight-glass. The 3/4", orb-like pieces were shipped all over the country for use in the manufacture of fiberglass. It is also believed that glass marbles may have been used for ease in rolling freight and cargo around. This only explains the sea glass marble locale when a rail yard or railway is situated near or along a waterfront. Reason #4 : If you are beachcombing near a coastal landfill site, you will have more luck in finding a coveted sea glass marble. Painters often dropped a handful of marbles into a can of paint to help mix the batch. When the paint was used up and the can was tossed into the city dump (often times the dump was the sea-bluffs at the edge of town) the salt water and ocean's natural biodegrading ability decomposed the paint can over the years. The marbles became what was left and each washed around upon the shore until individually beach combed. Reason #5 : Ship's ballast? For hundreds of years, ships and cargo vessels were loaded with heavy items to help provide ballast. Marbles may have provided this weight inexpensively and effectively when the boxes or barrel containers were transported in the hull of a ship. The Marble Collectors Society of America writes "Clay marbles were made in both Germany and the US. It has been reported that clay marbles were used as ballast in the keels of ships that sailed to America from Germany and then were removed and sold in the US". In the Puget Sound where the tides move fast and the inlets can be narrow, ballast is key to keeping a sailing vessel upright and true. It reminds me of the white water rafting trips my family goes on down the remote Hell's Canyon in Idaho's back-country. The heavier, more weighted-down boats fare much better in the turbulent rapids than the lighter rafts. Ships along the Pacific Ocean's rough shore also needed this kind of weight to help with navigability. Yet should they be smashed upon the rocks, the barrels of marbles would surely be lost to sea only to roll up on shore decades and sometimes even centuries later. "A sea glass collecting friend of mine, Stephanie in the Virgin Islands messaged me multiple times with a story of how, one blessed day, she found more than just one or two marble finds. She was trying to solve the mystery of why the marbles ended up there on the beach. She was hiking along a shore that was lined with steep, sandy cliffs, One afternoon she discovered one or two marbles up higher on the beach bank, above that day's high tide line! Then she discovered another that led her up, away from the water's edge to yet another. She kept walking and continued to find them! Eventually she found herself staring directly into the cliff face. With no tools, she had nothing but her bare hands, she decided to dig into the clay-like cliff's side. In just a couple scoops of sand, she said, several marbles came tumbling down, right out of the cliff wall itself at about waist height! Stephanie did some research and believes that they may have been poured out there years, and years before she even visited that beach. She'd heard early stories of the rum runners during the late 1800's that carried barrels on sloops back and forth throughout the Caribbean to fill with alcohol. She shared stories of how the barrels were oftentimes filled with heavy items prior to their pickup so that the ships had heavy ballast." - The Ultimate Guide to Sea Glass At West Coast Sea Glass, we occasionally let go of one of our beautiful, antique sea glass marbles. They can be found on this page: Collector's Rarities

West Coast Sea Glass

Genuine Sea Glass Jewelry and Bulk Sea Glass