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Red Sea Glass is a Rare Beach Find

How Rare is Red Sea Glass? Where Can I Find It?

Find out why red beach glass is so desirable, why it is a unique beach gift, and what makes the glass red.

Even on a super glass beach, red is not common. BUT - not impossible!

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Red sea glass (beach glass) is rare mainly because a very limited amount of red glass was ever mass produced.

http://www.odysseyseaglass.com/images/Joey_red_sea_glass.jpg

As a result, not much red is found in comparison to most other colors of beach finds and is comparatively quite rare sea glass.

It follows that if you see someone selling sea glass - such as on eBay - containing a large number of red glass pieces, it is likely to be tumbled sea glass and not real beach glass.

I remember the first piece of red that I (Lin) had a chance to actually see in someone's hands at the beach.

It was a piece of very thick deep red, nicely-rounded glass found by a sea glass collector named Kelly on West Beach, Deception Pass State Park, one of the beaches we frequented back then.

Oooh, was I impressed!

Red beach glass
Here, friend Joey finds a nice piece at Moran Beach a little south of Deception Pass State Park mentioned above

How Rare is Red?

Pretty rare, especially if it is well tumbled.

On the rarity chart, the only colors that are more rare are usually the true yellows and oranges.

If you're fortunate enough to find red beach glass yourself, the rarity would also depend on how old it is and how tumbled, frosted, and worn it is.

Naturally, it would seem that the more tumbled and frosted it is, the older it would be.

Small Red Sea Glass Pieces

However, where there'sa lot of wave action, a newer piece of red seaglass will look more tumbled and frosted than a much older piece on a calm shoreline..

Samples of Red Sea Glass

	Here is a great selection of reds collected by James Hailey in the Monterey Bay area of California.
One of the great jewelry quality pieces of red sea glass that I (Lin) have is the nice crimson-to-red piece seen at the top of this page and also in the photo at the right photo. Because of the color gradation, this large piece of red-orange sea glass has the appearance of Amberina, a two-toned glassware that was originally made from1883 to about 1900. However, because of the thickness, my guess is that it was from a big old warning light off a ship. I obtained this beautiful real beach glass from a friend, Carla, on Whidbey Island here in the State of Washington, Northwest USA. The smaller pieces are also from the same area.
	David found this large piece of red at North Beach County Park in Port Townsend, Washington. This beach is a favorite of sea glass collectors , dog walkers, and other beach lovers; yet David found this piece right in front of the parking area in the low tide strip of pebbles.
Here is a picture of some very small pieces of Amberina sea glass I found. Note that they are not jewelry quality but I love the colors, so I'm hanging onto them.

Red Sea Glass - The Color

Years ago, they actually used gold in the making of red glass to achieve the various hues of red.

Different amounts of gold would give it a different hue of color. This was pretty expensive, so they tried using other metals like copper and other materials to achieve the color.

Modern methods use other metals because of the high price of gold.

Red glass has been used in bottles, car brake lights, warning lights on boats, lanterns, lamps, stained glass, tableware and Depression glass.

No doubt about it, sea glass collectors yearn to have red beach glass as part of their collections.

See more in the Sea Glass Photographs

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For more on the history behind sea glass, go to Sea Glass Origins

See also Sea Glass Jewelry and Sea Glass Crafts.

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Many happy memories swirled back into my mind when I saw your pictures. I spent my childhood on the beaches of Cape Cod and we spent many happy hours looking for sea glass.”

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Love your sea glass web site. I enjoy your picture of the month and intend on winning at least once.

I have been collecting and creating things from sea glass for over twenty years. I find my sea glass on the beautiful shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland Ohio.

Thank you for sharing your treasures with me.” Yours truly,

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Now, I will compete in the Regional Science Fair which will take place on Feb 2nd. My mom and dad and I had a lot of fun searching for sea glass.

Thanks,”

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