Sea Glass Colors, Beach Glass Colors, Rare Seaglass Colors
Authentic sea glass colors reflect all the spectrum of glass colors and tones ...from clear to black that have been produced over the centuries.
Some sea or beach glass colors are common and easily found, while other colors are extremely rare. Why? A brief look at the history of sea glass explains this. Glass was first made possibly as early as 1730 BC in Asia. Glass is made from silica (historically in the form of sand) and alkali or soda ash (sodium carbonate), which can be extracted from the ashes of many plants. These two ingredients were melted together to form early glass. This process, which makes soda-lime glass, is still the basic process used in making glass today.
Until the 12th century, colored or stained glass was not widely used. To make colored glass, first a small or large amount of a natural coloring agent (such as metallic or other impurities) was finely ground and then melted with the glass. Many of these coloring agents still exist today.
Clear (white), as we know, is made with soda-lime. To produce colors the following minerals alone or combined with other minerals produce the following colors glass:
As you can see, some of the beautiful colors involve not only much more costly ingredients, but the process involved also may cost significantly more to produce deep vibrant colors and so has generally only been used for limited production. Naturally, these are the most vibrant sea glass colors and also the most sought after by collectors for their sea glass collections and sea glass jewelry. RELATED PAGES: Sea Glass Color - A description of different colors found in sea glass and their importance to collectors.
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