Beach Glass Collector

[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

Hello TN people!

Before we got into metal detecting we'd spend our time collecting beach glass along the shores of Chicago and also making jewelry out of it. I've put together our current collection for you to see. We have been having a lot of fun walking the beaches, drilling and designing pieces!

There seem to be a lot of glass experts here and we had some pieces we aren't sure about.

1. The O pieces. We find a lot of glass that has these circles on them. They are very deep, almost seems like it was made after they were blown. Any ideas?


2. The "Tiffany" or as my girlfriend calls them, the "Candy Glass". Would these be pieces from stained glass, or multicolored decorative glassware? They all seem like they could be pieces of a giant puzzle since they are all about the same thickness and are made up of multiple layers.


Here is some of our glass jewelry. We put most of our items on Products | Tru Origins | Chicago Beach Glass and also sell in 5 stores in Chicago and Michigan.

Just looking for feedback, info, and letting you know what we are up to, thanks!

 

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[surf]

Hello Henry,

Welcome to these parts, and thanks for showing us some of your work. I particularly admire the above necklace. How are you cabling these pieces together?

Meanwhile, back at the glass plant, those O pieces are valve marks on the bases of of earlier machine made larger bottles & jars.

"Valve mark - Also know as an ejection mark. This circular scar, which is usually fairly well centered on the base, is a result of certain automatic bottle machines (e.g., Lynch MB Two Table) which left this mark when pushing ("ejecting") the bottle out of parison mold so that it could be mechanically grasped and moved to the final blow mold (Tooley 1953). Valve marks are most often found on larger bottles, particularly milk bottles and fruit jars, made from the late 1910s into the 1940s. See the description of valve mark on the Bottle Bases page for more information." Bottle Glossary Page

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[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

Hi Surf!

Thanks for the O info, that makes sense to us! We can tell the glass is very old, just by the thickness of it.

Nice shot of that stained glass window! The colors all look about there! We find a lot of that green and greenish brown, also the purples there. We were wondering if it could have been stained glass from a steam ship that sank. If it turns out it is I won't make anymore jewelry out of the stained glass, that just doesn't feel right (although it makes some pretty cool stuff!).

Thanks for the compliment on our work! I hand drill every piece and then wire it together with heavy jewelry wire (or lighter gauge for lighter glass/earrings) using basic crimps between pieces. The one you mentioned above is all drilled and hangs on a single piece of wire that's just crimped into loops at the ends.

Thanks again for the info, this has been our treasure to collect and much less work than metal detecting/digging all those holes!

 

[unclemac]

be careful....beach glass collecting is the "gateway drug" of collecting in general....slippery slope!..we all have it pretty bad here...

 

[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

Its spring, so we're hunting again (even though we hunted all winter anyway). We decided to make a video for beach glass hunters. Come along on the hunt!

 

[yakker]

That's cool. Thanks for the video. I know there are/were some art glass studios in New Jersey, and Baltimore had a big glass factory (more my area). the Sea Glass Association of America has a lot of information available through links and such. Ever check that out? Also interested in other things-- other than glass shards specifically- you find and/or use in your jewelry... like whole tiny bottles, doll parts, bottle stoppers, etc. I know you showed a sea-marble at one point... Just curious.

 

[Bass]

HEJ jr., glad to see you're cleaning up the beaches and doing something worthwhile with the glass. You can get the jewelry making kits at reasonable prices and use the ground glass instead of beads and precious metals. I have a good friend and his wife makes jewelry and enters all the local arts and crafts shows. I must say, she has a very good supplemental income from her jewelry- making hobby. There's no way of knowing your glass is from a stained glass window of a sunken ship. The odds are pretty slim of that being the case. Besides, i don't thinks there's anything disrespectful using that type of glass even if you knew for a fact it was from a shipwreck. Who's to say the bottle shards aren't from a shipwreck as well. I wouldn't fret over that kind of stuff. Keep doing what you do and keep the pictures coming. Good fortune to you and happy hunting.

Sent from my iPhone using TreasureNet

 

[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

Thanks for the posts guys. : )

I would make a necklace or jewelry out of just about anything I found on the beach, but the glass sells so well I'm going to stick to that for a while.

 

[stefen]

There are several Glass Beaches along northern California's Mendocino coast...the result of former city trash that has washed ashore...now protected from collectors...

Explore Fort Bragg, CA | FortBragg.comglass-beach/‎

A good read to go along with the tolic

 

[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

That Fort Bragg spot is pretty amazing, would love to check that out someday!

I did edit the video to make it shorter...and just set it to music instead!