Genuine Sea Glass
A word about genuine sea glass. I’m a fan!
I don’t spend a lot of time in Facebook on sea glass groups and there’s a reason for that and I’ve written about it before but pretty much the summary is this: too much drama. If you have time to comment and argue back and forth about sea glass or you’re spending too much time on screens in general, you’re not spending enough time at the beach, or even if you don’t live near the beach, you’re not spending enough time doing something else. People blocking people and pouring haterade all over the place, it’s all just bullshit and if I have learned one thing from becoming a reiki master this week and how I want my life to move forward in the future it is this: we all need less bullshit in our lives, not more. I’m on Instagram because I have found the community there to be more positive: it’s sea glass photos, not day-long bickering debates, not auctions and sales and dog religion and posturing and fighting over beach locations. Good lord.
Anyway, back to genuine sea glass. I am Education Chair and a Board Member of the North American Sea Glass organization and we published an article on Fake vs Genuine vs Colorized sea glass recently to try to provide info on the issue. To be clear, right now I am writing on my own personal website and speaking for myself, not the organization. But I personally receive a large number of social media inquiries from people asking about pieces they’ve bought, or people bring glass to me at sea glass shows asking if stuff is real, or they send samples in the mail and I can tell you this: there is a TON OF FAKE GLASS out there for sale. Another thing I can tell you is that A SHOCKING MAJORITY of the glass you see for sale on eBay and even creeping into Facebook groups, EVEN FROM SELLERS YOU THINK YOU KNOW, is fake. I am not going to name names. One of my sea glass mentors, who I will do a favor and not name either, said “he who protest the loudest”.. and it’s true in terms of people talking about how real their glass is. If you are in a position where you buy sea glass for your personal or business use, I would encourage you to either a) not care whether it’s fake or genuine because “it’s pretty” or b) if you do care, be extremely careful, because unless your seller is picking it up off the beach themselves, you really can’t be sure of the chain of title. Real, pure, true genuine sea glass from an actual ocean and beach is getting more and more rare and precious every single day.
In a perfect world, everyone would be able to find their own sea glass, because trust me, nothing beats the feeling of discovering an awesome beach treasure yourself. No money can buy that. In fact, money is and always will be the problem. It makes people do stupid things and ruin really cool stuff. In some ways, it has nearly ruined an entire industry, much as I hate to say that. Sea glass is about a love for the hunt for me; always has been, always will be. I have been blocked by people who were my friends over money and sea glass, had to make hard decisions and changes in things I love to do, and reconsider my priorities, all because of my goal to stay focused on one word: GENUINE. It isn’t just the mission of NASGA it’s sort of a good life goal, too. To be genuine. I don’t really want to be a part of anything or around anyone who isn’t.
Everything else is bullshit.