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Monthly Archives: November 2011

Markings on Glass

Posted on 2011/11/30 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

Seaglass with writing on itOccasionally, I find a piece of Sea Glass with writing on it.  I enhanced the brightness and contrast on this picture.  if you look closely in the white circled area, you may be able to make out the word JAVEX. So I thought this glass came from an old bleach bottle. Interesting.  I never knew bleach came in glass bottles. So I Googled “glass javex bottle” and wound up on the Glass Gallery website.  Wow! that picture looks like the piece of bottle I found on the beach.

glass bleach bottle

 

Then, I inherited this glass JAVEX bottle.  Information on this bottle is a bit sketchy but it seems the glass bottles went out of production between 1940 and 1960. They were made by the Dominion Glass Company.  So I know my glass piece is about 50 years old, but it does not necessarily mean it has been “underwater” for 50 years.

 

 

 

Bottom of glass javex bottleHere is a picture of the bottom of the bottle.  In future posts I will talk about some of these markings and how they are helpful in identifying the origin of glass.

 

Thanks for stopping by. Next time I promise some news for newcomers to Prince Edward Island.

Granny ~oo~

 

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Tags: beach glass .

Brown and White Sea Glass

Posted on 2011/11/24 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

Brown and clear PEI Seaglass

Brown is very common in seaglass.  Beer bottles are the biggest source of brown glass. However you can get brown glass from old bleach bottles, some soda bottles like Orange Crush, medicine bottles, etc. Looking at the detail of this picture, you will see a couple of pieces with lettering.  Those can be interesting to research and I will speak of this in another post.

As seaglass gets weathered, it develops this “frosted” look.  For some reason, it seems the frosted Brown glass is not as pretty or desirable as frosted green or clear glass.  However, I occasionally find a piece of brown glass that looks attractive enough to consider turning it into jewellery.

To the right, I have a small collection of “milk glass”.  This is the opaque white glass, not the clear glass that is often called white.  The term milk glass refers to the colour not to the origin.  I have also seen it called opal glass. Although I have seen white milk bottles, this is not what milk white glass means. This type of glass was used in dinnerware, vases, pots and the like.  It is rare to find and I am happy to have a few dozen pieces.  Unfortunately, not many of them are jewellery quality.

In the top right, you will see various pieces of pottery.  When you collect seaglass, pick up those pottery items and see if you recognize a pattern or a name.  Who knows you might find something that reminds you of a pottery piece you “saw” as a child.  Among the pottery pieces, you will see a couple of buttons and two insulators.  The latter were probably used on a boat to secure electrical connections.

You never know what you are likely to find while beachcombing.  I have found ONE marble, but I have yet to find a doll part or a piece of (smoking) pipe.

Thanks for dropping by.  Visit later to see some of the more unusual pieces and learn about glass with markings.

 

Granny  ~oo~

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Tags: beach glass, PEI .

Almost White Sea Glass

Posted on 2011/11/15 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

I have a lot of glass that is not quite white/clear

I have often wondered if this is the way the glass was originally or if it got “dirty” over time.  I tried and failed miserably to sort this glass into general colour schemes.  Here is a tip for you – wait until your glass is totally dry before trying to sort by colour; you will save a lot of re-sorting.

At any rate, I have some glass that is brown/peach coloured and I have some that is yellowish and some that is greenish.  I often though that the “dirty” yellowish green glass was stained by seaweed but that does not seem to be the case.

 

Also as in the case of the light green or light blue glass, there is always that piece that appears brown on the yellow pile but yellow on the brown pile.  Suffice to say that this glass is not very pretty and unless I find a really unusually shaped one, it will probably all wind up in some sort of  cement mosaic.

I have found out that purple/lavender glass comes from manganese dioxide used as a whitener that deteriorates with exposure to UV rays.  There is probably a similar cause and effect for this glass but I have yet to discover it.  If you have any ideas, I”d love to do some more research.

 

Next time – little brown jugs and other brown glass.

~00~  Granny

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Tags: beach glass .

Light Blue Seaglass

Posted on 2011/11/05 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

sea glass that is very light blueThis is a collection of light blue, very light blue and almost white seaglass.  You will see that most of it is flat glass which tells me this is ordinary window glass.

However, it seems this is possibly older window glass that did not have clarifying agents like lead or manganese . . . ordinary silicon dioxide or soda-lime glass.  While I have a considerable amount of this glass, I am having difficulty coming up with a use for it. 

Perhaps I will make a mosaic patterns, like the shape of Prince Edward Island.

Thanks for visiting. Next time, more “almost white” glass.

Granny  ~oo~

 

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Tags: beach glass .

Green Seaglass

Posted on 2011/11/03 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

How many shades of green are there?  Well in Sea Glass, there is no limit.  Here is my collection of green seaglass.

many shades of green sea glassIn the bottom right, you have the very light – almost blue clear glass.  This is mostly flat glass as used in windows.  This is more likely the pure silica glass without any clarifying agents.  It has a bluish tint and to some eyes like mine appears green.

In the top right is mostly emerald green- the third most common seaglass colour.  While there is some flat glass, I have mostly rounded “bottle glass”, including a bottle bottom where I can see the imprint “one quart”.

Continuing counterclockwise, we find the medium-dark (drab or olive green).  Many of these come from old bottles, usually wine, that needed to be protected from sunlight.  A few have bubbles in them which is typical of early 1900’s hand blown glass.

On the far left I have several “black” pieces.  These are a very dark green and sometimes you need to hold them to very bright light to see they are indeed green.  These darker greens usually come from medicine bottles. These often had iron added to them, not only for the darkness (uv light protection) but also to harden the glass. Therefore your late 1800’s expensive medicine bottles were less likely to break if dropped.

On the bottom left I have a few brownish pieces. Like the transition from blue to turquoise to green, these pieces tend to appear green next to brown glass but brown next to green glass.

Then I have a dozen or more “one of a kind” greens that range from almost blue to almost grey.  It would be interesting to find the time to explore the origin of all these various colours.  I know some are recent pieces and are the product of modern alchemy but it is fun to discover how we used to “tint” glass a hundred or more years ago.

More on sea glass colours to follow.  Thanks for stopping by . . .

 

Granny ~oo~

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Tags: beach glass, outdoors .

The Many Colours of Seaglass

Posted on 2011/11/01 by Guy Posted in Beachcombing .

Recently, I resorted my entire collection of seaglass.  Now that the summer is over, there is “less” to do on PEI and I needed a challenge. Sorting seaglass by colour is not as easy as it seems.  After awhile the blue and greens and near-whites all blend in.  The pictures I will feature over the next few days are 3/4 of the way into the process.

lavender and blue seaglassClick on the picture for a bigger version.  Here we have some greys, almost yellow, pink, aqua, dark blue (cornflower and cobalt), red and lavender.  So yes I am proud to day I have several pieces of red glass and some pink.  I don’t think I have any yellow glass yet, just dirty glass that has been stained a yellowish colour.

 

seaglass from an old Noxzema bottle

Did you notice in the blue that I have the bottom of a noxzema bottle?  Here it is closer up. I actually have two pieces with most of the word Noxzema on them.  I also have found a piece that says “seltzer”.  I gather that is from a blue Bromo Seltzer bottle. It is fun to see where our glass originated. . . more on  that in another post.

But what about this lavender glass?  That is another story all its own. Clear glass actually has a bluish tint. In the 1920’s, manganese dioxide was added to glass to counteract the bluish tint.  Sometimes, MORE Manganese dioxide was used to actually create a lavender coloured glass.  We later discovered that when exposed to UV rays, the manganese in glass makes it turn purple.  It inherited the name “lavender glass”  Now, different colouring agents are used to make clear glass.

So you might say “like carbon dating”, we can tell how old glass is by how purple it is.  Not really. it depends on two factors: how much manganese was in the glass in the first place, and how long the glass has been exposed to UV rays.  So I suspect I have some purple glass from the 1920’s but cannot ever really be sure.

Come back soon for another colour discussion.

Granny ~oo~

UPDATE!! I have found an article talking about FAKED lavender glass – what a shame.  That is probably what I have and would not be able to date it accurately as OLD 🙁

 

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Tags: beach glass, outdoors .

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