It’s fun to think that some tipsy pirate threw his rum bottle off a schooner, and the piece washed up a hundred years later. “Defining the history of a piece is a little bit of a challenge between true history and one’s imagination. “The value of sea glass is the journey, where the piece has been and the history of it,” Mary Beth said. She produced a sea-worn button from her pocket, stating the color and markings make it likely pre-1950s. Sea glass from buttons reveal their origins from the fastening marks to their colors. Coca-Cola produced their seafoam green color, and all factories used them after 1916 when the process was patented,” she said. “A lot can reveal the glass recipe and when the vessel was first manufactured, color is one of the first identifiers. The glow reveals the ingredients that went into the glass if uranium was used to create a certain color, it glows. She pulls out an ultraviolet flashlight and shines it on some sea glass she brought along. She looks at found sea glass for clues, from the curvature indicating a bottle or container, to the color, blue for example, indicating a poison bottle of old. She looks with disdain at those who use tumblers and polishers to get the authentic look of sea glass. ![]() In March, in Ocean Shores, she was the featured lecturer at the Coastal Interpretive Center as part of its 2022-23 Glimpses Lecture Series, titled, “The Sea Glass Adventure: History, Archaeology, and Wild Rarities.” She also brings along a book to read and layers of clothing. Instead, she dons hiking boots, on this particular day black leather Doc Martens. “All of those things are not my things,” she said. While Mary Beth enjoys a sunny day on the beach, she does not bring along a bikini, sexy sunglasses or sunscreen cream. “Overcast days are good because on sunny days, it casts a lot of shadows on the beaches, sea glass will hide in the shadow,” Mary Beth said, adding she does like the warm sunshine, and chose to live in Sequim because it is situated in a rain shadow. I like going early before it gets populated, mainly I like the solitude.”įreshwater flowing into the sea is a start. “After the high tide is receding, all the way to low tide. “The best time to go is at high tide as it goes down,” she said. ![]() Mary Beth lives her life around tide charts and barometric pressure readings, from sunrise to sunset. I’ve probably been to a thousand beaches.” “The Olympic Peninsula - you get the forests, mountains, rivers, beaches. “I like that I can go to a different world in a half day, and I can travel to my heart’s content and be among the beauty,” Mary Beth said. The Olympic Peninsula, with its mountains and the ocean, is where she is centered. Later, she would move to Sequim, where she lived on the water and raised her three kids. She chose to walk the beaches as a child. Mary Beth grew up on the Oregon coast, at a time when youngsters could just wander about. ![]() “This is the real deal, and it is in the natural environment,” she said. She estimates it is Fiesta from the 1940s, likely used as a soup bowl. Along the creek, she finds a shard of pottery. Mary Beth does find glass she also enjoys time outside, on the saltwater. “Pieces are getting smaller, getting tumbled and tumbled.” “The sea glass window is closing,” she said. Mary Beth said sea glass, with the decline of glass used for everything from car headlights to bottles, has been overtaken by plastic, but that is another story. She said surf-worn marbles are the Holy Grail. She said the aqua color of bell-shaped electronic insulators are a good find after being smoothed by the sea. Most of the glass was small, the size of a dime or less. ![]() Most sea glass is down where the pebbles are, the tide will drop it off.” “You go through the patches of cobble and tiny rocks, you go all the way to the lowest tide,” she said. “A hundred years ago they would discard their garbage into the river.”īrown, aqua and clear glass were scattered about as well, found among the pebbles strewn about the beach, above the tide line, but below where larger rocks and boulders, driftwood and uprooted trees were blown ashore. “Humans always gravitate to a freshwater source,” Mary Beth said while walking along the beach. A freshwater stream gently flowed from the hills, under the bridge, and into the Straits.Īn old community long gone, was upstream, with residents likely throwing away glass bottles - from the light green-blue familiar Coke bottle to the dark blue sea glass that comes from old medicine bottles. First, it was remote, and not picked over. Mary Beth chose the beach for its promise of sea glass. “If you tell the site, it will be overrun the next day,” she said.
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