Our Story
Sandpiper Sea Glass Jewelry specializes in custom, one of a kind, handcrafted jewelry made with only natural, genuine sea glass.
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We use sea glass which we have collected ourselves in our jewelry. We produce quality handcrafted and creatively designed pieces for our customers - with integrity and attention to detail.
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We hope you enjoy our website, and our selection. All sea glass we use is the real, true, genuine item.
About Sea Glass
True – real – pure sea glass is a result of the constant wearing of sand and stone in the ocean, plus the PH of the water reacting chemically over a long period of time, to produce an evenly worn piece with a somewhat “hydrated” corroded surface.
Weathering actually dissolves some of the silica and lime making up the glass itself and hydrates the glass surface, pitting and wearing it and producing the characteristic frosted look over time. Wearing and washing of the sand and rock shore produces the rest.
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The sea glass used in jewelry making is the best of the examples of all colors and types found. Sea Glass is a product of glass discarded into the ocean years ago as trash by mankind. Most of the sea glass we find has been in the ocean for 30 to 50 plus years of weathering and wearing. The true real sea glass is often referred to as “real” “authentic” and “genuine” to distinguish it from man made substitutes sometimes offered today, which have little or no value (just like faux everything else, yes there are people making faux sea glass). To select jewelry quality sea glass we look for the best well worn pieces - and most of the glass found on the beach does not make the grade - - the less finished pieces are returned back into the ocean for more processing time.
If you want to know more about sea glass and its history, much more information is available on line and in books. I recommend “Pure Sea Glass – Discovering Nature's Vanishing Gems” by Richard LaMotte.
Sea Glass Colors
Most sea glass we find today dates from glass discarded in the first half of the 20th century. The color range of course follows the percentages of colors found in the glass made typically during that time, so that some colors are much more unusual than others.
Of all sea glass found on the beach most is not suitable for jewelry, only the best one to five percent of what is found may be good enough to use. Much of what is found is green, brown or white, normally nine of every ten pieces of sea glass are the more typical shades of these three colors.
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Less common colors are found occasionally - such as soft greens and blues, jade and lime green, forest green and amber brown tones. These uncommon pieces make up the last one in ten found. The odds of even rarer colors showing up are more like one in 200, 500, 1000 or more.
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Rare and extremely rare colors are the first prize winners for a days hunting on the beach. Rare colors like cornflower and cobalt dark blue, purples and pink and aqua, are only occasionally found. Extremely rare colors show up every now and then, and most often in smaller pieces well ground down by time. Orange, Red, Black, Teal Green, Gray, Turquoise and Yellow are extremely rare, simply because little was produced and discarded.