Home - Sea Glass Colors

Sea Glass Colors, Beach Glass Colors, Rare Seaglass Colors

Authentic sea glass colors reflect all the spectrum of glass colors and tones from clear to black that have been produced over the centuries.

Some sea or beach glass colors are common and easily found, while other colors are extremely rare. Why?

Mixed Colors Origins of Sea GlassMixed Colors Origins of Sea Glass

A brief look at the history of sea glass explains this. Glass was first made possibly as early as 1730 BC in Asia.

Glass is made from silica (historically in the form of sand) and alkali or soda ash (sodium carbonate), which can be extracted from the ashes of many plants. These two ingredients were melted together to form early glass.

This process, which makes soda-lime glass, is still the basic process used in making glass today.

What makes the different colors?

Clear (white), as we know, is made with soda-lime. Impurities in the sand used resulted in fairly-common pale green.

To produce colors the following minerals alone or combined with other minerals produce the following colors glass:

 COLOR PRIMARY MINERAL
blue green sea glass wine beer bottle Bluish-green (beer and wine bottles) Iron
amber yellow sea glass Amber, yellow, and near black Sulphur
amethyst and purple sea glass color Amethyst and purple Manganese
red ruby cranberry Red and pink Selenium
Ruby and cranberry Metallic gold
blue sea glass color Blue Cobalt
white or clear sea glass color White (opaque) Tin
turquoise sea glass Turquoise Copper oxide
Dark red sea glass Dark red (opaque) Pure metallic copper
purple sea glass Blue, violet, purple, and black Nickel
flourescent vaseline or uranium glass colors Fourescent yellow, green, and red Uranium
Orange-red to yellow Silver


As you can see, some of the most beautiful colors involve not only much more costly ingredients, but the process involved also may cost significantly more to produce deep vibrant colors and so has generally only been used for limited production.

Naturally, the rare exotic hues are the most vibrant sea glass colors and also the most sought after by collectors for their sea glass collections and sea glass jewelry and sea glass art.





See also the specific pages on the following beach glass colors:









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We love receiving your comments, but please read the notes below before posting. Thank you!

NOTES:

  • All comments are moderated. If you leave the page you won't see your comment until it is approved.

  • Select the "Post to Facebook" check box to be notified on FB when a reply has been posted.

  • If you scan the previous comments you may find an answer to your question. Click the "View X more" link at the bottom (if visible) to see all comments.

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