Real or fake? How to distinguish authentic sea glass from the fake stuff

Searching for sea glass along PEI’s shores is a popular pastime.

Particularly at this time of year, you will see both islanders and tourists walking slowly along the beach with heads bowed, occasionally bending down to pick something up.

Many find it relaxing – and then there’s the thrill of picking up that perfect piece of sea glass.

But people who make art with sea glass say it’s getting harder and harder to find authentic material on the beach.

While that rarity has made the real thing more valuable, it has also led to more manufactured sea glass flooding the market.

“For anyone who knows what sea glass is, they’re not kidding anyone,” Peter Llewellyn of Shoreline Designs said of the fallacious glass. “You can tell if it’s real or not.”

Sea glass stories

Llewellyn makes sea glass jewelery and has many years of experience scouring the coasts for this glass.

He said he has seen a lot of fake sea glass and will show customers the difference. He has no kind words for those who try to pass off ersatz pieces as genuine.

“If you try to sell it as sea glass, you’ve taken away the joy people have of getting the true memory of PEI,” he said.

Patricia McLean-Ettinger owns a sea glass shop on Souris Beach called The Sea Glass Shanty, and is also on the board of the annual Mermaid Tears Sea Glass Festival held the last weekend in July in Souris.

She too can distinguish a piece of sea glass from glass that has not been in the water for years.

Rougher and has scratches

“Fake sea glass is slippery. It’s been in a tumble dryer or cement mixer, or however people make it these days; there are many ways,” says McLean-Ettinger.

“But it’s not real. It doesn’t feel like sea glass. It’s very smooth, like a polished rock.

No two pieces are exactly the same. If it’s fake, a lot of them are broken to look like a set of earrings, and they’re almost perfect. That’s not sea glass.— Patricia McLean-Ettinger

“On real sea glass you will find scratches from tumbling around in the ocean waves and sand. And you will see that they are not perfect. No two pieces are exactly alike. If it is fake, a lot of them are broken to look like a set of earrings, and they’re almost perfect. That’s not sea glass. Sea glass is never perfect.”

McLean-Ettinger said white, brown and green are the most common colors — and red and orange are extremely rare.

“People go into stores and find, oh, look at that perfect orange piece of sea glass. Well, it probably took me 10 years to find an orange piece. And probably another 15 years after that to find my next orange piece. So when you walk into stores and they have 10 orange slices to choose from, you know they’re not real.”

Different price points

She said fake sea glass puts a damper on those who sell the real version.

“They call it sea glass and they get $10 each for a red piece. And I’m selling my red piece for $50 or $100 depending on the size of it. Well, which one are you going to buy? You’re going to get the one from $ Buy 10 because it looks the same.”

For Llewellyn, no matter where it comes from, all sea glass has a story.

“I’ve had couples on their honeymoon find a piece of glass that was only fair. But to them it’s priceless because they found it on their honeymoon,” he said.

“I’ve had people here who have bought sea glass and want to show me the piece, and I don’t tell them it’s a fake because they’re absolutely, absolutely thrilled that they found this beautiful red, and it’s not real.”

Joy in unique pieces

Lllewellyn grew up collecting sea glass, and while his love for it hasn’t waned, his favorite pastime has changed over the years.

“My greatest joy was sitting at the table with a plate full of sea glass colors and running it through your hands and watching it fall and seeing all the different colors.

“Now I like making jewelry. I like finding unique pieces,” he said.

He thinks there is less sea glass now because there is more plastic and most liquid products are not in glass.

“There’s less there because we’re not adding [the supply]. There’s less there because more and more people are picking it up. And also the ocean is reclaiming it because the ocean — now remember — is making it smaller and smaller.

Llewellyn thinks this adds to the challenge and reward of finding a nice piece.

He said that sometimes people who find a good area don’t tell anyone else to keep it a secret, he said.

To start early

McLean-Ettinger’s love of sea glass also started early.

“I drove my mom crazy. I would have it in my pocket, so it was in her washing machine. It was everywhere,” she said.

“When I first started collecting sea glass, everyone thought I was weird as a kid because this was trash on the beach. But to me, it was pretty trash. So I picked it up and I liked it.”

She said that over the years more and more people have started looking for sea glass.

“There used to be a lot of sea glass. I could be down in no time and fill an ice tray. And now you walk over to get that sea glass. A lot of beaches have absolutely no sea glass,” she said.

Despite how rare it is, she said she personally throws back bits of glass that aren’t yet opaque or what she calls “fully cooked.”

Sometimes people approach her with their own collections.

“A lot of people will bring me a bucket of sea glass: ‘We’re on vacation. We chose this sea glass. We don’t want it. We can’t take it back. We picked way too much. Please. You can have it.” That happens a lot,” McLean-Ettinger said.

Love for sea glass

She said a man gave her his wife’s collection – buckets and buckets of glass that she had been collecting for 40 to 50 years.

“I was amazed. He didn’t want anything. He just didn’t want to dump it back in the ocean. He wanted it to go to someone who would love it as much as she does and do something with it.”

McLean-Ettinger made suncatchers for the woman because she was in a nursing home and she could still see the colors in the window.

Whether real sea glass will always be around, McLean-Ettinger is optimistic.

“I think there will always be sea glass. Maybe there aren’t the colors that we used years ago. There used to be a lot of blues and all colors. Now blue is getting rarer to find, and these pieces are getting smaller and smaller.”