Frosted, Pitted Cat's Eye Beach Marbles

There are several theories about why historical glass marbles occasionally wash up on the world's beaches, even today. Here is one reason:

In the late 1800s an inventor named Hiram Codd designed a glass soda bottle that used a marble as the stopper at the top.  Similarly, the Japanese glass Ramune bottle was also sealed with a marble stopper and many times with blue stoppers.  These two bottle styles were used in the United States and around the world and likely account for a great many of the beach marbles that been found (and occasionally still be found) along shorelines globally.  When a bottle was discarded, often at sea, the bottle would break against the rocky shore and the marble might stay intact and tumble for years or likely for decades! Historically, marbles were like playtime currency for children.  Finding a bottle and breaking it to get the marble out was quite common.  

Sea glass and beach glass are different.  Sea glass refers to salt water glass and beach glass refers to fresh water glass. The fine patina of sea and beach glass comes from the glass slowly dissolving in the water.  The PH of fresh water is different than salt water so the glass does not dissolve as readily.  It still dissolves and will develop the same patina over time, but it takes much longer in fresh water.  

In the old days because sea and beach glass has been around as long as we have had glass it was said to be mythical "Mermaid Tears".  It was said that everytime a sailor drowned at sea, the Mermaids would cry and the sea glass was their tears washing ashore. 

Everywhere sea glass is found and it is found everywhere its value is partially determined by its color.  This is because only a few items were stored in red, blue, lavender, purple or pink glass containers.  Likewise, certain rare tints and shades of these popular colors are found. 

The pits in the surface of the glass, giving it its soft feel, come from a process called "hydration" where the soda and lime used in making the glass is leached out of the glass leaving the small pits.  The soda and lime also often react with minerals in the sea waater forming new mineral deposits on the surface that give the glass a "sparkling" appearance.

Founding these marbles are difficult and rare though you just might find one.  If so, consider it your lucky day.