Sea Glass Colors

Colors give a clue to the origin of the glass. Green Glass comes in a wide range of shades and hues. Dark green, kelly green, turquoise, teal, and sea foam. Heineken bottles, Rolling Rock bottles, Ball canning jars, wines, and of course Coca Cola from around 1915 to 1970. Cobalt blue, cornflower blue, light blue, aqua, and every color blue in between can be found. Phillips Milk of Magnesia, Noxema, Bromo Seltzer, and Alka Seltzer used to come in cobalt blue glass bottles, as well as poisons and medicines. Ball canning jars, and insulators used on electric poles in the early 1900’s fall in the lighter side of this category. Brown glass was also produced over a wide time span from the late 1800’s to present day. From old beer bottles, and old Clorox bottles, to Budweiser beer, brown glass can range from almost a black/brown glass to the lightest amber used for medicine in rarer glasses. One of the most common sources for red glass was made by Anchor Hocking Glass Company for both decorative household items and the 1950’s Schlitz Beer bottle. Tableware, brake lights, and marine running lights were also orange and red in color.

The World Wars changed how we made glass. The chemicals that colored the glass were either used for the purposes of war, or they were previously provided by the enemy. One chemical that was used to make glass clear came from Germany and the replacement chemical we started using turned glass to lavender over a period of time. Depression glass gave us pastels of pink, yellow and green widely used in house ware items. Vaseline glass mainly from the 1930’s had its own distinctive yellow green color. And there are also locally based companies with their own distinctive colors that were not distributed widely and only found in a specific area.