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

Searching for sea glass along the shores of P.E.I. is a popular pastime. 

Especially at this time of year, Islanders and tourists alike can be seen with their heads down, slowly walking along beaches, bending down every so often 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 create art with sea glass say it's becoming harder and harder to find authentic material on the beach. 

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

"For anybody who knows what sea glass is, they don't fool anybody," Peter Llewellyn from Shoreline Designs said of the imposter glass. "You can tell whether it's real or not." 

Llewellyn makes jewellery with sea glass, and has many years of experience scouring the shores for it. 

He said he's seen lots of fake sea glass, and will show customers the difference. He doesn't have kind words for those who try to pass off ersatz pieces as the real thing.

"If you try to sell it as sea glass, then you've taken away the joy that people have in getting the true memory of P.E.I." he said. 

Patricia McLean-Ettinger owns a sea glass store on Souris Beach called The Sea Glass Shanty, as well as sitting on the board of the annual Mermaid Tears Sea Glass Festival held the last weekend in July in Souris.

She too can tell a piece of sea glass from glass that hasn't spent years in the water. 

"Fake sea glass is smooth. It's been in a tumbler or cement mixer or however people are making them nowadays; there's lots of ways," said McLean-Ettinger. 

"But it's not real. It's doesn't have the feel of sea glass. It's very smooth, like a polished rock.

"On real sea glass, you'll find scratch marks from being tumbled around in the waves in the ocean and the sand. And you'll see that they're not perfect. No two pieces are exactly alike. 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. Sea glass is never perfect."