Hunting for Jekyll Island Treasures!
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
Jekyll Island has commissioned a group of highly skilled artisans from across the U.S. to create an array of stunning, hand-worked glass creations. This wonderful collection includes brilliant art glass floats, beautiful starfish, wondrous glass sand dollars and other extraordinary pieces.
Originally the hollow glass balls were woven into the rope line of large fishing nets, and proved to be buoyant as well as economical. Copying the Norwegian designs, many European countries soon began using glass floats for their commercial fishing nets. Although it wasn’t until around 1910 that far eastern countries, primarily Japan, began manufacturing and using glass floats, today these glass balls (which are highly prized by collectors) are popularly called Japanese Glass Floats.
To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with making many different shapes of floats, from two-inches to 20 inches in diameter. They even made a float that looks like a miniature rolling pin, crimped on each end to make it easier to secure to the net. Most floats were made in shades of green or blue. Other brilliant jewel tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920’s and 30’s. Red and purple floats are highly prized by collectors and are thought to have originated from the Royal Fleet. Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Scotland copied the idea of glass floats later in the 19th Century. By the 1940’s England, France, Germany, Russia and the US were all making and using glass fishing floats. Plastic, wood and cork were used for a while but glass was more durable, and inexpensive. After WWII, fishing accelerated, especially for the Japanese, and glass was again the float of choice, though the US continued to make some wooden floats until 1956.
Trademarks and embossing were used on the floats to identify the users and manufacturers, and are used today by collectors to identify their origin and authenticity. About 20% of floats have some type of trade mark. Unfortunately for net fisherman, glass floats often escaped their nets when the rope rotted or storms tore them away.
Millions of glass floats are still riding in the world’s ocean currents today. Many of these floats are thought to be traveling in one particular ocean current. The Koroshio Current (meaning the “black stream” and called so because of its dark color) sweeps in a figure 8 pattern from Japan across the Pacific to Alaska and then down the West Coast from the Aleutian Islands all the way past Mexico and then turns east again, past the Hawaiian Islands and back to Japan. It takes a minimum of four years for a float to cross the Pacific, and experts think that 40% of the floats lost by fisherman are still afloat and drifting today. When tide and weather conditions are just right, you can find glass floats that wash up on the beaches of Hawaii, California, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Often, these floats roll safely onto shore tangled in seaweed or other flotsam. They also can be shattered if they land on a rocky coastline. During stormy periods they can be thrown hundreds of feet onshore and will remain there until some lucky beachcombing hunter should find it.
Collecting these glass floats became a hobby in the 1950’s but with the decline in commercial fishing
and with the advent of plastics, glass fishing floats became more rare and are highly sought after and very valuable today. Collectors worldwide display their finds in their homes as well as museums, fairs and exhibits. Original glass floats with an identifiable trademark bring hundreds of dollars in swap meets and on Internet auctions today. These hollow glass spheres are also highly sought after by interior decorators who exhibit them in offices, homes and gardens throughout America.
On Jekyll Island, from January 1 - February 28, Island Treasure art pieces will placed above the high water line (not in the dunes) for lucky winter beachcombers to find. The virtual treasure hunt will begin January 1st. For more information visit www.jekyllisland.com/islandtreasures
