beach glass?

I wouldn't think you could tell just by looking - after all, it's the same process - just that the rock tumbler does it rather faster...

Adrian

Sorry to answer a question with a question, but Why would it matter? It isn't like beach glass is some long sought after limited commodity. It isn't particularly rare or collectible in itself to have some forgery value, so why does it matter? whichever means gives the end result is what I would think would be important, and how it is used even more so.

to answer your question, carbon dating could give you a precise age of the material, but don't know that it is quite worth it.

lick it and see if it's salty?

Only if it's really old and was originally part of a living thing. And even then, "precise" is a relative term. Wikipedia seems to say that for samples less than 10,000 years old, dating to within 40 years either way is considered reasonable.

If you do a search at Wikipedia for "sea glass" you will see a section on artificial sea glass. The article seems to indicate that there is a way to tell artificial from the real. And, it looks like the real has more value for the collectors.

Might be fun for you to get involved with someone in the know and learn how to tell the difference. I may move back to Florida and start collecting it. I used to think it was worthless.

Henry

Would carbon dating work?. I think that applies to living organisms that have carbon in them at some level during life and it decreases due to radioactive decay once dead so the age can be determined. I didn't think glass normally contained any carbon containing chemicals.

If they tumbled it in actual beach sand I doubt theres any way to tell. Why would anybody care? Just curious.

Jack