Over the years, I’ve come to be known as like the Chicken Little of sea glass, crying about the sky falling. But I don’t lie. I can’t be blamed if the industry is filled with drama and besides a love and loyalty for my one hometown show here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, I essentially retired from the industry because of its drama. Some of the drama’s ecological: beaches are disappearing worldwide because of coastal erosion. Last time I was beachcombing and surfing in Puerto Rico, a row of abandoned houses served as beach huts because repeated hurricanes forced them into the tide line.
Some of the drama is just political: for a hobby that’s supposed to be about peace, Zen and beaches, you wouldn’t believe the level of nastiness, bullying, greed and negativity. I don’t let that affect me directly anymore, but as an administrator of one of the largest sea glass groups on Facebook currently writing a book about my beachcombing experiences over the years, I’m very aware of its effects.
But while a lot of drama continues to swirl around beach locations, most of it’s over fake glass. As one of its guardians, authenticity is not a complicated concept. Real is real, fake is fake. As a passionate enthusiast, collector and educator, I’ve never been about the commercialism of “the industry” even as I’ve watched people embracing the greed.
At a recent festival my inboxes were filled with inquiries about why there were individuals associated with the event who were directly affiliated with fake glass—vendors selling non-genuine glass at the event, or those who post it online, and are documented as pretending to find things that aren’t genuine sea glass. I have countless happy memories of my time at California sea glass shows and suddenly diehard genuine glass enthusiasts are telling me they’re unfollowing and boycotting a festival on social media and in person because of their affiliation with fake glass. International hunters have their genuine finds purchased or gifted and faked as found and sold, including my own. Message after message asking me what’s real and what’s fake, and me repeating: if it looks too good to be true, it is.
I traveled for nearly a decade to the West Coast, hauling hundreds of pounds of beachcombed finds, researched lectures and shared my knowledge with festivalgoers at four festivals. I didn’t do it to become rich or famous (clearly), but because I have a passion for the history and provenance of the finds. I’ve never faked a find on a beach. I don’t go to glass factory dumps and rent cement mixers, tumble glass and call it “sea glass” then sell it for $1000 to social media followers while claiming to be an “expert.” I don’t travel the world and blow up the beach locations of every last sacred hunting spot, then sell out the maps to those locations while wearing a mermaid costume and making myself some fake “sea glass celebrity,” which is an oxymoron. I don’t care about followers and handfuls of oversaturated fake finds garnering views.
I care about relationships, authenticity, history and what’s real. I respect my mentors in the field for what they taught me over the years, honoring them in every lecture I have ever done.
There are now so many AI images of sea glass online it’s sickening. People barely know the difference anymore between what’s real and what’s garbage. If sea glass festivals and organizations in this country want to align themselves with fake glass and those who celebrate the wrong things, that’s a shift and a trend I won’t be part of. I can be found at the Eastern Shore Sea Glass festival doing the same thing I’ve done since day one: keeping it real.
—Follow Mary McCarthy on Substack, Instagram & Bluesky.
(note: photo shows genuine sea glass and pottery found by the author).