So, we’re on the beach the other day and my husband hands over a black rock. Dear, I’m collecting sea glass, not rocks. Nice try. But it’s not a rock. It looks just like a rock, but it’s sorta purple? Hey wait! Honey! This is black sea glass! Do you know how rare this is? Do you know how old this is? How did you spot it?

I got the precious black mystery shard home but part of me wasn’t convinced that it was in fact glass. That is, until I held it up to the sunlight and saw an ever so faint blue glow. Definitely glass.

I had a burning desire to know where it came from. I was thinking it was at least from the 1700’s. I was thinking we snagged a real goodie.

Then I consulted the experts over at Sea Glass Lovers and found out what it was: Slag. That’s right slag. It sounds likes something you would call the lady who leaves her lipstick-smeared cigarette butts on your sidewalk. Something you would call the able-bodied guy who double parks his Mercedes in two handicapped parking spots at the grocery store.

But this wasn’t any old slag it was supposedly lightbulb slag.

According to one experienced sea glass junkie who is also on the shores of Lake Erie (on the U.S. side in Ohio), black amethyst glass slag comes from the furnaces of lightbulb manufacturing facilities.

Another avid ‘glasser’ named Emily also in Ohio, finds heaps of the stuff in an area where there was a former GE plant. The plant operated for seventy years before closing its doors last year.

Check out her haul for one day!

 And guess what? It looks like a Turkish Delight inside! Look at that lovely amethyst glass!

The coolest thing about all this is that the beach where Emily found all the Turkish Delight is that it’s on the way to the North American Sea Glass Festival – which I happen to be attending! On the downside, some days the pieces are covered in sand and its slim pickins’. Hopefully, the slag gods will on my side on the day that I visit and I’ll come home with a bucket full of purple!