Glass float
Encyclopedia
Fisherman
A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers. The term can also be applied to recreational fishermen and may be used to describe both men...
in many parts of the world to keep their fishing nets, as well as longlines or dropline
Dropline
A dropline is a commercial fishing device, consisting of a long fishing line set vertically down into the water, with a series of fishing hooks attached to snoods....
s afloat.
Large groups of fishnets strung together, sometimes 50 miles (80.5 km) long, were set adrift in the ocean and supported near the surface by hollow glass balls or cylinders containing air to give them buoyancy.
These glass floats are no longer being used by fishermen, but many of them are still afloat in the world's oceans, primarily the Pacific. They have become a popular collectors’ item for beachcombers and decorators. Replicas are also being manufactured.
History
The first time these ”modern” glass fishing floats are mentioned is in the production registry for Hadelands Glassverk in 1841. The registry clearly shows that this is a new type of production.
However, there might have been some other versions of glass floats in use before that time.
In the early 19th century, the Schimmelmanns Glassverk (1779–1832) produced dark brown and very thick, bottle glass floats. Floats from this production are found in the ground where this factory was located, but are unmarked.
The earliest evidence of glass floats being used by fishermen comes from Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
in 1844 where small egg-sized floats were used with fishing line and hooks. Around the same time, glass was also used to support fishing nets. By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North American, and Japan. Japan started using the glass floats as early as 1910. Today, most of the remaining glass floats originated in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
because it had a large deep sea fishing industry
Fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products....
which made extensive use of the floats; some made by Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Glass floats have since been replaced by aluminum, plastic, or Styrofoam.
Manufacturing
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process. After being blown, floats were removed from the blowpipe and sealed with a 'button' of melted glass before being placed in a cooling oven. (This sealing button is sometimes mistakenly identified as a pontil mark. However, no pontil (or punty) was used in the process of blowing glass floats.) While floats were still hot and soft, marks were often embossed on or near the sealing button to identify the float for trademark. These marks sometimes included kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
symbols.
A later manufacturing method used wooden molds to speed up the float-making process. Glass floats were blown into a mold to more easily achieve a uniform size and shape. Seams on the outside of floats are a result of this process. Sometimes knife markings where the wooden molds were carved are also visible on the surface of the glass.
Dispersion
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Kuroshio Current
The Kuroshio is a north-flowing ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean. It is similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic and is part of the North Pacific ocean gyre...
starts as a northern branch of the western-flowing North Equatorial Current
North Equatorial Current
The North Equatorial Current is a significant Pacific and Atlantic Ocean current that flows east-to-west between about 10° north and 20° north. It is the southern side of a clockwise subtropical gyre. Despite its name, the North Equatorial Current is not connected to the equator...
. It flows past Japan and meets the arctic waters of the Oyashio Current
Oyashio Current
, also known as Oya Siwo, Okhotsk or the Kurile current, is a cold subarctic ocean current that flows south and circulates counterclockwise in the western North Pacific Ocean. It collides with the Kuroshio Current off the eastern shore of Japan to form the North Pacific Current...
. At this junction, the North Pacific Current
North Pacific Current
The North Pacific Current is a slow warm water current that flows west-to-east between 40 and 50 degrees north in the Pacific Ocean. The current forms the southern part of the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre...
(or Drift) is formed which travels east across Pacific before slowing down in the Gulf of Alaska. As it turns south, the California Current
California Current
The California Current is a Pacific Ocean current that moves south along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia, and ending off southern Baja California. There are five major coastal currents affiliated with upwelling zones...
pushes the water into the North Equatorial Current once again, and the cycle continues. Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them ashore. They most often end up on the beaches of Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada. It is estimated that floats must be a minimum of 7–10 years old before washing up on beaches in Alaska. Most floats that wash up, however, would have been afloat for 10 years. A small number of floats are also trapped in the Arctic ice pack where there is movement over the North Pole and into the Atlantic Ocean.
Appearance
Once a float lands on a beach, it may roll in the surf and become "etched" by sand. Many glass floats show distinctive wear patterns from the corrosive forces of sand, sun, and salt water. When old netting breaks off of a float, its pattern often remains on the surface of the glass where the glass was protected under the netting. Other floats have small amounts of water trapped inside of them. This water apparently enters the floats through microscopic imperfections in the glass while the floats are suspended in Arctic ice or held under water by netting.
Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from recycled sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight). However, clear, amber, aquamarine, amethyst, blue and other colors were also produced. The most prized and rare color is a red or cranberry hue. These were expensive to make because gold was used to produce the color. Other brilliant tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920s and 30s. The majority of the colored floats available for sale today are replicas.
Resources
- Beachcombing for Japanese Glass Floats by Amos L. Wood (Binford & Mort, 4th ed., 1985; ISBN 0-8323-0437-9)
- Glass Ball, A comprehensive Guide for Oriental Glass Fishing Floats found on Pacific Beaches by Walt Pich (First Edition 2004; ISBN 0-9657108-1-5)
- Beachcombers Guide to the Northwest, Glass Balls & Other Littoral Treasures, California to Alaska by Walt Pich (First Edition 1997; ISBN 0-9657108-0-7)
- Beachcombing the Pacific by Amos L. Wood (Schiffer, 1987; ISBN 0-88740-097-3)
- I'd Rather be Beachcombing by Bert and Margie Webber (Webb Research Group, 1991; ISBN 0-936738-20-0)