Norway originally produced glass floats in the 1800’s to hold up fishing lines and nets. Later the Japanese started producing them in the 1910 and mass producing them in 1920’s. And since they made so many the glass floats became known as “Japanese glass floats.” The glass floats range from 2″-20″ in diameter. The Japanese made most floats found today.
The most common color is green because they were made from sake bottles. Other colors include aquamarine (turquoise), clear, amber, amethyst, and blue. The most prized and rare color is a red or cranberry hue. Gold was used to make the cranberry glass making these very expensive to make. Other brilliant tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920s and 30s.
Plastic and aluminum replaced the glass floats in the late 1940’s. So, the glass floats that we’ve found could be up to 80+ years old!
It is super difficult to find large 12″ glass floats which is why they are the find of the century! We were lucky enough to find a beautiful turquoise 12″ glass float in French Polynesia 6 years ago. I was over the moon with this rare find! We then found a 12″ green one in Maloelap.
The Path Across Rocks and Coral
It is amazing to me that these floats make it onto the shores. They are at sea for many decades. Then they generally, cross over the reef and sharp rocks / coral to get to the windward side of the islands.
Leaves and trash cover most of the floats that we find. It is a true treasure hunt to find them. Can you find the small 3″ glass float in the photo? This float just arrived with the king tide. He was sitting on top of the rocks, near the bushes.
Here is another opportunity to find a float. This one is pretty easy.
It is amazing that these fragile glass floats make it across all of these rocks. Do you see the glass float in the large photo?
We find many small glass floats. Looking at our pile you would think these balls are easily found. However, we walked around 35+ islands searching for them. We looked through the rocks, broken coral, debris, bushes, and trash to find these floats.
Disappointing Breaks
In fact, we are 10 times more likely to find broken pieces of floats than complete, in tact, floats.
We find so many broken beauties. We also get tricked a lot. The sun reflects off plastic and glass bottles. The trick of the eye makes you think they are glass floats. This red lightbulb fooled me too!
Rolling Pin Glass Float
The most popular “rolling pin” glass floats are the Hokkaido and Tohoku rollers. The Hokkaido Roller is from the island of Hokkaido which is located at the northern Japan. The Tohoku Roller is from the region Tohoku – just below Hokkaido.
Roller pin floats are more fragile than the round floats. We feel exceptionally blessed to have found four!
We actually found another rolling pin float called “a sausage” (far right). A true treasure.
Matt and I find some great items on our treasure hunt!
And we found some stainless floats.
We hunted over 4 months, across 8 atolls and on 40+ islands. It was a true treasure hunt.
Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events.
We share many critters we find in Rongelap in our last blog post.
