Get ready, treasure seekers:Beachgoers in Lincoln City will be on edge as Finders Keepers returns in 2025.
Along with its daily drops on Lincoln City beaches, the year-long hidden glass float event on the central Oregon coast unveiled its 2025 schedule on Tuesday, describing its 16 special drops throughout the year.
This year, the program is commemorating its 25th anniversary with a year-long display of over 3,000 glass floats at the North Lincoln County Historical Museum.
Glass floats are placed on Lincoln City beaches in conspicuous places between the high tide line and the beach wall every day by enigmatic float fairies with Finders Keepers. According to Explore Lincoln City, the organization that organizes the event, whomever is fortunate enough to find the floats first will find them easy.
Instructions for registering each float online or over the phone are included, which enables Explore Lincoln City to verify that each float has been located. A certificate of authenticity and details on the artist who created the float will be sent to the finder by the organization after they register it.
As part of the program organized by the local tourism company Explore Lincoln City, a colorful glass float is placed someplace on a beach near Lincoln City every day. However, on special drop days, when dozens of floats are hidden at once, the chances of finding one are significantly higher.
Although the dates and themes have changed a bit, there will still be 16 special drops in 2025.
In May, the Memorial Day drop was taken from the schedule, and in October, an Indigenous Peoples Day drop was added. Over Labor Day weekend, an Ocean Conservation drop will take the place of the College Ball drop, which included colored floats of ducks and beavers. Additionally, a mid-November special drop that coincides with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians’ annual Restoration Powwow has taken the place of the Harvest Drop, which was originally known as the Thanksgiving Drop.
Opening Weekend for the 25th Anniversary: January 3–5: 100 Floats
February 8–17100 Japanese antique-style floats for Antique Week
February 14–1650 Floats in Red, Pink, and White for Valentine’s Day
22 March–19 AprilSummer vacation: 200 floats
April 19–2250 Earth Day floats for Earth Day
May 9–11.Mom’s Day: fifty floats
June 13–15Fifty floats for Father’s Day
30 floats for the Casino Anniversary on June 20–21
June 21–22Kite for summer: 10 floats
August 30–September 140 floats for ocean conservation
September TBDC Honors Ceremony: 50 Blue, white, and red floats
September 20–21Ten floats for the fall kite
50 floats for Indigenous Peoples Day, October 11–14
October 31–November 2: 50 floats for Halloween
November 14–1650 floats during the Restoration Pow-Wow
Holiday: December 12–14; 50 floats
As the Casino Anniversary drop adds one more each year, a total of 940 floats will be set out on the beach during special drops in 2025, up one from 2024.
Depending on king tides and hazardous weather, the precise dates for the year’s final three drops could alter.
According to Explore Lincoln City, the easiest way to find a float is to just take in the view and let a float find you rather than actively searching for one. That is similar to discovering anything else on the beach, such as a large agate or an entire sand dollar.
Fishermen have long used glass floats to keep their nets afloat in the ocean, especially in Japan. They were able to float for thousands of kilometers across the ocean because to the air inside the glass spheres, and many of them ended ashore on Pacific Coast beaches.
Glass floats are rare on Oregon beaches these days since they are no longer utilized for fishing. The concept that would become Finders Keepers began in the late 1990s when a group of artists from Lincoln City wanted to create their own glass floats to set up on the beaches. To celebrate the start of the new millennium, the inaugural event was conducted in 1999. It quickly gained popularity among both locals and visitors.
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–Jamie Hale co-hosts the Peak Northwest podcast and writes about travel and the outdoors. You may contact him at [email protected], 503-294-4077, or HaleJamesB.
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