Jewelry Care Resources Directory

What is Amber?



Amber is made from the resin hardening of pine trees. Amber is known in German as bernstein in the middle ages, powdered amber was burnt as an aromatic incense. Ambers color is most close to honey, varying from golden yellow to rich orange or maybe even red or brown. There are some ambers that are white, dark brown that are almost like the color black, and there are some that are colored blue or green.

To determine the clarity of an amber is that an amber is usually clear and translucent and it is know that inclusions can enhance its beauty, rarity and value of the amber. There are some ambers that have gas bubbles that occur naturally and those are like goose fat and those amber bubbles are called fatty, or in German flohmig. If there are large amount of bubbles in the amber it can make your amber appear cloudy which is also known as bastard amber even though the amber you have is its 100% amber. Ambers that are white or that look whitish are sometimes called bone ambers.

There are a couple ways you can treat amber: if you would like to treat your cloudy amber then you should place the amber in a heated colza oil. This will allow the amber to penetrate the air spaces and increases the clarity. Small pieces of gem grade amber's are often pressed together under gentle heat and pressure to produce pressed amber. You can stain or color your amber if you have an amber that is yellow brown. You can change your yellow brown amber to red, or green.

The main place where amber comes from is in the Baltic area like in Eastern Prussia which is now known as Kaliningrad. The amber that comes from this area is known as succinite. Kaliningradian get their amber from either the sea or from mining. The amber that comes from the sea is easily carried by the sea, and it can be found around parts of the Baltic coast and sometimes even as far as Norway, Denmark, and east coast Britain.

Ambers color differs by location where it was harvested from. For instance, the amber collected from Burmese is normally redder than the ones collected from Baltic. The Baltic amber that is collected is called burmite. The amber that is found in Baltic is harder, denser, and often contains calcite hence the color difference in the amber. The amber that is collected from Sicily if normally reddish brown, and is fluorescent and that is known as simetite.

There are ambers also in Romania, Danzig, and the United States. There are many company's out there that make imitation ambers. Some of those imitation ambers are natural and synthetic. These natural imitations are called copal resin and they are very close to because real ambers. There have been extinct insects and plant materials that have been found in amber in the past. These materials that have been found are valuable information for geologist and zoologist.

Experts can distinguish between a real amber and a fake one. Experts can distinguish fakes because they use extant rather than extinct insects, and there is normally air trapped around the inserted insects. Amber is used as jewelry and that the amber is normally a bead when it is used in jewelry. Amber is used in pendants, earrings, rings, and bracelet. When an amber is placed in a jewelery it is often set in silver. Some people like the feel of amber, it feels like there is an uplifting spiritual quality inside it.

 

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