Amber, genuine or not?

There are these three rules of thumb to help you in the market-place: real natural precious amber is not a mineral but the resin from certain trees that has been preserved or fossilized in sedimentary layers for billions of years. It is transparent or opaque in every shade and tint of yellow, greenish-brown and orange towards deep brown. Sometimes small insects or twigs are entirely embedded in it, which add to its value. Most of it comes from the Baltic coast area, some form Sicily, Burma and recently the Dominican Republic. Testing for genuine amber is easier if your use untreated beads. Real amber is extremely light, it shatters easily and is inflammable and it will sink in water but float in brine (saturated salt solution). If your scrape a tiny amount with a penknife in a place where it cannot show, next to the hole, it should yield tiny splinters; if it throws up a shaving it is not amber. Look closely to see if someone else has already tried this test, them you may not need to perform the test yourself. Thirdly, the heat test: touch the inside edge of the hole with a heated needle of pinpoint, and smell it, for amber has a resinous incense-like fragrance, whereas plastic gives off acrid fumes. The method of trying to pick up tiny pieces of paper by attraction is not a good test, as many plastics have static electrical properties. Old necklaces of real amber may have original screw fasteners of amber to match, although matching plastic ones are now also made. Amber chippings can be recycled by being melted down and pressed by a patented Victorian Process. This reconstituted substance is called ‘amberoid’ which is not so breakable as amber and can be recognized by strata in it resembling cirrus clouds. Although less popular, the transparent amber is actually more valuable, especially if is has inclusions or insects trapped inside. Any amber with insects or inclusions is more valuable than the plain amber. The opaque mustard yellows that are used in Bedouin, Tibetan and North African necklaces are also often other substances (such as copal—usually displays cracks). As long as they are not misrepresented as authentic amber and the price is not astronomical it should not matter too much because they look spectacular.

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