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RAV Amber Bernstein Barnsteen AMBRA AMBRE

Learn about amber
How can I evaluate the genuineness of a piece of amber jewellery ?



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How can I expose cheap substitutes and tell what is good amber ?


  1. False Amber: Plastic, celloid, bakelite.
  2. Weight: They are too heavy. 160g salt + 1 litre of water and the amber must float. 60g salt + 1 litre of water and amber (almost) never floates
  3. Fire test: Smells ugly when heated .
  4. Cinders: Plastic usually gives a cinder when burnt. It may even gutter like a candle or melt into a sticky substance. Amber simply disappears.
  5. Copal: Copal ia a jung,cheap hardened resin that is often used instead of amber.
  6. Fire test: Burns alread by 150 degrees centigrades.
  7. Pressed amber: Pressed amber is made out of small pieces of amber that have been melted together under high pressure. Nobody wants to buy "pressed amber" so what do you then do ? You simply rename things ! You call pressed amber "genuine amber", and genuine amber you call "real amber". then you can sell pressed amber. Pressed amber is available in many prefabricated forms and is very cheap. It is a legal way of cheating people and it is hard to discern the illusion except for the price. We do not sell pressed amber at all but stick to the good old workmanship.
  8. Hammer stroke effect: At about 10x magnification pressed amber looks like hammered silber.Flow structure In the midle of the material the flow is faster than in the surface.
  9. Brown shadows: When heated each little piece of amber oxidizes in the surface and that looks like brown shadows inside the pressed amber.
  10. Less brilliance: Pressed amber never has the same brilliance as real amber.
  11. Heat treatment: It is impotant not to confuse pressed amber with heat treated amber. Heat treated amber is real amber ( only consists of one piece of amber). It is transparent-at least translucent- mostly with "fish scales". From nature amber is primarily jellow opaque because of microscopic bubbles. By the heat treatmen these bubbles evaporates leaving the amber transparent and full of "fish scales". The higher the temperature the darker the result.
  12. Fish scales:Usually you can discern some "fish scale" inside the amber.

Insects in amber? are very valuable. How can I tell if the insect is old or if it is only a new insect placed inside real amber or plastic ? . "Jurasic Park" made the price of real inclusion explode.

  1. Real amber with an old insect:
  2. Black: The insects are black. After 30-50 million years all colour has disappeared.
  3. New insects keep their normal colours.
  4. Real amber with new insects: You drill a hole in the amber. An insect imbedded in plascit is glued into the hole. a
  5. Refraction: The differecen of refraction between two materials can easily be proved if you have the right instruments (but most people do not have these).
  6. Polishing : You may be able to se the difference of polish between the two materials. But only if you have great luck.
  7. Colour: New insects keep their normal colours.
  8. Artificial amber with new insekts:
  9. Heavy: Almost always too heavy.
  10. Smell test: If heated it smells synthetic
  11. Homogenous: Real amber with an insect is often " dirty".