Green Caribbean Amber

Enhanced Baltic Amber

The truth is that the Baltic Green amber offered might be genuine amber, and even Baltic – if you are lucky – but in no way  as green as you think. I have done a lot of reading and the honest Polish amber manufacturers confess that they “enhance” it and give it the color and brilliant inclusions with all kinds of thermal treatments and tricks. Beautiful, but a far cry from natural amber.  

(See: American Heritage  http://www.amerheritage.com/amberjewel.htm) .

This is no probiem at all, and an ancient art. But the unaware public should be informed of it. By many, the heated and modified amber is still considered gem quality. So you will find that this kind of amber is declared as “genuine Baltic amber”, “real amber”, “Certified Baltic amber” etc. and the de-naturalizing modifications are widely accepted and even considered an art. There are definitions of what can or cannot be done to it.

Fact is that natural Baltic amber in it’s original form is not the rule today on a world market, where in these modern times everything has become a matter of price, competition and publicity. As a result, what you often find these days is an industrialized product for the masses and -honestly- most people are not aware of what they are really buying. Often the kind of treatment (enhancement) is not been decared or known to the public. Many times even the seller, the jeweler do not have enough knowledge of the product or are not willing to label certain procedures the way it should be done.   

It is necessary to understand that the Amber industry in some of the Baltic countries is heavy industry, feeding many thousands of people and therefore the marketing has to be very powerful, and is unfortunately not always truthful. 

As a result, often beautiful Baltic amber jewelry in all colors is found at malls and flea markets around the world at extremely low prices. How is this possible, you wonder? 

 Just as many other gems are treated and stabilized to bring out luster and shine, several of similar treatments are used on amber. Often times, Baltic amber is heated up to discoid fractures, or to produce the famous “sun spangles” (flints or scales). It is being roasted with oxygen to change the color of the surface. Cloudy amber, amber with tiny gas bubbles may be clarified in boiling oil. And some treat it in a vacuum gas chamber (autoclave) or furnace heated with nitrogen or argon. 

In some cases, the back of an amber cabochon would even be painted and re-heated to give a green color to the piece on one of the pieces at the right. 

Fact is that both cases, to make these gems, Baltic amber substance might have been used, but heated, treated and colored. It is a far cry away from the raw amber found in the mine or at the Baltic sea shore. But it is certainly appealing to the eye. Presented in an elegant setting, the common and unaware customer might feel attracted. Especially if it is commercially praised as top quality and special. And, yes, you can get a certificate that it is real Baltic amber. 

Others are tinted blue, as you can see on the picture at the left. Only… that it is no blue amber, it is just treated, 
regular amber artificially colored. But it is sold as true Baltic amber. Which it probably is. 

Like “caviar” made of colored roe of various kinds of fish vs. real black caviar from the sturgeon of the Caspian Sea. 

See the point?

Baltic Amber — “Absolutely, the finest and …the rarest amber of all.”

 So the slogan goes. 

It is a fact that Baltic amber, most of it “succinite” from resin of coniferous trees containing succinic acid, has been known since the dawn of history.

Although, this does not mean that it is the only amber around; neither is it the oldest. Some Amber is considered to be up to 345,000,000 years old (Northumberland USA). 

Compared with this, both, Dominican with up to 40 million years (La Toca Mine. See latest studies: New York Times, October 29, 2006 ) and Baltic amber, up to 50 mio, are “babies” and have no reason to be dickering over a few million years here and there. 

Neither does succinic acid make it more “amber” than the amber of other regions. It has been suggested by scientists that succinic acid is not even an original component of amber, but a degradation product of abietic acid. (Rottlaender, 1970) 

However, natural Amber from the Baltic countries was and is beautiful and extraordinary, full of folklore and history. It still has the fame of the mystic, sacred material of ancient times that carries on. There definitely are still many craftsmen in Baltic countries who keep up this old, honorable tradition. But you will not find much of the real stuff at the malls, in the shopping channels or discount market places.