Amber Earrings & Jewelry

There are very few people, especially amongst the ladies, who are not familiar with some kind of amber. But there are a lot of mistaken notions about where it comes from.

Where Does Amber Come From?

Here’s a brief explanation:

Two of the most important and commercial amber formations are found in northern Europe especially in the region of the Baltic (boasting about 80% of the world’s reserves), the North Sea, parts of Russia, and all the way to the Urals. The next most famous amber comes from the Dominican Republic.

Let´s take a closer look at these two regions and the kinds of amber they offer:

Baltic amber is in the sand, also called blue earth, and many people collect it from the seashore. Dominican amber is in rocks and mountainous sandstone and must be mined through bell pitting, although they also have underwater amber that deep-sea divers must gather. Some Dominican amber is about 15 million years old and therefore rests in sandy clay and beds of gravel. Both Baltic and Dominican amber contain fossils.

There is amber also in Nigeria, Madagascar, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Lebanon, New Zealand, Borneo, Chiapas Mexico, a little in the US, Switzerland, Austria, France, on the east coast of England, the south of Sweden, southern Finland, in Denmark, northern Germany, Latvia, the Ukraine, and Poland has also become quite famous for it.

Many jewelers sell skillfully set silver amber rings and necklaces in the huge market in Cracow. (oooh, I love that market in the middle of the town square. It’s great in summertime.)

But if you’re looking for the most transparent and fluorescent (or glowing) amber you will find it comes from the Dominican, as does the blue type, which is painstakingly retrieved from the mountain mines near Santiago.

*Another little piece of trivia:

Blue and yellow amber emit different aromas when being cut, polished or burned.

Green Amber Jewelry – Are Black and Green Amber the real thing?

Not really. Black amber is in fact oltu stone (mostly from Turkey) formed from lignite and resin that has fossilized (somewhat like amber but not exactly), which remains soft in the ground yet becomes hard when in contact with air. It is dark in color, black mostly, but may appear grayish-green when exposed to any amount of heat. This “amber” is widely used to make famous green earring and necklaces, and in the east, exquisite prayer beads.

Since there are means to create imitation green amber, here are three little tests for you to know if it’s real oltu/jet stone or not:

1. Take a pin, heat it and then press it into the stone. If it goes in it’s not real.
2. Scrape the stone a little with a knife. If there’s a brown residue it’s real.
3. Blow on the stone. If there’s a trace of mist it’s real.
   How to Start Your Collection of Amber Jewellery

If you’re lucky (like I am) and are married to a Polish man (like I am) and have a mother-in-law (like mine) who for years was the director of an exclusive Baltic amber jewelry dealership, and have been showered with exquisite pieces of silver earrings, rings and necklaces, from yellow to red and even a few pieces of the coveted blue amber, then you won’t need my advice.

If you’re starting from zero, I hope this site will offer you some good advice on where to shop for this beautiful product online, how to select the best settings of high quality amber and some simple tips on using either silver or gold amber earrings to accent your existing wardrobe.
Come back often to see what’s new in the jewelry that only took 345 million years to make!