What is Amber?

Amber is a fossil. Actually is the result of fossilized tree resin. Over an immens period of time, the resin from the ancient forests has gone through a number of changes creating an exceptional gem with extraordinary properties. Amber has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty and is used for the manufacture of ornamental objects and jewelry.

How precious is this gem?

There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Even if amber occurs in a variety of colors, the most abundant type ranges from pale yellow to deep orange and brown, but when you think of amber you think of honey color. There are also unusual colors of this gem such as red amber (the “cherry amber”), green amber, and even blue amber, which is rare and up-to-the-minute. The most expensive gem is transparent, and is more appreciated than the very common cloudy amber and opaque amber.

Who wears amber?

Amber is always in fashion. Being a valuable gem it preserves its beauty and value over time. It can be worn at parties, cocktalils or other events and is proper to wear in all seasons. The key is to determine the cut of the amber jewelry pieces you want and considering the large pieces available on the market you must find a suiting cut. While amber is generally cabochon cut, it is also available in various different shapes and styles of beading, in amber chips and even in inlay.

Amber was one of the first and obviously the oldest adornment materials used. It was also believed to have special healing powers, and thus was employed for medical purposes.

It is not a stone but a fossil tree resin that is found in the ground and it’s very probable that it contains insects and other inclusions. it is often classified as gemstone even if it isn’t mineralized. Because it used to be soft and sticky tree resin, amber can sometimes contain insects and even small vertebrates. The amber with inclusions are also the most precious and demanded.

The color of amber is a combination of yellow-orange-brown that is associated with the color “amber”. Amber can range from a whitish color through a pale lemon yellow, to brown and almost black, but there is also red, green and blue amber, precious and extremely rare.

“Amber is like a time capsule made and placed in the earth by nature herself,” said David Federman, author of the Consumer Guide to Colored Gemstones.

Amber was widely used in the last for jewelry in many regions of the world. It was quite populat between the the Assyrians, Egyptians, Etruscans, Phoenicians and Greeks.

Amber, unlike gemstones, is warm to the touch. It is also a very soft stone, it’s hardness varying between 2 and 2 and a half.

The rare “Blue amber”
This beautiful and distinctive form of Dominican amber is very infrequently encountered. The exact physical and chemical processes that cause its formation are not fully understood. Curiously however, the vast majority of blue amber is completely devoid of insects or other organic materials; when present, they are usually severely crushed or washed out, offering possible testimony to the powerful geological forces involved in its creation. True “green amber” is rarer still.