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F. A. Q.’s
Q. I’ve seen Baltic Amber jewelry selling on eBay for as little as a dollar. Why are your things so much more expensive?
A. Because what you saw wasn’t amber. It could have been plastic, or another polymer, bakelite, glass, or copal which was, like Baltic Amber, originally a tree resin. But where amber is a 40 – 320 million year old fossilized resin, copal is an immature, recent resin of only 50 – 1.6 million years. It is not fossilized. It might even have been reconstituted amber made of small chips pressed into a larger piece with a filler.
The Baltic Amber items I have were from last year’s ‘harvest’ of amber washed up in the surf or deposited on the sand along Lithuania’s Baltic Sea Coast during winter storms. The gathering of such amber is a bit of a ‘cottage industry’ and the ‘catch’ is sold to local artisans. One of whom purchased a lot; as I did.
There are a dozen or more tests one can do to determine whether or not a stone is really amber. The easiest to do with a ‘set’ stone, and the least destructive, is to rub it briskly on cloth and let it hover over a pile of small pieces of torn up paper. Amber is a great conductor of static electricity and so will ‘attract’ a few bits of paper as a magnet attracts paper clips. (The Ancient Greeks called amber electrum.)
Look at the zoom pictures of the amber jewelry I have listed. All of the stones are uneven in shape and many bulge out of their leather wrap; their surfaces illustrate their pedigree and age with pits and striations. These do not detract from their value, but attest to their authenticity. You can almost see them tumbling in the surf.
By the way, all of the Baltic Amber bracelets and many of the rings are one-of-a-kind.
Q. Are your rubies, emeralds and sapphires real?
A. It depends on your definition of’ real.’ The stones I use have been on the market for years and are becoming very popular. They are ‘genuine’ sapphires, rubies and emeralds. They have been heated and color enhanced. They are not clear, but are opaque.
Gem quality natural sapphire, ruby and emerald stones are not heated (yet are often color enhanced) and they are clear and transparent. They can and do cost hundreds of dollars a carat.
GLOSSARY
1. KROBO POWDER GLASS MAKING TECHNIQUES OF THE KROBO PEOPLE OF GHANA, WEST AFRICA
For centuries powder glass beads have been made by crushing glass to a fine powder which is heated till the particles meld together. Poured into clay molds, originally made from termite mound clay, they are speared with a cassava leaf stem to create a hole. The molds are then baked in an oven until the glass fuses and the cassava stem burns up.
2. LOST WAX CASTING
Brass and gold African beads have been made using the “lost wax method” for ages. First a model of the object is made from beeswax, then dipped repeatedly in a solution of fine ash or charcoal powder mixed with water. This forms a mold which is allowed to dry and harden, with channels left in it to enable the wax to drain out during the heating process which takes place in a kiln. As the wax melts and is ‘lost,’ molten brass or gold is poured into the mold to form the bead or ornament. When the metal is cooled, the molds are broken open and the new art object is cleaned and shined
3. REPOUSSE
A metal working technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented by hammering from the reverse side to form a raised design on the front. CHASING is used to refine the design on the front of the work by indenting grooves, furrows or channels. The two techniques used in conjunction to create a finished piece is also known as embossing.