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Dominican Amber and Blue Amber in particular are not as well known as other types of Amber. Why so? One of the reasons is because the valuable nature of it was never quite apparent.Natural Blue Amber from the Dominican republic is the worlds rarest amber. Rare Blue Amber from the Dominican Republic. We buy blue amber peices, each amber piece is then made into a unique peice of Blue Amber designer jewellery Or sold as rough one side polished collectors specimens. The blue coloration does not always extend to the entire stone. Also, the small window sometimes creates a type of optical illusion: the blue stone may look deep blue, but by the time the entire shell has been polished, the blue glow diminishes. But, please understand, that neither we nor anyone else is able to look into the stone. So it is always a surprise to see the final polished peice.
Blue Amber is very rare and therefore very expensive. Why is blue Dominican amber little known? By Alec Corday The year is 1493 A.D. Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage to the West Indies arrives at La Hispaniola. To his surprise, a Taino indian chief offers him a gift of amber. Later, one single mass of three hundred pounds is found. All About Amber In 1891 J.G. Haddow wrote in "AMBER ALL ABOUT IT", published by Cope's Tobacco Liverpool (1892): "At Santiago, in San Domingo, in the valley of the brook Acagua, amber pieces, some as large as the egg of a goose, reward the explorer." Although the native (now extinct) Taino Indians gave samples of it to Columbus, the Dominican Amber trade did not truly pick up until sixty or seventy years ago. That is because in its pure form Amber does not look like much at all, and since people judge beauty by the exterior, Dominican Amber remained elusive and a collector secret for a long time. It was different with Baltic amber where nature mined and exposed the stones for us. For centuries amber chunks have washed up along shorelines, clean and shiny. Long before Baltic amber mines came to be, the sea was already harvested of its deposits. Rough Blue Amber Dominican Amber however, when hewn out of the mountains, does not glitter or shine like gold, a metal that was already mined by the conquistadors just months after Columbus' landfall. It doesn?t even have the dull transparency of raw diamonds, or the sky-blue hue of Larimar, another unique gem found in the DR. In fact Dominican Amber, particularly Blue Amber, looks utterly boring and is easily confused with the strata surrounding it, unless chipped or broken up. One of our neighbors here at Amber Ranch once dug a ditch, hurling stone after stone away to get rid of them. After a moment he realized that something was wrong with the last stone he had tossed: it had been too light for its size. He went after it and discovered that the stone was a large specimen of Amber. Rough Blue Amber The experienced ambero will of course recognize the rounded lines and soft features of a glob of fossilized resin and separate it cautiously from the dirt. But even at this point it is still uncertain if the Amber lump is blue, green, yellow or, well, amber. Going Deeper So how can anyone tell what is underneath that thick shell of ugliness? To understand the soul of Amber the amberos chip into the rock. These small 'windows' help grade color and quality. Based on this information the value can be estimated, as well as the extent of purity. Rough Blue Amber But is a mere peek at a corner of the stone enough? Not always. The blue coloration does not always extend to the entire stone. Also, the small window sometimes creates a type of optical illusion: the blue stone may look deep blue, but by the time the entire shell has been polished, the blue glow diminishes. It is also difficult to tell if the stone has inclusions, usually debris. If it doesn't, then it may very well be of a yellow or amber coloration and only a blue hue under sunlight -- in itself a valuable and much sought-after variation. It can happen that a large blue piece is cut apart and looses most of its glow, since the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that cause the blue reduces. Most collectors refuse to cut a great blue piece into smaller chunks for this very reason, keeping it in its original size but with enlarged windows. Yet often we still come across rocks so blue, they continue to keep their blue glow even after being drawn and quartered. But from the outside one would have never guessed its beautiful soul. Like a hidden treasure Dominican Amber haunts collectors and scientists alike. One never knows what lies beneath the layers of dirt. More than once a chunk of ugly revealed to be a deep gorgeous blue; chips of cloudy Amber revealed to contain rare insects. As in many cases, one has to take risks to find the truly unique gems and not be swayed by exterior appearances. |
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