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Very 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. The best way to test blue amber is placing it under an ultra-violet lamp which intensifies the color to a radiant cobalt-blue. Dominican blue amber is blue, but not in the way you might think. Blue Amber will show up different colours on differnt surfaces. Why the difference? When natural light strikes Blue Amber on a white surface, the light particles pass right through, and then are refracted off the white surface. Result: the Blue Amber has a slight blue hue. When the same natural light particles strike the Amber on a black surface, the light particles don't refract off the black surface, thus refracting off the actual Amber. Hydrocarbons in the Blue Amber turn the sun's ultraviolet light into blue light particles, resulting in the famous glow of Blue Amber. 
  This effect is only possible in the Dominican Republic Blue Amber category. Any other Amber (such as Baltic Amber) will not display this phenomenon. Amber from the Dominican Republic stands out from the amber found in other regions, because the occurrence of fossil insects in Dominican Amber is about 10 times higher than in Baltic amber and it is also 90% more transparent. It occurs in several colors you will find nowhere else in the world. The Dominican Republic is the home of an unusually fluorescent form of amber. This variety is often referred to as ‘Blue Amber’. The blue is not a solid colour but can be more accurately described as an iridescence which comes and goes as the amber piece is turned in a favourable light. It appears sometimes like an oily sheen. In this way the blue colour can almost vanish and then return as the lights strikes the piece in a favourable manner. The author has seen one piece during his life which possessed a true permanent blue tone which was clearly present no matter what the light conditions. For the most part photographs of glowing pieces of blue amber are due to long exposures times on film under strong fluorescent lighting. Under most normal conditions the amber’s colour is not quite so pronounced. It is reported that the bluest amber originates from the Los Cacaos mine What causes the blue colour in amber is not fully understood. One proposed theory links the colour to the occurence of volcanic ash or dust which was present when the resin was first exuded from Hymenaea protera tree. Whether or not volcanic activity is responsible is open to debate but it is highly likely that some form of ‘contamination’ takes place at the time of the resin formation. The specific gravity of Dominican Republic amber is between 1.04 and 1.08 with a hardness calibrated on Moh’s scale of between 1.5 and 2. Dominican Republic amber is highly fossiliferous, much more so than the Baltic deposits. As an island the fossil record is particularly interesting as it provides an insight into the colonisation process which must have progressed throughout the West Indies. It can also provide evidence of speciasation which occurs much more rapidly under island conditions than on the main land. The study of inclusions in Dominican Republic amber is in its infancy compared to the scientific studies of Baltic amber which has been progressing for nearly two hundred years. DOMINICAN Vs BALTIC AMBER 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. Industrial open pit exploitation of amber in the Kaliningrad region one of the largest Russian mines. But, Alas!, 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. Many times even the seller, the jeweler does not have enough knowledge of the product or is not willing to label certain procedures as artificial. 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. 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? BELOW COLOUR TREATED GREEN AMBER AND TREATED YELLOW BALTIC AMBER (Heated to produce the famous "sun spangles")  Just as many other gems are treated and stabilized to bring out luster and shine, several of similar treatments are used on baltic 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 or furnace heated with nitrogen or argon. In some cases, the back of a Baltic Amber cabochon would even be painted and re-heated to give a certain color to the piece like green on the pieces above. Others are tinted blue as on the peice below. BELOW A FAKE BALTIC BLUE AMBER PENDANT  Only... that it is not blue amber, it is just treated, regular baltic amber with some colorants applied. 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? But there are other more brutal methods to get the desired results. There is pressed baltic amber (from small pieces, meal and rejects melted together under high pressure, also called "genuine amber" and even "ambroid" (pieces of amber imbedded in plastic) that are found on the market. Pressed amber is generally very even in color, the way you can see it in some commercially available Baltic amber jewelry. Real Natural amber as it comes from the mines, never is as even. The best varieties of the pressed Baltic amber are not discernible from natural amber. After the treatment, it still possesses the features of "succinite", so it is permitted to call it "real amber". IT IS STILL NOT NATURAL AMBER This is all fine as long as the customer is made aware of it. Very Often They Are Not!! Don't be surprised now. Many of these technics have a long tradition in the Baltic's and it is not considered "cheating" on Mother Nature. Since Roman times this has been a way to get what people want for a price they are willing and able to pay. Therefore many masters used their own technics, like slow heating of amber in liquids or sand or table salt. There is even the story that in the first century Baltic amber was boiled in the fat of a suckling pig. Now, with this we are not saying that all Baltic amber is treated in one of the ways described above. There are many Baltic manufacturers who do not even improve amber in autoclaves but prefer the soft, lesser brutal methods used for centuries. Some Baltic amber associations even disqualify manufactures who do not use the approved methods of enhancement, but go to the extremes giving Baltic amber a bad reputation.. What we are saying is, just be aware of what you are buying for the price you are paying. Usually, you get what you pay for. And if you are happy with it and it appeals to you, well, why not buy Baltic amber. Many times it is pretty, low in price and and easily available to the broad public. Dominican Amber-- It is not "succinite" but "retinite". It is fossilized tree resin from an ancient relative of a tropical species called "algarroba". It is real amber unchanged by man. See Chemistry of Amber and scientific reference literature at the foot of this page. Dominican amber mines are only a major source of amber during the last 50 years, although its existence has been known about since the times of the discovery of the island by Christopher Colombus. But since there is not much publicity, the uninformed majority knows little about it. The outcrop is much less than Baltic amber, therefore it is rare in the true meaning of the word and not found all over the world. It is the amber that still carries the tradition of being something special, accessible only for a few. Hence, it is not the amber you will see in the Supermarket jewelry store next door. Information Reproduced Courtesey of Herman Dietrich www.ambarazul.com/ For all of the above reasons and many others not the least being that fake Baltic amber is said to be made in China and finding its way into wholsale & retail stores at home and abroad. We No Longer Buy or Sell Baltic Amber. Preffering instead the Genuine and Natural Dominican Amber. A variety of substances have been used over the years to make imitation ambar, such as epoxy resins, plastics, celluloid, polyesters, to name a few, but true amber is distinguishable by its melting temperature, burning odour, hardness, fluorescence, among many other factors. A simple test to determine if a piece is fake or real is to add about five tablespoons of salt to a glass of water. True amber will float but plastic will not. SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT CLICK HERE FOR ON LINE EQUIPMENT SHOP |
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