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Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Mineralogy / July 2004Authenticating Genuine Amber
I have some pieces of amber (quite big with insect inclusions) from Prague (they said it wasn't local amber) and i downloaded some information on the net about authenticating genuine amber. I carried out the solvent test with ether - and it didn't do anything atall, it just evaporated, not marking the "amber". The hardness test passed cause i couldn't mark it with my nail. It is tasteless when cleaned. When you burn it it smells like when you are soldering ( you know that stuff used to hold electronic components on the circuit boards ) - does anyone know if this is what burning amber should smell like? Also - in salt water i couldn't get the full pieces of "amber" to float but i did chip off a bit from the bottom of one of the pieces and put it in normal water - it didn't float. When i added salt to the water it floated to the top and stayed there. Maybe the large insect inclusions made it not float? Any body have any opinions on the authenticity of my "amber"? Thanks for your help. Matalog, the facts you told demonstrate, that you may have got real amber. In Europe the most amber came from Bitterfeld in eastern Germany (in the south of Berlin) and is coming from the Polish coast of the Ostsee. For checking the real authenticity you must take an IR spectrum from the pieces and correlate them with literature values. Burning amber smells like soldering smoke - or like burning pine resin. For the floating test you should take every times a saturated salt solution (this means there must remain some unsolved salt pieces on the bottom of the glass). In a saturated salt solution are all amber pieces swimming. But there are of course some differences in the density. Insect inlusions are not the cause of higher density. In normal drinking water all ambers sinks down. OK, to decide wether it is an artificial arcrylic resin or a molten amber powder you must make an IR or you must have good experiences in amber. A hint for real amber are different plant impurities, flow structure and a darker coloured cracked weathering crust. Wolfgang > I have some pieces of amber (quite big with insect inclusions) from Prague > (they said it wasn't local amber) and i downloaded some information on the [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Thanks for your help. Thanks a lot, I have no access to IR technology but am quite confident that my amber is real. I bought some cheap pieces in my home town in a incense and crystal shop and it shows the same characteristics as my amber does. It smells the same when burnt. A knife acts the same when trying to slice it. I'm going to try the UV light test - where you see if it glows or flouresces a pale blue under it. Thanks again. > Matalog, the facts you told demonstrate, that you may have got real > amber. In Europe the most amber came from Bitterfeld in eastern [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > > > Thanks for your help. I haven't any IR-instrument too; such things are not cheap. My ambers are from the Samland (the big amber location at Königsberg/Kaliningrad), Bitterfeld and Wolfsburg. A collegue of our Geology group brought some Wolfsburg material to an institute; the result was that the IR-band are correlating with the Samland material - the glaciers of the ice age transported the amber to my home town (very nice !). I try to find some literature about the charakteristic IR-bands. You should ask an institute of Chemistry or Mineralogy for help; is any university in your area ? My UV-lamp is a simple longwave money-checker. Under this light, my ambers show a orange-yellow or whitish-yellow fluorescence. Only some parts of my pieces show the violet reflection of the UV-light, what means, the parts are crystallized. A real blue fluorescence I can't find on my ambers. If you bought unpolished raw amber, you should polish fossil-containing material at first with a 400 sandpaper and after this with a car polish or a polishing powder containing tooth paste; this is my method. What are "your ambers" ? Where did you find them ? Wolfgang > Thanks a lot, I have no access to IR technology but am quite confident that > my amber is real. [quoted text clipped - 56 lines] > > > > > > Thanks for your help. I bought them (3 pieces) in a jewellers in Prague - but they said it was not local. They have quite big inclusions. I will show you a photo when i get my digital camera back from my father. > I haven't any IR-instrument too; such things are not cheap. My ambers > are from the Samland (the big amber location at [quoted text clipped - 82 lines] > > > > > > > > Thanks for your help. Matalog, the next time you should ask, from where exactly the pieces are stemming, because every stone without the finding location are nearly worthless in the view of the science. If possible, you should ask the czechian jeweller. Without the finding location, I would give normally only 1/4 of the price. OK, I found some interesting literature for you : http://www.goldschneck.de/html/hauptteil_bernstein.html Günter und Brigitte Krumbiegel Bernstein Fossile Harze aus aller Welt. Geschichte, Harze, Vorkommen, Gewinnung und Inklusen. Sonderband 7 der Zeitschrift FOSSILIEN. 2. überarbeitete Auflage 112 Seiten, 62 Farb- und 30 Schwarzweißabbildungen, 13 Zeichnungen Format 16,7 x 24,2 cm ISBN 3-926129-16-6 Eur 18,40 , SFr. 31,30 Seit Urzeiten übt Bernstein seine geheimnisvolle Anziehungskraft auf den Menschen aus. Schon vor 10.000 Jahren handelten die Menschen der Altsteinzeit mit Bernstein und schmückten sich damit. In der Antike tauschten die Bewohner des Ostseeraumes Bernstein gegen Luxuswaren aus dem Süden, zer- brachen sich griechische Philosophen den Kopf über die Entstehung und Eigenschaften des Bernsteins. Ihre und noch viel mehr Fragen sind heute längst beantwortet. Doch nach wie vor ist Bernstein Gegen- stand der Forschung und hat kein bißchen von seiner Anziehungskraft verloren. G. und B. Krumbiegel breiten das heutige Wissen über Bernstein aus. Sie behandeln seine Kulturge- schichte, die vielen Varietäten, Farben, Naturformen, Eigenschaften, geologisches Alter, geographische Verbreitung, Lagerstätten, Abbaumethoden, tierische und pflanzliche Einschlüsse. Sie nennen genauso die weltweit bedeutendsten Sammlungen und wichtigen Arbeiten über Bernstein. 62 Farbbilder und 30 Schwarzweißaufnahmen demonstrieren die vielfältigen Farben und Formen fossiler Harze, die überraschende Fülle der verschiedenartigsten Lebenszeugnisse in Bernstein, Fundstellen und Abbau, Verarbeitung und "Endprodukt". Tabellen und ein ausführliches Sachverzeichnis gewährleisten den leichten Zugriff zur gewünschten Information. Aus dem Inhalt: Spuren des Bernsteins in der Geschichte - Bernsteinvarietäten - Bernsteinfarben - Natürliche Formen fossiler Harze - Eigenschaften des Bernsteins - Bernstein im weiteren Sinne - Akzessorische Harze - Geologisches Alter fossiler Harze - Geographische Verbreitung fossiler Harze - Bernsteinlagerstätten der Erde - Bernsteingewinnung in Mitteleuropa - Pflanzliche und tierische Organismen im Bernstein - Inklusen-Einschlüsse - Succinose: die Bernsteinkrankheit - Bernsteinfaunen (Inkluseninhalte) - Die Bernsteinflora - Wissenschaftliche Bedeutung der Inklusen - Institutionen und Museen. Something about the IR-spectra I found in Bernstein-Neuigkeiten (Amber News) Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde, Serie C, Nr. 18 ISSN 0341-0161 Stuttgart, 1984 on page 13: baltic amber shows between ca. 1280 and 1190 cm-1 a nearly horizontal area. Another recent German amber professional is Prof. Weitschat in Hamburg http://www.geowiss.uni-hamburg.de/i-geolo/palaontologie/dr_weitschat.html If you want to have more amber, you should contact collectors in the Bitterfeld area - or you must go directly to the Samland amber area (google around with the location name "Palmnicken" or "Jantarni"). How I told are small amounts of amber found in pleistocene sands of North Germany and Denmark. I hope, this helps ! Wolfgang > I bought them (3 pieces) in a jewellers in Prague - but they said it was not > local. They have quite big inclusions. I will show you a photo when i get [quoted text clipped - 99 lines] > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for your help. I did ask the location and he told me - but it wasn't a country i recognised - maybe it wasn't the english name for the country. I think he said it was somewhere beginning L and he spoke Czech. Thanks for all your help. > Matalog, the next time you should ask, from where exactly the pieces > are stemming, because every stone without the finding location are [quoted text clipped - 172 lines] > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for your help. Hm. Take a map from North Europe. Northeast from Poland you find between the two "Haff's" the peninsula "Samland" (northwest from Königsberg/Kaliningrad, the area of the "mother ore". The salt content of the Ostsee/Baltic Sea is very low. So the amber is wandering in some meters deep to Denmark/North Germany or Litauen/Lietuvos Respublika or more to north to Lettland/Latvija - depending of winds and sea streaming. OK, if the finding/fishing location is one of the baltic states Lietuvos Respublika or Latvija, your amber pieces are originally from the secondary Samland ore. The hypothetical river Eridanos brought the amber from the woods in the northern area of the Baltic Sea down to the ancient Baltic Sea in the northern Poland. You should bring one of your amber pieces to an Institute for Chemistry or Physics and ask for an infrared examination - if there is the "Baltic Shoulder", this flat area around 1280 and 1190 cm-1, you have authentic amber. Wolfgang > I did ask the location and he told me - but it wasn't a country i > recognised - maybe it wasn't the english name for the country. I think he [quoted text clipped - 202 lines] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for your help. |
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