Valley Gems has a wide range of Baltic Amber jewellery including Pendants,Rings, Bracelets, Beads and Broaches. We also stock loose Amber for use in healing.
Amber has fascinated mankind for thousands of years and has often been attributed divine origins and supernatural powers. It has luster, depth and substance. It is warm light and pleasing to the skin. Energy borrowed from the sun is at work inside it. Amber contains fire , electricity and perhaps other powers that dead matter does not posses. For amber is born from life it is a concentrate, the only palpable remnet of the vast forests that once covered Northern Europe. Time has stopped inside it.
Today most reserves of succinite amber are located within the East Baltic region of Samland between Kurisches and Frisches Haff close to present day Kaliningrad ( Formely Konigsberg ) Here large amounts of amber are contained in what is known as blue earth's Blue Clay amber reserves also exist in parts of Poland albeit deep under water and are hard to reach.
Colour and Form,Yellow and brown are the most common colours but their are infarct nearly 250 different colour variations.Because of the nature of its formation amber takes many different forms in the rough and raw state.
Amber is a window to a past world insects and other small animals that have become trapped in resin and perished can sometimes be seen encased in transparent amber. This has preserved them for posterity in a way whose completeness is unparallelled save perhaps for the inclusions frozen in the permafrost. Amber has thus trapped a scene from life millions of years ago. And it isn't just an imprint of some sort it is the physical object of itself that has been included- a frozen piece of time.
Contrary to what many believe amber is found in over 200 locations around the world amber from the Tertiary Period million years ago) has been found in Denmark and Russia Germany, Roumania, Italy( Sicily), China, Burma, Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Amber from the Cretaceous period ( 50 million years ago) has been found in Canada, Lebanon, France, Austria, Russia, (Siberia) United States (Alaska and New Jersey )
A protection against evil and Disease. Both medicine and magic have attributed healing and protective powers to amber. The Romans where convinced of its effectiveness against stomachaches and sore throats, and women wore amber necklaces to protect themselves from goiters. Amber was considered effective for impotence as well as easing pain during childbirth.
Perhaps all this about the healing powers of amber isn't mere superstition after all. Some modern Doctors say amber because of its porosity and millions of tiny bubbles absorbs the poisons excreted by the skin.
Genuine or Fake:
Copal sometimes called African Amber is also a hardened resin but of a much younger vintage it is found in abundance in Africa as well as other parts of the world. The name Copal comes from the Aztec word Capalli meaning Incense and in the industry is referred to as semi fossil it may be millions, thousands or a few hundred years old.
Attempts have been made to produce synthetic amber but the costs are much to high for it to be commercially viable.
One way of testing the authenticity of amber is to place it in saturated salt water. Genuine amber floats or hovers. Also when rubbed with wool or silk it becomes electrically charged and will attract small bits of paper
Amber is a fascinating gem and falls in the class of organic gems as it is not hard enough and comes from the fossilisation of tree sap. Sap is often confused with resin and the 2 have different sources within a tree. Resin is the substance that we often see leaking out of the common Pine Tree whereas Sap is almost best described as the life blood of the tree which runs deep in the trunk.
