A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.

Beautiful Amber

Beautiful Amber
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Comments

  • this is great. thank you for posting Faysal

    it looks real balticum amber from the very old northafrican jewelry. you have a treasur here

  • Love this amber!!!!!

  • Wow! Very nice amber. At the going rate you could trade this for a house!

  • oh...these are so beautiful!  you are so lucky to have these...would love to have a strand of these around my neck!  thanks for showing, lynne

  • These I love so very much! They certainly look like the real deal. I`d trade a house for them (I`d have to choose which house though!).

    I have heard that darker, more maroon/purple amber beads are rarer in N. Africa generally. Does anyone know more about this? Has anyone tried heating amber in oil to darken it? Or is that a myth and it`s only phenolic resin that darkens in this way?

  • Thanx for the comments

    Frankie, it's only a myth; i suppose that it cannot be done through boiling it in oil, or sth else!!! i heard the chineses are doing sth these days! but i believe REAL amber is clear and pure; and it'sof course not easy to be recognized. Of course, it needs alot of experience!! once, not long ago, i bought some fake amber. Latey, it because so hard even to see such strands; i dont know where it is taken to, maybe China or elsewhere, but the demand on this is inceadible; and iam afraid in a 2years span of time, Morocco will be emptied of this material. hhh Interestingly enough, some old women, from some of whom we buy amber, demand very increadible prices; just a week ago, a woman brought me a very small bead of amber and she said she wanted 400dh(40dh) per gram!! Even some people no longer want to sell per gram, the want to sell each bead per se and without gram! 

  • Sadly, F., the info. about amber prices is not news to me.

    I have heard of prices much more than £40 per gram for amber, especially in Morocco. And I heard about people offering per bead and quite, quite staggering amounts for whole necklaces!

    You are right. Soon there will be none whatsoever in Morocco and probably not in all N. Africa. It seems such a shame that there will be none in the places where it has been traditional. Is there much trade in Morocco with simulated amber - I mean the modern stuff not the old Mauritanian phenolic resin beads? What about European style Baltic amber?

    Thanks for the answer about making amber by boiling. Though I know some do that, or heat it, to make it look clearer when age has made it falsely opaque.

  • I suppose the goverment should intervene in this! i have heard from a friend of mine that somebody asked him for 15klms of beads of amber, can you imagine that!! it's Madness!

     

  • I completely agree. It has become such big business on the world stage.

  • wow! NOW i UNDERSTAND WHY i CAN' AFFORD TO BUY THESE BEADS. REALLY LOVE THIS CONVERSATION.

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