Amber

The Amber you will find available at A Grain of Sand is all natural and mined in the Dominican Republic. This amber is not inexpensive but it is authentic and quite unusual. Please read on an you will understand why we have chosen to share this wonderful gem with you.

Amber can be found on all continents of the earth, with exception of the pole regions, mainly at the east coast of the USA, Canada, Burma, Mexico, Lebanon, Borneo, Romania and Sicily and other places Therefore, most of the amber which is used in the commercial production of jewelry comes from the Baltic region or the Dominican Republic. Baltic is the most widely known and "finest" amber on the market. Why do we see so much of it at such low prices?

Natural Amber from the Baltic regions was and is beautiful and extraordinary, full of folklore and history. It still has the fame of the mystic, sacred material of the old that carries on. But, Alas!, natural Baltic amber in it’s original form is sometimes difficult to find on the market today, when everything is a matter of price and competition, pushed up with much publicity.

Just as many other gems are treated and stabilized to bring out luster and, the same treatments are used on amber. Amber is heated to change water bubbles, to discoid fractures, or to produce the "sun spangles" (flints). Cloudy amber, with tiny gas bubbles, may be clarified in a vacuum chamber (autoclaved) by heating while it is immersed in an oil.

Pressed amber and "ambroid" (pieces of amber imbedded in a plastic) are commonly found on the market. Pressed amber is generally very even in color the way you can see it in commercially available Baltic amber jewelry. Natural amber is never as even, since Nature does not industrialize colors or shapes.

The amber occurrences in the Dominican Republic is not as old as the Baltic, but has much more fossil inclusions of plants and small animals and for this reason is highly appreciated by scientists and collectors alike. At few places in the Dominican Republic a kind of amber can be found that has a blue glow even in daylight. UV light strengthens this effect.

Is "Blue Amber" really blue? No. It is not.And yet, it is.
Dominican blue amber is not blue when the light shines through it, but when the light shines on it.

There are several theories about the origin and it is not fully understood what causes the blue color in amber. One theory links the rare properties Dominican blue amber to the occurrence of volcanic ash or dust which was present when the resin was first pressed out from hymenaea protera millions of years ago. Red natural amber can also be found in the Dominican Republic. Dominican ambers’ existence has been known about since the times of the discovery of the island by Christopher Columbus. There is not much publicity, some people don’t even know about it. The outcrop is much less than Baltic amber, it is rare in the true meaning and not all over the world.

It is found in a wide range of colors, some exclusively Dominican, wich also places it as a class apart. Dominican amber is generally not enhanced by heat and oil treatment or autoclaved. It is cut and polished fossil resin, just the way it comes from the mines. True, it might be a bit more expensive, because it is not industrialized. It is more like "hand made" and original.

The occurrence of insects in Dominican Amber is about 10 times higher than in Baltic amber. Dominican amber is also 90 percent more transparent. Therefore, inclusions are more visible.