Amber and wood bead necklace
3 Amber beads, 2 beads have animal, wood beads appear to be hand carved
From a deceased aunt
Inherited
Maybe
Thank you for submitting your item for appraisal. This appears to be an early 21st century chinese "african tribal style" necklace with three large resin beads, two of them having ants as inclusions, similar to naturally occuring insect inclusions in natural amber. The refractive index of these beads differs from natural amber, the inclusions are too perfectly located within the "amber". Such modern reproductions were made to deceive the buyer and therefore have a decorative or sentimental value only. I have seen similar selling for approx. 50 US $ at auctions, just for their decorative value. Fake amber inclusions have been around since modern glues have been invented.
This is a very large field of expertise. I would recommend to look up "Bernstein Inkluse" for a start. Then you could visit museums of natural history or research their websites. Bubbles can occur in natural amber. Check out Bernstein Museum, ravmuseet, "insekt indkapslet i rav" or buy a few books on baltic amber.
Thank you very much. I am considering taking pictures of some of the other items and submitting them for appraisal. It's very expensive to keep doing this and such a let down to find out they are not real. However, you have helped tremendously. I will probably try again.
Hi, would real baltic amber be put in 925 stainless steel jewelry? I have been researching all morning and can't find where any of the jewelry pieces I have would be worth a lot.
925 would be sterling silver, not stainless steel. It really depends on the quality / colour of the amber. Sterling silver is not that expensive comparatively. Amber mounted with sterling silver would most likely be something of late 20th century production.
Thank you for your review. Do you have a website or publication idea where I could read more about this. I have Amber pieces that have what appears to be bubbles that make me wonder if it's real, and other pieces with strange appearing animals. Do you know where I can have my pieces tested? Thank you