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Post by frane on Mar 28, 2009 10:02:05 GMT -5
I forgot I had taken these last week. We were in a shopping mall and there was a beautiful (to me) window display...I just happened to have my camera and took a couple of shots. I really thought this looked neat and if you look close, you can see a bee in it. It just looked too cool to pass up the chance to share this. Fran
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agatemaggot
Cave Dweller
Member since August 2006
Posts: 2,195
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Post by agatemaggot on Mar 28, 2009 10:53:05 GMT -5
Amber has always facinated me. The neat things that it contains at times is absolutely amazing. Everything from leaves from long extinct trees to the tiny insects and even small frogs. Really cool pictures Harley
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bushmanbilly
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2008
Posts: 4,719
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Post by bushmanbilly on Mar 28, 2009 12:23:47 GMT -5
A few ways you could tell if it is Amber or Copal . Price, if its a deal of the century, Copal. Heat a pin, stab it, Should smell like pine. Mix 2 1/2 table spoons of salt in 1 cup of water. Amber should float. Copal will float if it has trapped air bubbles. Condition of fossil. Plants and animals do not take a pose to die. Take a look at sticky flypaper strips. The best test is with Acetone. Copal will melt and become sticky. Place a drop on the piece, let dry. Another drop and touch the spot.
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Post by Bejewelme on Mar 28, 2009 19:18:14 GMT -5
Fran: That is too cool!!! I bet you bought that to surprise me!!!! LOL!! I bet that was expensive stuff!!! Amber
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Post by bobby1 on Mar 28, 2009 19:25:56 GMT -5
Use the same heated pin to check for plastic. The smell is obvious. There are an awful lot of fake insects in "Amber" out there. Probably a lot more fakes than real ones. Bob
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Post by johnjsgems on Mar 28, 2009 20:19:13 GMT -5
We once had the pleasure of visiting the Field Museum in Chicago. They had a great Baltic amber display. One had a terrific piece of amber next to one with a bug inside. Other than the bug they were exactly the same. The "amber" with the bug had a magnifier lens over it so you could see the bug. The problem was the pin hole in the bug where someone had held it in place while pouring the "amber". I have a friend with a copal mine in Argentina. Most does not have bugs. The little that does is valuable because of the rarity. If you see something like a complete scorpion in "amber" for $5 you know it is plastic resin not tree resin. My friend from Argentina once showed me a piece of copal from his mine that had a lizard in it. Like someone else said the lizard was not posed. I think he sold that one for $10,000. The most common bugs are termites and small flying bugs. We got one with a spider once. Most of the inclusions are unidentifiable debris that landed in the sap. Most of the copal is new compared to Baltic amber but still pretty neat. Almost always much lighter in color.
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Post by frane on Mar 30, 2009 6:25:03 GMT -5
Well, this was in a shop window. It was over a foot tall and there was no way of getting close enough to stick a pin in it. I couldn't see the numbers on the price tag but I could make out there were 4 digits in front of the decimal so it was expensive. Lots of smaller amber pieces in the store and they were very expensive and some they called resin that were much cheaper. That big of a chunk, I just couldn't tell what it was. I just knew it looked really neat. Fran
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Post by Hard Rock Cafe on Mar 30, 2009 7:23:10 GMT -5
Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
Chuck
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