Photos

Comments

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  ait ouakli February 11, 2014 at 11:14am

  this is great. thank you for posting Faysal

  it looks real balticum amber from the very old northafrican jewelry. you have a treasur here
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  ann R. davis February 11, 2014 at 7:41pm

  Love this amber!!!!!
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  Toya February 11, 2014 at 10:05pm

  Wow! Very nice amber. At the going rate you could trade this for a house!
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  Lynne Rouffa Springer February 12, 2014 at 12:48am

  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
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  Frankie Carter February 12, 2014 at 9:08am

  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?
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  Amber-Tiznit February 12, 2014 at 2:08pm

  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! 
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  Frankie Carter February 12, 2014 at 2:25pm

  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.
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  Amber-Tiznit February 12, 2014 at 2:38pm

  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!

   
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  Frankie Carter February 12, 2014 at 2:49pm

  I completely agree. It has become such big business on the world stage.
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  ann R. davis February 12, 2014 at 4:19pm

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