A friend of mine gave me a photograph of an amber specimen that included an
insect, perhaps a bee, from China. The amber looked real, but the
test with an hot point revealed its nature, that is plastic. The incredible
thing is that the price requested for the
amber was 400,000 Italian Lire
(that is about 250 US$)!!
Many specimens of the same kind of amber from China were sold in Italy in
different antiquity shops, at prices ranging from the above 400,000 Lire to
35,000 Lire (that is 20 US$).
If you want, you can see enclosed an image of that fake (unfortunately the
quality of the picture taken with the scanner is not very good).
The
original photograph (above) was by Giorgio Vianello
(Venice, Italy), an amber and fossil enthusiast, who told me about
finding fake amber in antiquity shops, and flea markets that are held
in many towns in Italy on Sunday. Those markets are very nice; sometimes you
can find interesting ancient books or printings, jewels of the past, good
amber and .... amber that is not so good! More often you can find copal from
Madagascar (that is a very recent resin, but sometimes sold as "amber"). A
person that is buying a specimen should be informed about the real origin of
the material. For instance, sometimes I buy copal (I am interested
in doing some chemical analysis on different resins); and I buy it from
honest vendors who tell me the real origin of the material.
I believe that a good information (as that provided by your web pages) can
greatly contribute to limit the phenomenon of fakes.
