# Amber **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2017, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567 "2017-05-27T23:18:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stinky\_Pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Stinky\_Pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stinky_Pete)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/1 "2017-05-27T23:18:26Z")
For thousands of years Amber from Northern Europe was a hot item in the rest of the then Western world. In modern times this no longer seems to be true. I don’t see it sold anywhere nor hear it much talked about. So what happened? Did they run out of it or is it just not too impressive in jewelry compared to modern gems? ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/2 "2017-05-28T00:13:54Z")
My wife loves the stuff. It’s still around as of a few months ago when I was forced to buy her some amber trinket. ---
**Author:** ![Stinky\_Pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Stinky\_Pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stinky_Pete)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/3 "2017-05-28T01:59:11Z")
I guess it still is around. Somehow I don’t remember it being advertised, or mentioned in conversations. It looks pretty cool. And not expensive, or I should say common amber isn’t expensive. Not precious like it was in the past. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/4 "2017-05-28T11:18:30Z")
These things come and go. I have a jet neclace that was in a box of junk I bought at auction; it has very little value. Anyone who has read Les Miz will know that Jean Valjean made his fortune manufacturing imitation jet jewellery. > [@](#): > > From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine returned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken place in the production of “black goods.” Towards the close of 1815 a man, a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin, and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid together, for slides of soldered sheet-iron. > > This very small change had effected a revolution. > > This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the second place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which was a benefit to the manufacturer. > > [http://www.online-literature.com/victor\_hugo/les\_miserables/40/](http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/40/) ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/5 "2017-05-28T11:28:45Z")
It’s all over the place at Renaissance fairs. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/6 "2017-05-28T11:53:07Z")
As others said, fashion comes and goes. But a larger thing is that it was more scarce when the largest source was pre-breakup of the Soviet Union. When Russia fell apart, things started coming out of the woodwork for money. Amber became very available and very cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/7 "2017-05-28T11:55:47Z")
A few years ago, I wound up, by chance, at the Gdańsk amber fair. Suffice to say, they’re not running out of the stuff. Bought a few bits with insect inclusions, but there must have been tonnes of jewellery. If [this](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/19/china-woes-hit-amber-market-gdansk-amberif) article is anything to go by, the reason you’re seeing less of it is maybe because the price has rocketed in China over the last 5 years, so exports are going there. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/8 "2017-05-28T13:47:23Z")
I was just thinking of doing a whole room in the stuff. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/9 "2017-05-28T14:13:04Z")
A lot of fake amber out there. The fake stuff is a plastic resin and heavier than real amber. Or at least that used to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/10 "2017-05-28T14:39:30Z")
Plenty of the stuff in Estonia, too - we brought a few lovely pieces in Tallinn. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/11 "2017-05-28T14:55:41Z")
People are using it in woo medicine. Supposedly if you wear it next to your skin, it warms up, and releases a chemical that then gets absorbed by your skin and causes pain relief. We have a kid in the preschool who is a toddler and wears a necklace everyday for teething pain. I’m terrified she’s going to strangle herself with it, or swallow a bead and choke. Her mother said “It’s OK if she swallows a bead, because it’s natural.” Like people don’t choke on nature all the time. Besides, I Googled it, and it doesn’t work. I didn’t really have to Google that to figure it out, I just wanted to see it in print. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/12 "2017-05-28T15:21:32Z")
I think it’s the end of the belief that it had medicinal and other magic properties that ended the fad. Now it has a more rational position in the jewelry world. People still like it enough that it’s still being turned into things to buy, just not fanatically. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/13 "2017-05-28T16:07:29Z")
There is also “amber” that isn’t fake but isn’t very old that is called copal. Fine if you just want it for looks, but sold deceptively if you want the idea of it being millions of years old. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/14 "2017-05-29T19:53:53Z")
Amber is incense. You can burn it to produce a pleasant smell that covers less pleasant ones. In historical times everywhere stank of shit. Horse shit filled the city streets, and humans emptied their chamber pots out of the window. Amber was precious to those who could afford to buy it. These days, with modern sanitation and a comparative scarcity of horses in cities, the market for incense is much reduced. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/15 "2017-05-29T20:28:25Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I was just thinking of doing a whole room in the stuff. > > 🙂 Found the fringe fan ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/16 "2017-05-29T23:32:01Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > People are using it in woo medicine. Supposedly if you wear it next to your skin, it warms up, and releases a chemical that then gets absorbed by your skin and causes pain relief. We have a kid in the preschool who is a toddler and wears a necklace everyday for teething pain. I’m terrified she’s going to strangle herself with it, or swallow a bead and choke. Her mother said “It’s OK if she swallows a bead, because it’s natural.” Like people don’t choke on nature all the time. > > Besides, I Googled it, and it doesn’t work. I didn’t really have to Google that to figure it out, I just wanted to see it in print. So much this, every second baby round here seems to be kitted out in an amber necklace. ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/17 "2017-05-31T23:03:45Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I was just thinking of doing a whole room in the stuff.🙂 I think you might be russian to a decision there. But please, chronicle your work if you do. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/18 "2017-06-01T01:51:35Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I was just thinking of doing a whole room in the stuff. > > 🙂 So that it may vanish in a war? ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amber/787567/19 "2017-06-01T15:46:06Z")
I heard a rumor it was packed up on a train in Poland