Blue Amber (fluorescent)

Item Description

Amber is known by even non-mineral or non-gem collectors, as it has been beloved by many cultures throughout history. The International Gem Society states on their website that, "Stone Age gravesites dating back to 8,000 BCE have yielded amulets with spiral patterns, beads, and pendants carved from amber". It is one of the few organic materials that has made its way into the mineral / rock / gem collecting hobby. Now I'm sure that most people are probably familiar with the Amber from the Baltic Sea, the Dominican Republic or Colombia, but this particular specimen is an attractive and hard to find example of BLUE Amber from Indonesia. We are fortunate that we have a friend overseas that was able to supply us with a small parcel of these eye-catching stones. These unique and alluring pieces are highly desirable due to the fact that they display a fantastic color change effect, showing a RARE BLUE color on the surface in sunlight, and a rich reddish-golden hue in indoor lighting, when backlit. According to GIA, this blue color is actually the result of fluorescence when exposed to UV sunlight, which makes sense because, these stones fluoresce a vivid blue color under LW UV light! You can compare this to the daylight fluorescence seen in Fluorite crystals from various localities in Weardale, England. Additionally the GIA website states that these Amber stones, "also showed the Usambara effect, the phenomenon in which color varies with the path length of light through a sample". I have been told that this is true Amber, not younger Copal, as the stones show no reacting to acetone. This piece is a beautiful tumbled/polished specimen weighing 6.6 grams, with excellent internal gemminess, and beautiful fluorescence as you can see. A really cool piece for any fan of Amber or fluorescent material. This is a great specimen and certainly worth picking up for its beauty and sheer rarity on the market.