Fossils For Sale » Buyers Guides

Amber Buyer’s Guide

Fossils for Sale — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:19:17 +0000

Amber comes in many different shapes sizes and colours and can be very beautiful indeed. This quick article or Amber tutorial will give you an overview to enable you to make an educated buying decision. Amber comes in many colours apart from the traditional yellow, honey like colour. It can very in shade from nearly white through pale lemon yellow to a very dark brown or nearly black. Red or cherry amber also exists, as does blue and green coloured Amber, though this is very rare. Some pieces of Amber are transparent or nearly clear, but others are cloudy or completely opaque.

Amber is often described by the location of its origin the most common being Baltic amber and amber from the Dominican Republic. Baltic amber may also be referred to by its country of location, for example Lithuania or perhaps Polish amber. Some Amber, sometimes called Sunburst Amber, has inclusions frequently called sunspots which are small disc shaped shiny and glittery marks inside the Amber. In real amber these inclusions are very small in size and irregular in shape. it is of course also possible to find other inclusions in amber for example, insects in amber made famous by the movie Jurassic Park. Not only insects, but sometimes even small animals and flowers or plant material have been found but these are really quite rare.

So what else do you need to look out for when buying a number? Before we get on to the business of fake amber, there are a couple of things that you should be aware of when buying Amber. Firstly, Amber referred to as genuine or pressed Amber is actually a larger piece of Amber made out of small pieces that have been melted together under high pressure. Genuine amber will usually result in much more even shaped and larger pieces of Amber them would ever be found naturally. Not necessarily a problem, but nice to know what you are buying! It is also possible to fake sunburst amber, or rather the inclusions in the amber, by heating the amber in rapeseed oil. To tell the difference between real sunburst amber and this manufactured version have a look at the inclusions. In the real article inclusion is a very small and in regular in shape-in the fake they will tend to be much larger and more uniform in shape normally disc shaped or half round. Another thing to watch out for is being sold copal as Amber. Copal is much younger than Amber typically 10,000 years old or so. It is tree resin that is not yet undergone the full polymerisation process to harden sufficiently to be considered Amber. Read on for tests that can help you tell the difference. Finally, when buying jewellery that is claimed to be red and amber, green amber or blue amber, be aware that sometimes very light coloured amber is used with the rear of the amber coated with jeweller's colour paste or burnt to give it the appearance of being one of the more rare and expensive colours of Amber.

Sadly Amber is often faked, either as described previously or even through the use of plastic resins. The rare cases of insects in Amber also give the unscrupulous the temptation to fake these. So how can you tell when a piece of Amber is genuine? Here are some ideas for tests that you could carry out to help you confirm that your piece of Amber is the real deal!

1. Static test.

Real amber will become electrostatically charged when warm, so rub the piece of amber briskly against a natural fabric. if electrostatic charged, it will attract and pick up small pieces of paper.

2. Buoyancy test.

Real amber will float in seawater, so put your amber in a cup of water in which you have dissolved 2 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Amber should float, most fakes will sink.

3. The hot needle or burning test.

Heat a sewing needle or similar in a candle flame (taking care not to burn yourself-it will get hot!) and place the hot point of the needle somewhere on the Amber where it is not likely to be noticed. Amber were usually burn with a blackish smoke, copal with a whitish smoke, although sometimes Amber may also give off a whitish smoke. Plastic will give off black smoke. The real trick here is to note the smell given off. Plastic will burn with an unpleasant and acrid smell. Amber will probably give off a slight pine or resinous smell. Amber will also not melt unlike copal and plastic.

4. The acetone or nail varnish remover test.

Put a few drops of acetone (nail varnish remover) on the Amber. Real Amber will be unaffected by this whereas copal will become slightly sticky to the touch as it is not quite as hard as Amber. Most plastics will also become soft and tacky when treated with a solvent like this.

5. The fluorescence test.

Amber will fluoresce when an ultraviolet light is shone on it so if you have access to an ultraviolet light (sometimes called a black light) this is a simple way to tell if your piece of Amber is the real thing.

6. The sense test.

By this I mean just applying common sense. For example Amber is tree resin and so it is unlikely that you will find a genuine large piece of Amber several inches across. By the same token it is a natural material and again it is unlikely that you will find something perfectly shaped. Natural materials tend by their nature to be irregular. When looking at Amber inclusions such as insects in Amber think whether the insect looks posed or is it in the pose of an insect trapped and struggling to escape? An insect that looks like it is just posed a photograph is very unlikely to have been trapped naturally. Also when an insect is trapped it is quite common for other debris to be trapped at the same time. A single insect right in the middle of a perfect piece of Amber should ring the warning bells!

1 Baltic amber stone with genuine fossils insect inclusion
US $14.00

Genuine Baltic Amber Stone GNAT Fossil Insect Inclusion
US $6.99

Genuine Baltic Amber Stone 2FLY Fossil Insect Inclusion
US $6.99

Genuine Baltic Amber Stone Fossil Insect Inclusion
US $6.99

Natural Baltic Amber with Mystery Inclusion 12x7x45mm E323
US $6.95

Natural Baltic Amber with Mystery Inclusion 14x9x5mm E329
US $6.95

Post from: Fossils For Sale

Amber Buyer’s Guide

Fossil Buyers Guide

Fossils for Sale — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:29:43 +0000

Perhaps you've just recently become interested in collecting fossils or perhaps it's been a long-term interest. Maybe you've even found some fossils of your own and are now thinking of adding more to your collection? Whatever your reasons there can be no doubt that fossil collecting can be a very rewarding and enjoyable hobby and very educational to boot! Indeed fossils can be wonderful decorative items for your home also with a large collection looking particularly impressive.

There are not many guides available for the 'newbie' fossil collector and most that do exist are are far from comprehensive. In a article like this it is not possible to cover the enormous breadth of the field of fossil collecting - in fact it may be that there is no other field of collectables that requires the depth and breadth of knowledge that collecting fossils requires. A good place to start for the new collector is with one of the collector's guide books that can be found. Try your local library or indeed just web searches to get some pointers. However there is no general guide on the market equivalent to the antiques price guides that can be found if collecting antiques is your hobby. This leads to the new collector being at somewhat of a disadvantage when appraising fossils for sale, which given the wide availability of fossils these days (especially on eBay) is a potential issue.

EBay has revolutionised many collectable markets and the fossil market is no exception. There is now a very wide range of fossils for sale on eBay, ranging in price from pocket money fossils to those potentially costing many thousands of pounds. With this in mind it's worth spending some time covering the possible pitfalls awaiting the unwary eBay fossil buyer. Of course any buyer on eBay should take some basic precautions when buying - please have a look at our general eBay buyer's guide for things to look out for. I hope this doesn't put you off - there really are some wonderful fossils for sale on eBay with many many helpful and honest sellers. In all things eBay you should take the time to ensure that you are getting what you think you are getting. The wise eBay buyer is an informed eBay buyer! With that in mind read on for some hints and tips that should help you in buying fossils on eBay.

The first thing you should do when considering buying fossils on eBay is to spend some time watching the market and studying the types of fossils available and the sellers selling them. Spend a week or two browsing and window shopping for fossils to get a feel for what is available and for individual sellers. Study sellers feedbacks and any information they have in their shop (if they have one) to further this process. Does the seller seem knowledgeable and indeed an expert in their field? Bear in mind that given the enormous breadth of types of fossils out there that the seller may sometimes not actually really know what an individual fossil they are selling is. In other words, don't always take what the seller says a fossil is for granted. Ideally, you as the collector will want to be able to identify fossils for yourself. This is especially necessary in cases where the fossil is commanding a high price - high quality and rare fossils may appreciate in value over time and it is very easy to spend a lot of money on fossils that will never even be worth what was paid for them. This is another reason to study the market for a while before buying. This way you will have a better feel for the prices that are likely to be charged for a particular type of fossil. Hence you will be less likely to buy something that is priced significantly above the norm. When buying a fossil on eBay, set your price and stick to it - if bidding, don't get caught up in a bidding war.

The biggest issue with buying fossils on eBay is being caught by fake fossils. Sadly there are many traders that are only too happy to sell fake fossils either through greed or simply because they themselves don't know that the fossil is a fake. Be especially wary of fossils being sold from China or Morocco, dinosaur eggs being a classic example of the type of fossil that is readily and commonly faked. You should be especially wary when buying from China as the Chinese government has largely banned fossil exporting from China. Chinese fossils are treated as cultural artefacts by the Chinese government and as such require permission to be exported. This permission is not usually given. So when you see a fossil on sale on eBay from China you have to ask yourself is it real? As mentioned, particularly affected by the fakery are things like dinosaur eggs, birds, turtle shells, mammals or even dinosaurs skulls and skeletons . How are they faked? Frequently skulls can be made up of crushed bone powder fragments of real bone and glue or resin. Teeth from dinosaurs can be made up of several partial fossils glued together. Teeth can also be formed from ground up bone and resin as can dinosaur claws or horns. Another tell-tale sign is a complete skeleton arranged in an almost laughably perfect pose, as if the creature had died whilst having its photograph taken! Then it would seem to have been fossilised without the slightest bit of movement or crushing in the hundreds of millions of years that have elapsed. Sometimes entire fossils are made up in a plastic mould, glued to rock and then dusted with rock powder to make them look real. Others can be entirely carved into the matrix (this is the rock that surrounds our fossil and from which it emerges) with varying degrees of skill. Sometimes skulls from modern animals are used and aged to to look like fossils artificially. Dinosaur eggs can be carved from rock.

This all sounds rather depressing but in reality there are many genuine sellers and a genuine fossils to be found on eBay. Don't let the warnings above put you off, eBay can be a fantastic place to find a real bargain or the missing item for your collection. In many cases even fake items can look impressive if used for decoration only - provided you knew what you were buying was fake and it was priced accordingly. In this case it would probably be described as a replica or reproduction.

Good luck with the hunt for fossils for your collection!

SVF Pygurus Echinoid Jurassic Madagascar
US $2.70

SVF Silver Madagascan Ammonite Iridescent 72 cm
US $7.33

SVF Diacalymene Trilobite Ordovician Morocco
US $1.56

Natural Baltic Amber with 3 Fossil Insects Flies 18x14x6mm E357
US $9.95

Juvenile Pterodactylus kochi Dinosaur Fossil DisplayH 1
US $24.99

Archaeopteryx Lithographica Dinosaur Fossil Display H 4
US $24.99

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Fossil Buyers Guide

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