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Fakes are nothing new. Glass, dyed resin and early plastics have been sold as amber for well over a century, and online marketplaces have simply made the deception easier to scale. The reassuring part is that most imitations give themselves away with equipment you already own: a bowl, a wool jumper, a UV torch and a sewing needle. The seven checks below are the ones collectors reach for most often. None of them is conclusive on its own, but together they will catch the great majority of duds before your money leaves your account.
Baltic amber is fossilised tree resin, formed tens of millions of years ago and hardened into a material that is warm to the touch, light in the hand and soft enough to scratch with a fingernail. Around it sit three common impostors. Copal is much younger resin, often only hundreds or a few thousand years old; it behaves like amber in several tests but is softer and degrades over time. Plastics such as Bakelite, celluloid and modern casting resins are the usual substitute in beads and cabochons. Glass turns up in older pieces and in "amber" rosaries.
There is also pressed amber, sometimes called ambroid or reconstituted amber. This is genuine amber material, made by heating and compressing amber offcuts and dust into blocks. It is real, but it is not a natural nugget, and it usually costs far less. A seller who describes it honestly is doing nothing wrong; a seller who calls it "natural Baltic amber" is not being straight with you.
Rub the piece briskly against wool, a woollen scarf or your own hair for thirty seconds or so, then hold it just above a few small torn scraps of paper or some fine ash. Genuine amber picks up a static charge quickly and will pull the paper towards it.
Treat this as a screening test rather than proof. Celluloid, polystyrene and some acrylics behave the same way, so passing tells you little. Failing is more useful: glass, Bakelite and many hard casting resins will not attract anything, and that is a good reason to walk away. Cold, dry weather helps. Humidity kills static, so don't bother trying this in a steamy kitchen.
This is the most reliable of the home tests, and the cheapest. Amber has a density close to that of water, so it sinks in fresh water but floats in very salty water. Most plastics and all glass sink in both.
Two caveats matter here. Copal floats as well, so a positive result does not separate amber from young resin. And a few plastics, particularly polystyrene, also float. If a bead sinks in saturated brine, though, it is not amber — that much you can rely on.
Take the piece into a dark room and shine a longwave ultraviolet torch on it. Baltic amber generally glows a cloudy blue-white, sometimes with a milky or faintly yellow-green cast across the surface. Plastics often stay dull, or fluoresce in a bright, flat, almost lurid colour with no depth to it.
The UV test is especially handy for mixed strands. Lay out every bead and compare them side by side: a fake or a piece of copal frequently shows up as the odd one out. It is also the quickest way to spot a glued repair, since adhesive and filler glow differently from the surrounding amber. Do remember that heavily clarified, heat-treated or dyed amber can look quite unlike untreated material, so treat an odd glow as a prompt to look closer rather than a verdict.
This one is definitive enough to be worth the small amount of damage it causes, provided you do it properly. Work outdoors or by an open window, and never on the face of a finished piece.
Heat a sewing needle or pin until it glows red, then press it briefly into a hidden spot — the inside of a drilled hole, the flat base of a cabochon, or the back of a bead. Smell the small wisp of smoke. Genuine amber gives off a resinous, pine-like, faintly sweet scent, closer to incense than to anything chemical. Plastics smell acrid and sharp, like burning cable or sour milk.
Amber is soft, roughly 2 to 2.5 on the Mohs scale, so the pin will sink in with little resistance. A needle will not mark glass at all. Keep the test to a single spot on a loose bead or a piece of rough, and mind your fingers — the pin stays hot longer than you expect.
Nail polish remover, or acetone, is sometimes suggested as an extra check: a brief touch on a hidden spot will make copal and many casting resins go tacky, while amber generally resists. Use a cotton bud, keep it to a spot nobody will see, and rinse straight away — acetone can dull the surface of genuine amber too, and there is no reason to risk that on a nice piece.
None of them confirms that a piece is Baltic. Succinite from the Baltic region is chemically distinct from amber found in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Burma and elsewhere, and telling those apart needs laboratory work such as infrared spectroscopy. Heat treatment, clarification, dyeing and pressing are all common in the trade; they do not make a piece fake, but they do affect what it is worth, and a good seller will say so.
If you are spending a serious amount, pay for a proper opinion from a gemmologist or a laboratory. For a single bead or a small curio, the tests above are plenty.
Run the static and saltwater tests first, since they cost nothing and settle most arguments. Follow with a UV torch on the whole strand, then the hot pin only on a piece you can afford to mark. Ask the seller directly whether the amber is natural, pressed or treated, and whether they accept returns. Anyone selling honestly will answer without hesitation; anyone who dodges the question has told you something useful. And if a strand of Baltic amber is offered at a fraction of what the material usually costs, the price is the test you should trust most.
Photo: ales_kartal / Pixabay
