Amber Listserv / Your opinions on this, please.

[Andy Ng]

Heya Mags,

Thru my past experience, certain pieces of copal and amber will float in a
salt water solution while other pieces will sink. Bear in mind that if the
salt solution is similar to that of the Dead Sea, I'm sure all copals and
amber will float in it. If memory serves me correctly, I used 7 or 8
tablespoons of ordinary salt to 250ml of water.

This floatation test is as definitive (NOT!) as the fluorescence test. In a
past posting, I had proved that both copal and amber will react to UV.

As for amber reacting with alcohol, I read about it a few years ago at
http://www.gplatt.demon.co.uk/properti.htm . There's a list of solvents at
the bottom of that page which will dissolve amber. After reading that, I
went out and bought 4 liters of surgical alcohol and tossed in some pieces
that had passed the 2 drop acetone test...Mr. Gary Platt is right...alcohol
does dissolve amber, very slowly though. Mind you, I chucked in those pieces
and let them sit there in the alcohol for a few days. The alcohol had turned
into a light yellowish-brownish translucent liquid. It took about 5 days for
those pieces to disintegrate. NOTE: I tried painting the colored alcohol
onto some bare wood...nice hue!

One caveat when using the alcohol test on a piece of alleged amber: if it
has been coated with clear epoxy, alcohol will not react with the amber at
all, being protected by the epoxy. Neat trick huh?;-)

Andy

On 8/26/06, Maggiecatbird at aol.com <Maggiecatbird at aol.com> wrote:
>
>  Andy - thanks for bringing up an amber discussion.
>      I'll throw in two cents and raise you one. Number 5 in what's wrong
> with this would be the guy's atrocious grammar, but we'll let that pass for
> now.
>     I'm curious about your statement that copal and amber don't
> necessarily float in concentrated salt water. Example please?
>     And I've never had amber react to alcohol in any way, although my
> copal will develop little rough white spots from it - so further elucidation
> would be appreciated. Now I've gotten myself interested, so I guess I'll
> have to go to the actual site.
>
>                                                                                 Maggie
>
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