Amber Listserv / Amber Care

[Lester Sayetta]

Hello Maury...

I have been collecting amber for many years; many of my specimens  have been in my possession for over 40 years.   The pieces have been kept in small cloth bags, or in cardboard boxes or plastic boxes.   Over half of the time they were with me in the Virgin Islands,  where it was rather warm and humid;  we had no air conditioning.   The past 12 years I have kept the collection in an air conditioned home in Florida, in the same sort of containers.

If I have a half-dozen crazed pieces it is a lot, and they started to craze in a matter of months .

The remainder of the collection , (and I am talking about a lot of amber), has not changed color, become dried out or shown any signs of crazing.

My main point is,  that if amber is going to craze, it will do so very soon after it is polished.

So I would say that polished amber is quite durable. 

Now, if amber is to be in a sealed,  lighted display case, I would keep a small water container in there to keep the light and heat from drying it out.  I have never had this happen, but this is what I did when I had my amber stores, and did not wish to take any chances.

I hope this is of some help.

Best

Lester






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Maury Bramson" <bramson at math.umn.edu>
To: <amber at ambericawest.com>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 1:53 PM
Subject: Amber Listserv / Amber Care


> 
> I have recently begun an amber collection (mostly Dominican), and have 
> some questions about care/preservation.  Hopefully, some of you will be 
> kind enough to share some of your experiences.  I have gone through 
> literature on this, but still have questions.
> 
> What causes the crazing in amber and how can one avoid it?  Exposure to 
> sun and wind are bad and are easy to avoid.  Is it enough to keep the 
> amber in a dark place inside the standard small rectangular plastic boxes? 
> Is there still too much air there that can dry the specimen out?  Or is it 
> the oxygen, or maybe its most active component, ozone, that causes the 
> problems?  Is "stale" air (with the ozone having dissipated) okay?  Will 
> packing in cotton to remove most of the air help?  Are the answers to 
> these questions really known, or is there mostly just folklore?
> 
> How important is temperature?  Will indoor summer temperatures in the 80+ 
> range cause more rapid decay?  Is the colder, the better (down to 50 or 
> so) accurate?
> 
> One can go through extra effort to preserve amber, such as keeping the 
> surrounding air moist and perhaps applying a sealant to the amber.  Both 
> mean more effort, and I'm not sure I'm in a position to do the latter. 
> (In addition to safety issues, the latter would presumably involve a 
> certain amount of trial and error, and possibly ruining specimens.)  How 
> important is this?
> 
> What do museums do to preserve their amber?  Do they all more or less 
> follow the same procedure?
> 
> Under normal circumstances, what is a reasonable expectation for the 
> lifetime of amber, once it has been excavated?
> 
> 
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