You Need to Check Your Amber! It Could be Fake!

Ah Amber, it’s in such high demand that often people will try to sell fakes! The nerve of some people. There are even cases of people drilling holes in the fake amber, putting an insect, or in some cases even a frog or a lizard in the replica stone, and then filling it back up, and claiming its a rare piece of amber with a wonderful specimen trapped inside it. It’s not easy to distinguish real amber from fakes, but we have some tests you can preform, and hints to help you along the way.

The first, and most common test to preform is the buoyancy test. This only works on the amber stone, so if it is attached to silver, or any other kind of material, it will not give accurate results. The test is simple enough however – take two tablespoons of salt, dissolve in eight ounces of water, and drop the amber stone in question in the solution, if the “amber” sinks well we’re sorry, but that’s not real amber. Real amber will float

If you’re worried that your “amber” stone may just be a plastic replica, a taste test is a good way to distinguish the two. Gently clean your amber, and give it a quick taste, natural amber should give off no unpleasant or distinct taste, however its plastic imitations will give off the noticeable taste of chemicals.

Amber is a good conductor of static electricity. If you have a piece of velvet rub the amber swiftly and rapidly against it until the amber is warm to the touch. Then place the stone over a tissue lying flat on the surface, the amber stone should attract the tissue – if it is real that is.

There are plenty of ways to test amber out there, but these are some of the ones we feel most comfortable with. Shop with ease at The Russian Store, as we’ve yet to find an imitation among our selection of amber jewelry!

You Want To See How Our Christmas Ornaments Are Made?

Though it may a little early to be talking about Christmas (unless of course you mean Christmas in July) we recently found some photos from a trip to Ukraine. Our hand blown glass ornaments are always one of our biggest sellers, so we thought you might like to see how they’re made:

First the glass blower has to shape the glass. The rings you see in this photo are to gauge the size of the ornament. Though a lot of these craftsman are so talented that they just eyeball it.

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How Is Glass Blown Into Art Glass?

Fantasy Vase

We, at The Russian Store, are very proud of our Art Glass collection and Art Glass vases we have to offer our customers.

Read here a bit of the history about Russian Art Glass and see the photographs below of the hand-blowing process of one of our “Fantasy” vases that was done right in front of our eyes.

Russian Glass has a long and storied history. Glass factories unearthed by archeologists date back to the 9th century BC and were located in what is now modern day Russia and Ukraine. Russian glass in particular is known for its wide variety and vibrancy of colors. The great glass factories were destroyed and neglected when most of Europe was under Mongol rule, but the 19th century brought with it a new demand for the prestigious Russian glass work.

Though the materials have changed, the end result maintains the same amount of beauty as ever. Here are some pictures of Russian glass blowers at one of the Russian Glass factories taken on a trip to Russia.

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