Amber Beads
About genuine natural baltic Amber beads amid amber chips.
There is a great deal of confusion about amber beads. This page provides information about Amber Beads and how to best approach using amber beads for making your own amber jewelry.
As a first and important point to clear up about amber beads. Virtually ALL are processed. They are heated and pressed into uniform shapes. Or amber is melted and drops - that are subsequently drilled. Or it raw amber is put in a tumbler with an abrasive to round the edges and to polish it.
Hand formed, uniformly sized and shaped amber beads are not commercially available. The time, costs and waste are so high that it makes no economic sense to even try to make them. If you watch the first video, you will see some examples of such beads and why they are not available.
So if you are going to buy amber beads of any uniform size, you will buy something that has been processed. And that generally includes heating or tumbling.
Reconstituted Amber Beads
Sometimes beads are made from reconstituted amber. This bead making process is quite straightforward. Raw amber chips, powders and scraps left over from polishing operations are heated to clarify them and to bind them into a molten mass that can be shaped. Depending on the mix, various patterns can be made. Sometimes colors are added. And sometime resin binding agents are added.
As long as the bead is made of only genuine amber - meaning there are no additives - it is genuine amber.
These, in fact, make the jewelry that is most attractive to people buying amber jewelry.
Counterfeit Amber Beads
Sometimes the base product is a non amber resin - in other words, plastic -to which amber chips are added for effect. The melt is pressed into a mould. After cooling the bead is drilled.
Click on the picture to the left to see how beautiful it is. And customers like it. There are many, upon many, "amber necklaces" sold using products like this. Because the resin is cheap and the people pay premium prices because the product is beautiful, the profit margin is high.
If there are additives it is often called amber. But it is neither Natural Baltic amber nor genuine amber.
Where To Buy Amber Beads
Here is a commercial supply of high quality Amber Beads.
But before you jump, why do you want to buy amber beads?
Are you going to sell them as loose beads, wholesale and/or retail?
If that is the case, then buying them in bulk makes sense.
But if you are going to buy them to make your own baby teething necklaces or other amber necklaces, it may not make sense.
Why? Because you might be able to have the amber artists in Eastern Europe custom make your necklaces at the same price it would cost you for the beads.
This is simple outsourcing of your manufacturing to experts who work more efficiently and at lower costs than you can.
If you would like to consider outsourcing, get a copy of the amber catalogs and look at what is there. Then, if you do not find what you want, contact us with your specific requirements. Please use the free online help service below.
Or you can use the Poland Chamber Free information service to have manufacturers contact you directly. Chamber Free Information Service
And once again, here is a commercial supply of high quality Amber Beads.
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We do hope that this Amber Beads page has been helpful.
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