Amber Inclusions: Fakes and General Misunderstandings...
By Scott Anderson
As a serious collector of Dominican Amber Inclusions who tries to give back to the overall understanding of the amber forest, it disappoints me to see the wide reaching scope of copal being passed off as amber and the selling of obvious fakes. As many of us who have been on the list serve for a while know, it is almost futile to expect Ebay to step in and prevent the sale of these items. It really does come down to buyer beware. Besides, Ebay is just one outlet. There are many places all across the Internet that advertise Columbian Amber.
I think the bigger issue is education of what amber and copal really are, and where does it all start. We who have a passion for true amber and it's inclusions reject copal not because it can't yield scientific knowledge, but because there are individuals selling copal as amber. That is wrong on many levels.
Consider this though...
For the last two years, I have presented talks on amber at the Geological Society of America Annual Meetings. I presented a beetle larva in 2002 and a frog tongue with insect meals in 2003. There were many in the audience both years who were very knowledgeable about the material (Dr. Jorge Santiago-Blay, Dr. George Poinar, etc.). Yet, if you walked out into the vendors/sales area, there were several large mineral and fossil dealers selling Colombian Copal as amber. I tried talking to them, but they just don't understand or believe me. I've been to several other Rock and Gem shows around the Pennsylvania/Maryland/Virginia Area where all the "amber" being sold was actually copal. In this months issue of Rock and Gem Magazine, there is an article on a small rock show (I forget the name) where there is a picture of amber on the starting pages. It was a large, fist sized specimen filled with termites. Yes, you guessed it. It is Colombian Copal.
There is such a prevalence of copal being called amber, that many dealers accept it. They don't question what they have. They've been told that it is genuine amber. So, they sell it as genuine amber. Nearly every nature store that I have been into sells copal as amber. Believe it or not, the mineral and gem store at the Smithsonian actually was selling Colombian Copal labelled as Colombian Amber. If everywhere a consumer turns, they see Colombian Copal being sold as amber, why wouldn't they think that it's amber?
When people such as ourselves try to assist and correct the situation, we are usually meet with rudeness and denial. There are some dealers who correct the situation and try to sell appropriately. But, for the most part, why should they believe us? They've been told from several other sources that it is real amber. We can all cite the experts, but the general public doesn't care what they have to say about the issue. If they see copal consistently labelled as amber in nature stores, museums, on the internet, and even by rock and mineral magazines, why wouldn't they believe it to be amber? Basically, they are saying, "Let the professionals argue over the details, I have a mosquito in amber that I'm going to make a dinosaur from."
Scott Anderson graduated from Penn State in 1995 with Honors and High Distinction with a BS in Geosciences. He is a Senior Geologist at Tetra Tech NUS in Pittsburgh, where he primarily performs computer modeling (contaminant fate and transport). He began collecting amber when he was 14. He now has 19 different orders of insects and many non-insect orders. He specializes in Dominican amber inclusions.
