The Amber Ranch

Dominican amber is OLD amber, from 20 to 35 million years. It is not “succinite” but “retinite”. It is fossilized tree resin from an ancient relative of a tropical species called “algarroba”. It is real amber, and strongly fluorescent. (See scientific reference literature at the foot of this page.)

Only during the last 50 years, Dominican amber mines are a major source of amber, although its existence has been known since the times of the descovery of the island by Christopher Colombus. 

The outcrop is much less than Baltic amber, therefore it is rare in the true meaning of the word and not found all over the world. In contrast to much amber on the market today, it has never been industrialized, enhanced, artificially colored, heat treated, boiled, or melted together.

It is the amber that still carries the tradition of being something special, accessible only for a few. Hence, it is not the amber you will see in the Supermarket jewelry store next door.

To sum it up in a general way:

* If you want to be sure that you get natural amber 100 % in it’s original form, “Made by Nature”, each piece an original, not treated in any way, we recommend Dominican Amber. 

* If you want high quality NATURAL BLUE AMBER, Dominican amber is your ONLY choice.ces

Much information about Dominican Amber, its advantages and how it is mined, you will find in the book The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World by George Poinar, Jr., and Roberta Poinar

You might also want to consult Discovering the lost world of the amber forests by the BBC Radio. 

Also check Dominican Amber in Wikipedia

Once in a while you will find that we also offer Colombian Copal in this Catalog of “The Amber Ranch”.

What is Copal?

The Aztec word “copal” (Nahuatl: copalli) refers to all tree resins -old or young- that have been employed as incense over the centuries. So from this etymological point of view, it turns most ambers -also the ‘famous’ Baltic- into Copal, because they are used for insence even today. 

But for lack of a better word, in modern times “Copal” is used to refer to semi-fossilized resins or sub-fossil amber. So, basically “copal” is “young amber” and “amber” is “old copal”. In order to respect the commonly accepted rules, we want to reserve the word “amber” for ‘really’ ancient tree resins and “copal” for more recent ones.

We also offer Colombain Copal for wholesale and have excellent prices. In case of interest, please visit ColombianCopal.com.