Category: Amber

Clean Coal

Posted in Amber, Jet, Jewelry, Memoir, Mourning jewelry, Uncategorized, Victorian jewelry2 Comments

Sometimes I wonder at the things we humans deck ourselves with. Diamonds, for which I would sell my very soul, are a form of carbon: the hardest, densest form, with the most closely packed atoms and the highest melting point of any substance. (I’ve written about diamonds here and here.) But way down at the… Continue reading Clean Coal

Ambabeads

Posted in Amber, Collecting, Estate jewelry, Jewelry, Memoir, Uncategorized6 Comments

I was ten. Not even. My mother had unearthed from somewhere a strand of reddish faceted beads with a broken clasp. They were translucent and lightweight and sparkled in all directions. They were the prettiest things I’d ever seen. I asked what they were. “Ambabeads,” said my mother. They belonged to her sister Leanore and… Continue reading Ambabeads