Gold is said to be going down in value, whatever that means for the man or woman in the street. But a substance has just come into mind again which doesn't enjoy any status as a currency but has been as much prized as if it did and seems to carry a mystique of its own. That is amber. You know it when you see it - yellow sometimes, and if you're lucky, almost translucent or nearly so; sometimes opaque and reddish. It often comes in the shape of a small lump with a fly or other insect trapped in a bubble in it some millions of years ago, it may be. For amber is the fossilised resin of trees of the pine family.
The great centre of it has long been the Baltic. One family has a picture of the father and his three daughters on a strand in the Baltic area, each girl holding a bag for the amber she will collect on the beach. It's not so easy now. One of them still has a pot containing shards of the precious stuff, a bit disappointing now, looking a bit like that slightly coloured lumpy sugar you get to put into coffee. But, now and then, they had a real find. A big mine or rather quarry was found a couple of decades ago. The amber rolling in with the tide along with various kinds of shingle or pebbles.
That gave a great impetus to the merchants of Gdansk, previously Danzig. Fashionable shops had wonderful objets d'art for tourists: necklaces, pen-holders, and just plain fine yellow Amber paperweights as well as the personal adornments. And was there not a famous amber room in a palace in eastern Europe which was pillaged by the Germans and has never been put together again? Or was it the Germans at all? Information, please. Amber has had various appellations put on it throughout the ages. The finest is "tears of nymphs", the more materialistic "urine of lynx". One wonders why. It was said to be good for various human debilities, or conditions, presumably in powdered form. As for heart conditions, for kidney stones, for menstruation, for gout and snakebite. It was, and presumably still is, known as The Balm of Europe.
A tour of Dublin jewellers showed that it is widely available. This customer was interested in getting a slab of yellow amber to make a large brooch. He found great cameraderie between shop and shop, being passed from one to another. Fine brooches set in silver, rings, too, but no raw material in yellow. But he has one golden-brown piece, three inches long, thick as two fingers and with an insect inside. For a modest £22.