Polish your own Amber (Burmite)

Polish your own Burmese Amber (Burmite)

Small pieces of Amber, all with a guaranteed insect inclusion. The aim is to let you polish these yourself, which is a simple and easy task to do at home with minimal tools or space.

It is a little difficult to describe the size of these pieces; they are not large, and obviously vary a lot in size and shape. They are not rough - they are part polished - otherwise I'd not be able to guarantee there is an insect inside.

As such they've been split up into a few different categories:

• Grade A pieces, which are transparent and I think will polish up to a fine standard, which may be good for microphotography.
• Grade B pieces, which are transparent to opaque - while the inclusions are visible they may not be as clear as the A pieces.
• Pieces with a single insect or more than one insect
• Pieces of various sizes - the longest points are used.

So, for example, we might sell a 'Grade A - 20-30MM - Multiple insects, 1pc' in the menu - this would be a good quality unpolished piece with one visible insect, measuring a maximum of 20-30MM wide.

I would highly recommend magnification with these; we do sell a range of loupes, small magnifying glasses typically used by jewellers.

They have been part polished to about 1000 grit, the process to fully polish them would be to go through various grits of sandpaper to a higher grit - 1200, 1500, 2000, 3000, 5000, 10000. A final polish should be added with something even finer, such as leather with cerium oxide, toothpaste, or zinc oxide. I will hopefully be selling a polishing kit soon. A car headlight polishing kit will work, too - and a sandpaper kit is available for a few pounds on amazon.

Unfortunately, there are ethical concerns due to Burma's ongoing civil war, and concerns over the safety of miners. These pieces were all purchased several years ago from a Canadian mining company.

There is a large debate between scientists as to whether Burmese Amber should be purchased and/or studied due to the potential humanitarian concerns; I have studied the issues for a long time before considering purchasing personally.

Several organisations have issued a blanket ban on studying Burmese Amber; however, this would include bans on all legitimate mines and cause harm to many miners and people working within the industry. It also creates a culture in which a scientific resource ends up smuggled into China and sold online, carved, and lost to science forever.

Ultimately, whether or not you decide to purchase any specimens of Burmese amber will be a personal decision as the ethical concerns are extremely complex. This is true of all rocks and minerals, not purely pieces from Afghanistan, Burma, China, Russia, or any other country with a less than ideal human rights record - and yes, that includes the UK.

Further reading on potential human rights issues regarding Burmese Amber:

• http://www.iaujournals.ir/article_674115.html
• https://jhumanitarianaction.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41018-021-00101-y
• https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/myanmarffm/pages/index.aspx
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12542-020-00524-9