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Amber was always considered as a mystical stone and people were interested in how the amber was created. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that it was a magical stone, due to the amber’s electrostatic power. In ancient time people were burred with amber amulets as a form of the protection in their afterlife. To early Christians, amber was a presence of God. Chinese believed that amber is a heart and soul of a tiger. When tiger dies, its soul reappears on earth as amber, looking exactly like its heart. That’s why amber is a symbol of tiger’s courage, dignity and prestige.
The Greek myth about Phaeton
This is a legend about love and such a strong grieve that created something beautiful out of it. According to Greek myth, Phaeton was the son of the nymph Clymene and Helios. One day he learned that he was a son of god and, as he wasn’t convinced about it, he decided to travel east to the magnificent palace of the Sun to meet his father. As a proof of his fatherhood, Helios promised to let him drive the gold chariot of the sun across the sky, even if he known that it was too risky for mortal to guide the horses through the journey.
All Helios doubts become true, when horses felt the chariot was lighter than normal and rushed out of their usual course, rapidly across the sky and then down close to the earth. When they almost reach the ground, chaos came and the earth started to burn and sea started to shrank up. Helios had to destroyed the cause of this complete disorder and thrown a thunderbolt on his son.
Phaeton felt straight to the river Eridanus and was greatly mourned by his sisters, the Heliades, so much, that they were turned into the poplar trees and their tears was dropping to the river and became amber.
A tale about beautiful goddess Jurate and mortal fisherman Kastytis
There are more legends about this beautiful stone, one of them is a Baltic story about pretty goddess Jurate who was ruling the sea and over every sea creatures, living underneath in her spectacular amber castle.
A young but poor fisherman Kastytis was living along Baltic sea coast, and often was catching lot of fish, disturbing the peace of the sea and Jurate’s castle. That made a princess furious and she decided to put a stop to it and to punish Kastytis. But once she saw him, she suddenly felt in love, finding this young fisherman very handsome and courageous. So she took him to her beautiful amber castle, where they had happy times together.
Their happiness was destroyed when Perkūnas, a thunder-god, found out that his immortal daughter lives with mere mortal, when she was promised as a wife to Patrimpas, a god of water. Perukunas was so furious, that he thrown a thunderbolt on the amber castle, breaking it in crumbs and killed Kastytis. As a punishment, Jurate was chained to a rock underwater. Every time she cries and wipes for Kastytis, small amber teardrops appear on the Baltic shores.
A mystical stone
Baltic Amber is believed to possess therapeutic and medicinal powers, providing a great pain relief. Its warm colour gives an unforgettable charm, and a relaxing scent when you warm it in your hands. Baltic Amber was used as a material for personal ornaments since Palaeolithic times, first as simple amulets and talismans worn for protection, and over the years it has become more sophisticated and beautiful form of jewellery.
If you want your next precious thing be as good as it can be then buy it from family run, independent shop. They will care for you, will find time for you, give you better value and can be personal if you so wish. And you will be appreciated as The Customer. Give them a try and you will be amazed.
Welcome our friend!
“Can Sterling Silver turn my finger green?” Yes.
Let me quickly tell you why that happens and what to do about it.
Why silver may leave green marks?
I’m sure you recognize distinctive look of the Statue of Liberty. She looks majestic and seems to glow with her bright green colour. The tint doesn’t come from paint – it is a natural patina that covers copper. The same phenomena can be observed on roofs of churches and even old copper or copper plated utensils left for a while in the attic. The characteristic green layer is called Verdigris and is mostly made of copper carbonate – CuCO3.
But that’s about copper – what about my silver?
Pure silver is too soft to use in jewellery making. Ring made of 99.9% silver would bend and soon lose its shape, would get scratched and may lose stones. We don’t want that and that’s why jewellers around the world use Sterling Silver instead, which is an alloy of 92.5% silver and other metals – usually copper and zinc. This makes the material much more durable and lets us enjoy our jewels for years.
When this small amount of copper meet favorable conditions it will start changing colour. Unfortunately for some people their sweat have the perfect chemical compounds for the process to take place.
Fun fact: eating a lot of tomatoes and apples makes your sweat more acidic, which may be enough to trigger the reaction under the band of the ring. What’s good for you is not always good for jewellery!
What can I do to remove the green patina?
Do you remember poor old Richard Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances polishing Hyacinth’s silvers? This is the answer! In most cases a regular cleaning of the jewellery will be enough to stop it from marking your body. This will also remove grey tarnish from the silver and restore its shine. Cleaning the ring with silver polishing cloth should stop the reaction from reoccurring in couple of days.
Other way is to have the inside of the ring coated in something that will isolate the metal from your skin. People reported great results with just a bit of transparent nail polish, which can be applied in seconds and reapplied when it wears out.
So it is normal for a ring to leave a mark? Undesirable, but yes, it is normal. Luckily you can prevent and fix it.