Jamey,
I think there are a couple of items that need clarification in your posting. You are so correct when you say we need to be PRECISE and CAREFUL in our language.

First of all, from a chemical point of view, amber and copol are the same thing. They are tree resins. It isn't (yet) possible to look at the amber/copol and determine which forest it came from or how old it. Sometimes this can be determined from the impurities or inclusions.

Second, I can't tell if, by phenolic amber, you mean reconstituted amber a completely synthetic amber; meaning completely man-made and chemically different from the hydrocarbon/benzene structure of tree resins.

Reconstituted amber is real amber made from shavings, scraps and bits of amber that have been melting down and pooled. There is nothing inauthentic about reconstituted amber.

Man-made amber, what most of us would call plastic amber, I am guessing was ingroduced in the '40s or '50s. I would make it from polystyrene, which has a soft feel to it and you can dig you fingernail into it, unless you add additives. But this part you surely know better than me.

Nancy