I did not mean to infer that you do. You definatley do give correct information, (thank you!!) but we do need to help Liza. It's the age of information now and she has no idea people can learn so much about beads in so little time on the net.

It's a long uphill battle. Remember about 4 years ago when Abdul learned about the difference? He said," How am I to tell all of Africa, by myself, from Cairo to Johannesburg?" Abdul is not the only African dealer who knows the difference, then there are a few who don't want to know, and some who still believe that all perceived "amber" is some sort of natural resin. It is very confusing information for them as buyers and sellers when they have been told something else for more than 20 years.

It's just an unfortunate example of common market names coupled along with misinterpretation. The first time I saw a quantity of this material was at Gems and Jewels in perhaps 1982, in San Francisco, just before they went out of business. Remember them? Upper Market, north side. At that time, I was just learning about amber. And I thought, dang, this stuff is so heavy!!! It was indeed phenolic plastic, but that particular seller at the time told me that it was copal. I had read a little, enough to sort of think of copal as "immature amber" ...so asked then, how did it lose all that weight when it became amber??? The guy simply told me that copal is heavier. Sigh.

And yeah, images are useless without words. Bunches of people would have thought these beads are amber if I had posted them with no words.