Amber. A Wondrous Material

 This is an item about some reflections on Amber, a wondrous natural material.

I'm so intrigued by amber, that I'm keen to learn a lot more about it.
Could this be my retirement pursuit that's worthy of such attention, I wonder.

Amber is the hardened resin from plants such as pine trees. It's magical for many reasons, but one of them is that it can be transparent. One can see straight through some pieces, and see things that have been trapped within the amber - like insects.

Could there be a way to 'monetize' an interest in Amber?
The answer is almost surely Yes, provided one devoted sufficient attention to the project.
The entrepreneurial spirits are juiced at the notion.

Another appealing feature of amber is its durability.
Durable as long lasting.
Would you believe that a lot of the amber we can now see was created a few hundred Million years ago?
Almost (?) unimaginable. 

An old Q & A game featured a typical question: Is the object: Animal, vegetable or mineral ? (implying that those were the only true answers available.)
In this context, amber is a vegetable (tree resin) masquerading as a mineral (like glass).

My current understanding is that natural amber is 'mined'. That is taken from the ground, often deep in the ground. It has been fragmented over the eons, and is now mixed with minerals (sand, or sandstone, or rock like stuff). The fragments are smallish - not unlike gold nuggets in a gravel bottomed stream.

Miners separate the rocks from the resin. Then they sell the resin bits, after some processing, as amber.
Jewellery makers fashion some great treasures from the amber - which can be reheated, and molded and worked.

I wonder if there would be an interest, or market, for amber trinkets with custom inserts baked into the stuff. Perhaps a locket of hair. Or a four leaf clover. Or an image of a loved one.
The object would be visible, with clarity, yet encased in a plant based product, millions of years in the making, and good for a few more million years.