VALUABLE JUNK: It may look like a rock weathered by the sea, but it is actually ambergris which, depending on age, can sell for thousands of dollars.
Image: © AMBERGRIS.CO.NZ
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A ten-year-old vacationing in Wales stumbles across a lump worth nearly $6,000. A 67-year-old New York native receives a candlelike rock in the mail from her 80-year-old sister and discovers she may be $18,000 richer. All because a whale had a bit of indigestion.
That upset stomach creates ambergris, a rare substance that has been highly valued for thousands of years as an ingredient in perfume and pharmaceuticals. Ambergris originates in the intestines of male sperm whales after they dine on squid, whose hard, pointy beaks abrade the whales' innards. Scientists believe that the whales protect themselves by secreting a fatty substance in their intestines to surround the beaks. Eventually the animals cast out a huge lump, up to hundreds of pounds at a time.
But don't refer to it as "whale vomit"; scientists postulate that whales do not expel ambergris through their mouths. No one has ever seen a sperm whale excrete ambergris, although sperm whale expert Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, admits that it is assumed the voiding takes place as fecal excretion, because when first cast out, he says, "Well, it smells more like the back end than the front."
Viscous, black, stinky blocks of freshly expelled ambergris float on the ocean's surface. Sun, air and salt water oxidize the mass, and water continually evaporates. It hardens, breaks into smaller chunks and eventually becomes grey and waxy, embedded with small black squid beaks. The weathered chunks exude a sweet, earthy aroma likened to tobacco, pine or mulch. The quality—and value—of any given chunk depend on how much time it had spent floating or otherwise aging, says expert ambergris broker Bernard Perrin, because "it ages like fine wine."
For thousands of years this sea treasure has been highly prized. Middle Easterners historically powdered and ingested it to increase strength and virility, combat heart and brain ailments, or to spice food and drink. The Chinese called it "dragon's spittle fragrance." Ancient Egyptians burned it as incense. A British medical treatise from the Middle Ages informs readers that ambergris can banish headaches, colds and epilepsy, among other ailments. And the Portuguese took over the Maldives in the sixteenth century in part to gain access to the island's rich bounty of the redolent stuff.
The Arabic anbar refers to this very whale-based substance and is the root of the word amber. Centuries ago the French employed amber gris and amber jaune (gray amber and yellow amber) to distinguish between animal-based ambergris and what today has become the standard meaning: the golden-hued vegetal resin.
Like other animal-based perfume components (such as musk) ambergris has a scent all its own—derived from its chemical component ambrein—that it imparts to popular perfumes such as Chanel No. 5. It also enriches the other olfactory notes of a perfume, much as salt enhances flavors and spices, and, most importantly, it prolongs a perfume's other scents. As odor chemist George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia explains, ambergris molecules are lipophilic (fat-loving), as are perfume molecules, but the ambergris molecules are larger and heavier. "The odor molecules have a high affinity for the other lipophilic molecules, so they stay associated with the ambergris molecules and don't go into the vapor phase all at once," Preti says.
American perfume companies no longer mix ambergris into their fragrances, most likely because of confusing legalities surrounding its sale here. Internationally, however, the trade is legal and Perrin has no problem finding French perfume companies to buy his stock. "We also sell it to a royal family in the Middle East and they use it as an aphrodisiac. Apparently they take some milk, some honey, and grind up small quantities of the amber and put that in as well," he says.
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9 Comments
Add CommentWho or where to check whether my find id ambergris. Thank you. sznnbrn@gmail.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere to go to check whether my find is ambergris.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to know if my find is true Ambergris and how can I sell it do you have an email address for Bernard Perrin ambergris expert or any other brokers buywers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile vacationing in Galveston, Tx. a few years ago we stumbled upon these things lying on the beach there were 50 or so if not more they are hard like a rock grey in color and have a ridge on the top side of them they are shaped like a fat heart in a way with a ridge on them. can anyone tell me what these are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have found a pound of what looks and smells like ambergris 10/2009 and want to know if you have any luck finding a buyer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so, can I please have their name? Thanks so much!
I BELEIVE I HAVE A PEICE OF AMBERGRIS ABOUT INCH SQUARE HOW CAN I TELL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy cousin found an ambergris and he want a buyer. Can you look a buyer? This is his cellphone number..09291363146..Thank you! buddy_arnz1214@yahoo.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismy friend own 7.6 kg of amber, buyers can call me in +971551255784 or mail me in anazpanat@gmail.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a very large quantity of ambergris (musky marine tobacco smelling) which washed up on our beaches after a hurricane.... I need to know several things. Do I rinse and dry it? Where can I get it identified properly? Where might I sell it to interested parties? Thank you!
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