Amber jewelry store features the unique

The owners of Downtown Auburn's newest jewelry store have made a life's work of discovering, collecting, buying and selling amber.Husband and wife Andrew Cholewinski and Violetta Grzywacz opened Amber Collection Inc. in mid-July as a showcase for Baltic amber — from the large selection of jewelry to museum-quality display pieces.There are also necklaces, earrings and rings displaying a variety of other semi-precious stones. And there are loose stones.'There's something for everyone," Cholewinski said.Cholewinski and Grzywacz are originally from Poland, home to a large amber industry. But they've resided in the United States for much of their adult lives.For 18 years, they operated an amber store in Redondo Beach.They discovered the foothills during business trips to Northern California, loved the area and ended up buying a house in Cool. Until recently, they commuted to their Redondo Beach business."We took a drive through Downtown Auburn and this location just waved to us," Grzywacz said.Amber was created as tree resin fossilized over millions of years."It is estimated to be 35 million to 65 million years old," Grzywacz saidWhile some amber pieces are clear, others contain small fragments caught as the resin flowed and then settled and hardened.Some of the pieces at the Auburn store have perfectly preserved spiders, tiny insects and even a centipede captured and fossilized.Although amber is known for its variations of yellow, it is not limited to that. In fact, there are many shade variations"You can get cherry or even green amber," Grzywacz said.She's a gemologist who trained at the Gemology Institute of America at Carlsbad. Cholewinski is a self-taught gemologist and paleontologist. His specialty is working with raw rock to find and extract the fossilized pieces. He has extracted some one-of-a-kind finds, he said. "One in 1,000 pieces will have (one of those special finds)," Cholewinski said. For example, one of his amber pieces was the first to show a nematode (hookworm parasite) emerging from a spider, he said.Cholewinski has passed on some of the more rare and interesting pieces to Dr. George Poinar, a paleo-entomologist known for his study of insects fossilized in amber. Poinar's books refer to several examples of Cholewinski's pieces.Cholewinski has been interested in rock collecting since childhood."When I was 14, I was dreaming about opal pineapples," he said.An opal pineapple looks like a crystallized rock formation, but it is opalized mineral ikaite and likely formed during the ice age, according to nationalopal.com.He now owns an opal pineapple, among many other rare pieces such as opalized belemnite (an extinct relative of the squid) and fossilized crinoids (marine animals of the Paleozoic period).Response to the new Downtown business has been very positive, Grzywacz said."We've had a nice welcome from the local people," Grzywacz said. "We have felt very welcome."Specializing in amber is unique for this area, according to Dee Rouse, director of the California Institute of Jewelry Training in Carmichael."Really good amber is usually not found (at area retailers)," Rouse said. "There aren't any other amber stores in this area that I know about. So having one in the area is exciting."Amber pieces need careful handling, added Mel Huth, a gemologist with the Carmichael institute."Amber is a very collectible gem. A lot of folks look for it and buy it," he said. "It's a soft gem. People who collect it know how to take care of it." Reach Gloria Young at gloriay@goldcountrymedia.com._________Amber Collection, Inc.Where: 920 Lincoln Way, Downtown AuburnPhone: (530) 889-2166Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, closed Sunday