The eighth International Amber Fair AMBERMART lasted three days and although it was open for wide audience it did not arouse too big interest neither among the authorities nor in the media. However, it carried out its essential task – the fair attracted foreign traders to the centre of world amber processing.
 Admittedly, a number of the biggest Polish producers – such as Amber-Art. Gutowski, VNS or ART.7 from Gdansk – did not take part in this fair, having a sufficient portfolio of orders, but they intently observed the attendance of customers from abroad and our native audience being interested in the assortment of the products and their design preferences. The exhibitors got generally satisfying orders, mostly for export since the traders were maybe not too impressive in number but from different parts of the world, in total from 40 countries. They came on the whole to buy not expensive standard products, mostly made purely of amber – necklaces, pendants, bracelets, but also small silver jewellery with amber.
As it comes to the number of stalls there was one third of the number from Amberif, but there happened to be a slight majority over Amber Trip in Vilnius. There were 149 stalls of manufacturing and trade companies and also 21 stalls of original artists working with amber. They were complemented by museum, academic and medial stalls and an amber laboratory, essential especially for new importers of Polish and Lithuanian products.
There were only 12 Lithuanian companies; the most impressive and properly organized was a stall of Amber by Mazukna from Kaunas, a permanent exhibitor of all editions of amber fairs in Gdansk (spring and autumn) for five years. This company consequently aims its offer only at wholesale purchasers and, by contrast with other Lithuanian companies, was not affected by a supervision of our revenue office – discreet but unceasing this year.
The most difficult challenge for the organizers of the fair and trade organizations was and still is the elimination poor substitutes for amber and sale of objects made of pressed amber slivers as if they were made of natural amber. After starting cooperation of bigger Lithuanian and Polish companies with Chinese processing plants concerning processing of entrusted fine-grained amber into diverse semi-finished products (for example big ball-shaped beads for necklaces) and ready-made products (figurines of animals and Muslim rosaries) with the use of methods unknown in Poland so far, there has been an increase in an importance of a control by experts and efficient work of the laboratory. At all costs we have to maintain a prestige of Gdansk fairs as a place where you can buy products made of amber with guaranteed quality and authenticity. 2007-09-13 | 
