Postby kerangoumar » Fri May 02, 2008 9:07 pm
what you have is cooked amber.
the amber is heated until it gets internal fractures. since amber has been found that contains insects (very rare) and plant matter, cooking it is a popular way to create what could be inclusions such as "seeds" (close-up of the ring) that then raises the sale price of the jewellery (i won't say it raises the value, because that is debatable). as with other treatments perpetrated these days on gemstones, it is virtually impossible to get away from it.
another type of processed amber to watch out for is heated, pressed and thus reconstituted from the many chips that are too small to use, or are left over when the amber is being shaped.
stylistically i see nothing that would suggest these were a set, though that does not necessarily mean that they weren't. a lot of contemporary amber jewellery is manufactured in "lines" such as the filigree line -filigreed settings, and you might find two or three dozen loosely related settings.
sorry i can't make out the marks.