Tibetan Old Amber, originally of Baltic Sea origin. These Amber beads were cut in the rounded native cut favoured in Tibet, sometime in the early 1900s, from rough yellow Baltic Amber blocks traded into Tibet. Baltic Amber comes basically in two colours, a relatively translucent honey colour, and the more rare, opaque, yellow, or “butterscotch” colour; only the yellow colour found favour in Tibet, probably because it not only blended nicely with the tones of the robes worn by monks there, but also for the riot of colour it created when mixed with Turquoise and Coral, two gemstones much appreciated in Tibet long before the introduction of yellow Baltic Amber.
(Tibet was not open to trade with the West until well into the 1800s, so presumably yellow Baltic Amber would not have been known there 150 years ago.)