The naturally occurring range
Amber occurs from very pale transparent yellow through honey and cognac to near-black, and in opaque grades from creamy butterscotch to a pale royal white. Those variations come from the resin itself and from what happened to it over tens of millions of years — the density of microscopic bubbles, the degree of oxidation, the inclusions trapped as it flowed.
Within that range, price tracks scarcity rather than beauty. Clear pale material is a minority of any parcel, so it prices above honey; deeper material is more available, so it prices below. Opaque butterscotch is difficult for a different reason: the bubble distribution that makes it opaque varies bead to bead, so matching a strand rejects an unusually high proportion.
The colours that are usually produced
Deep cherry red is almost always the result of controlled heat treatment. Heating deepens colour and can produce the disc-shaped internal fractures sold as sunspangles. It is a legitimate treatment with a long history, and it is still a treatment that must be disclosed.
Green amber is typically produced either by treatment or by backing a translucent bead with a dark layer so light returns green through the body. Both are established methods. The backing, however, can wear at the drill hole or at high points over years of handling, which is worth knowing before it is specified for a piece intended for daily use across decades.
The practical rule for a buyer: ask how the colour was produced, and treat a vague answer as an answer.
What treatment changes in production
Heat-treated material is slightly more brittle at the surface, which affects drilling and polishing parameters rather than the finished object. A factory running one set of parameters across treated and untreated stock will produce more surface chipping on the treated batch and will usually blame the material.
Treatment also makes colour more repeatable across a run than untreated amber, which is commercially useful. It should be stated as what it is rather than presented as natural consistency.
Choosing colour by market
Honey and golden lead across the Gulf. Cognac and darker tones dominate Türkiye, the Balkans and the Maghreb — and, by extension, the German and French diaspora markets, whose taste follows their origin rather than their geography. Butterscotch has a following in the Gulf and, unexpectedly to most suppliers, in northern Nigeria.
The most common avoidable error in this trade is sending one region’s assortment to another. It is not a matter of taste being wrong; it is that the same object means something different in each market.