Among all the emails we are getting every week, we will have on average, more than 10 readers writing to us, to either:

1) Ask if the piece of agarwood they have on hand is "old" enough to be able to fetch a good price.

2) Ask for information and tips to "age" their new wood.

3) Wanted Agarwood.com.sg to provide certification service for their agarwood collection.

I decided to put up one article and hope it will be useful to you guys.

For new comers or someone who is new to agarwood, it is quite common for you to buy young agarwood chips which are usually harvested within one year. This type of "fresh agarwood", has a darker and blackish appearance compare to those "middle age" agarwood which has a reddish brown skin color. Let me show you some photos which is easier to digest than my badly written articles.

Young Agarwood Chips





In room temperature, wet agarwood with high moisture level tends to release scent better than the middle age agarwood, depending on how you store your agarwood.  In general term, as wet agarwood dries out ,it's moisture content together with it's weight also drop. This is not something which the hunter or the seller wants to see :) To reach the "middle age" stage, the moisture content has to be further reduced and the color of the resin change from black to reddish brown, this which is easily available at retail shops, can be use for very good incense and burns beautifully on charcoal.

So what if you have a piece of sinking agarwood? How do i know if it will sinks under water in future?
For sinking grade agarwood, any wood which can sinks after 6 years of storage, in my opinion, is a form of stable "sinking grade agarwood". Sadly, most of the sinking agarwood in the market are either "modified to sink" or it is still wet and will floats up in the jar of water to say "hello" to their master :)

Eventually, most of the agarwood will be non sinking, even if you manage to clean it further to remove the lighter portion of the wood. An experience trader will be able to differentiate those sinking grade which are more mature and has a higher sinking rate after 5-6 years.

Middle Age Agarwood (Old oud by some)
If you manage to keep your agarwood for more than 3 years, most likely, some pieces with good oil content will be able to develop to the "red skin", which some refers as old agarwood. This type of agarwood is more or less "stable" and produce beautiful and purer agarwood scent than the younger chips. Some collectors also prefer to "play and polish" this grade of wood, which gives a very gloss and shiny finish to it. (Just be sure that you does not turn it into something which does not smells like agarwood =)




Last but not least, we have the fossil type agarwood which i like to refer them as "Grandpa's agarwood". For this type of agarwood, they have a fossil like appearance like the piece in the banner on top, this type of grade, usually change hand among collectors and the price are certainly on the high side. Most of the pieces does not surface online, some agarwood books do have them and you can appreciate the beauty of time and the art of agarwood.

If readers have some beautiful photos of vintage agarwood and would like to share on this site, do email and image credits will be given to the owners.