Green jade bead bracelet in nephrite, round beads strung on elastic with no clasp. The green changes from one bead to the next, and several carry black specks.
Sized by wrist measurement: it goes on by stretching. Put it on by rolling it over your hand rather than pulling on it, and the elastic will last far longer.
It is the most imitated piece on the market. Strung, therefore not weighable: instead, this listing gives you what you can check yourself, starting with the drill hole.
A green jade bead bracelet strung on elastic, in round nephrite beads of even diameter. The green is dark, between moss and bottle, and it changes from one bead to the next. Several carry black specks you can see plainly.
In four lines
Round nephrite beads, strung on elastic, with no clasp.
The green changes from one bead to the next, and several carry black specks.
Sized by wrist measurement: it goes on by stretching.
It is the most imitated piece on the market: this listing says what you can check.
It Is the Most Imitated Piece on the Market
A bead bracelet is jade’s entry-level object: cheap, mass produced, sold everywhere. It is also the one on which serpentine and dyed quartzite circulate most, under the names “new jade”, “Korean jade” or “Malaysia jade”. None of those names describes jade.
While you wait for the figure, here is what I look at myself, and what you can look at too: the drill hole first. On a dyed stone the color concentrates there, and the rim of the hole is darker than the rest of the bead. The color also follows the micro-cracks, in a network, instead of spreading through the body of the stone. Hold one bead against the light near a window and it shows without a loupe. The checks that need no equipment at all.
What the Beads on This One Show
They are not all the same green: some pull toward moss, others toward bottle, and the light does not pass through them the same way. Several carry black specks and fine streaks, the dark inclusions nephrite frequently carries.
That is not proof, it is the opposite of a warning sign. What should give you pause is a strand of forty rigorously identical beads: a perfectly reproducible color is what dye produces, not what rock produces. The treatment status of this strand remains undetermined, like everything in this catalog.
Nephrite, and What That Word Changes
These beads are listed as nephrite, a calcium amphibole, one of the two minerals the word jade covers. The other is jadeite, a pyroxene, and the two are entirely unrelated: Alexis Damour established that in 1863. What sets them apart.
Nephrite’s green comes from iron and pulls toward spinach; jadeite’s comes from chromium and rings clearer. Nephrite is also the tougher of the two, a structure of interlocking fibers that resists a crack spreading. Its hardness stays ordinary, 6 to 6.5, and it is the quartz in dust, which rates 7, that dulls beads over time. The difference between hardness and toughness.
The Elastic, and How to Make It Last
The beads are strung on an elastic cord. It is the most practical and the least durable way to string them: elastic ages, slackens, and eventually gives way, usually without warning. Two habits extend it considerably: put it on by rolling it over your hand rather than pulling on it, and take it off before sports and the shower.
When it goes, any jeweler will restring it for a few euros, and the beads are not lost. Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. Never an ultrasonic cleaner, never steam, never solvents: since the treatment status is unknown, any resin there might be would not survive them. Care in detail.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Color
Dark green
Stone shape
Round beads
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Elastic
Metal
None
Setting
Drilled stone
Worn by
Unisex
Paired stones
None, jade only
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 6.5
Reference density
2.90 to 3.03 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What Tradition Attaches to the Jade Bracelet
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blend it into the rest of the listing. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of this stone's history. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
The stone worn against the skinJade takes on body temperature within minutes and holds it. That is a physical property, conductivity, and several traditions have made something else entirely of it. I stay with the first.
The strand of beadsThe round bead bracelet is a late form, one that came out of modern trade, whereas the pierced disc and the polished axe are attested from the Neolithic on. The age of the stone is not the age of the object.
A stone of moral virtueIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of them all.
The black specksThe dark inclusions in nephrite have been judged differently from one period to another, sometimes a flaw, sometimes a mark of the natural. Neither reading says anything at all about the mineralogical quality of the stone.
Shipped within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from the day it ships. I keep no buffer stock, and I will not promise a date I cannot meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 no matter the destination, and free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The exact amount shows in your cart before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece leaves in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not about presentation: jade’s hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust rates 7. Two pieces of jewelry that travel together arrive scratched.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No reason needed. One email opens a return, and there is no form to fill out. Return shipping is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Getting the size wrong is the leading cause of returns in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes of measuring almost always prevents it. The size guide.
Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That is all, and it is enough.
What You Must Never Do, and Why
No ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. The reason is not caution for its own sake: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier cannot tell me, and the weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The treatment information page.
The Scratch, and Where It Comes From
Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it possible to turn it into axes in the Neolithic. Its hardness, on the other hand, is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in everyday dust rates 7, and that is what dulls a jade, not impacts. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and lotion, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening, and sports, where the hard knocks happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone does: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. I am French, from Morbihan in Brittany, and I live in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I carve nothing, and I do not do the metalwork myself. What I bring is the sorting, and with this material the sorting decides everything.
I am not a gemologist, a lapidary, or a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not Certify
Before putting a reference online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unset, I weigh it in air, then suspended from a thread in a glass of water: the ratio of the two masses gives the density, and that figure separates jadeite, nephrite, serpentine, and dyed quartzite without ambiguity.
One example per reference, and not every piece. I never handle the piece that ships to you, and I would rather say so plainly than let anyone believe otherwise. The method, with its three limitations.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier cannot tell me, and neither can the scale: it establishes the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only laboratory infrared spectroscopy would settle the question, and I do not have that testing done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information page.
Where My Jade Comes From
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is legal. Not the one you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did ban these stones in the United States, but that ban was lifted on October 7, 2016. What applies today dates from April 8, 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but an American is not allowed to do business with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. I run one supply chain for ten markets, and it has to stand up to the strictest one. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin policy.
