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 colour concentrates there, and the rim of the hole is darker than the rest of the bead. The colour 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 colour is what dye produces, not what rock produces. The treatment status of this strand remains undetermined, like everything in this catalogue.
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 jeweller 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
Colour
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.
Dispatch within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no stock in reserve, and I will not promise a date I could not meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 whatever the destination, free on orders over €47 to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece travels in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not a question of presentation: the hardness of jade is unremarkable, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together arrive marked.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No need to give a reason. An email is enough to open a return; there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids 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 cleaners, no steam, no solvents, no heat source. This is not a precaution for show: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier does not know it, and weighing identifies the mineral without telling me anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The information sheet on treatments.
Scratches, and Where They Come From
Jade is tough, meaning very difficult to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it usable for axe heads in the Neolithic. Its hardness, by contrast, is unremarkable, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7: that is what dulls a jade, not knocks. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and cream, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening and sport, where knocks against hard edges are common. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. French, from Morbihan, living in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them mounted: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. What I bring is the selection, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am not a gemmologist, not a lapidary, not a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not Certify
Before a listing goes online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unmounted, 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 listing, and not every piece. I do not handle the piece that is sent to you, and I would rather write that down than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier does not know it, and the scales do not tell me: they identify the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. So you will never read “Grade A jadeite”, “Type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
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 7 October 2016. What applies today dates from 8 April 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but a US person is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. A single supply chain serves ten markets, so it has to hold up in the most demanding of them. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin charter.
