Nephrite Pendant, a Polished Drop on a Gold Tone Bail
44,90 €
Nephrite pendant, a large polished drop held by a cap set on its point, beneath a gold tone bail shaped like a flower. Gold tone chain with square links.
The bail is set with a faceted green stone and white stones. My supplier does not name them, and neither will I: not emerald, not diamond, not zircon.
The metal is gold toned, the alloy is not specified: this is not silver. Mounted, so not weighable. Treatment status not determined.
A nephrite pendant cut as a large polished drop, held by a gold tone cap set on its point. Above it, a gold tone bail shaped like a flower, set with a faceted green stone and a pavé of small white stones. All on a gold tone chain with square links.
In four lines
A large polished drop, held by a cap, with no claws and no closed setting.
Gold tone bail set with a green stone and white stones, not identified.
Gold tone metal, alloy not specified. This is not silver.
Mounted, so not weighable: no figure will be published, and this page says so.
The lustre of nephrite, and what it is worth as a clue
Polished nephrite has a particular lustre, often described as greasy or waxy, between wax and soap, where glass and quartz return a harder, cleaner light. It comes from its structure: interlocking fibres scatter the light on the surface instead of reflecting it as a block.
It is a clue, not a proof, and I am not going to write it otherwise. A very high polish brings a nephrite closer to the glassy, and a well worked serpentine can have that same soapy feel. It is what you look at first, never what concludes. The checks that need no equipment.
The bail, and why I do not name its stones
The bail is a small flower in gold tone metal, set with a faceted green stone at the centre and some twenty white stones around it. My supplier does not name them.
At that size, a faceted green stone can be an emerald, a zircon, a coloured glass or a synthetic stone, and all four look alike. So I will not settle it. This is not excessive caution: naming a stone wrongly is precisely what the decree on designations penalises, and a shop that calls a glass an “emerald” has lost the right to explain the difference between jade and serpentine.
The cap, and what it changes
The drop is neither drilled nor claw set: a metal cap is placed over its point and holds it. It is a discreet mounting, which leaves the stone visible over almost all of its surface, girdle included, and which forces no hole into the material.
Two consequences. The first: the stone stays exposed to edge knocks, and a drop has a point, precisely the most fragile place on a piece of jade, its hardness being ordinary even though its toughness is exceptional. The second: a cap holds by pinching or by gluing, and glue ages. Never ultrasonic, never steam, never solvent, both for any resin in the stone and for any glue in the cap. Hardness and toughness, and care in detail.
Nephrite, and what that word changes
This piece is declared as nephrite, a calcium amphibole. It is one of the two minerals the word jade covers, the other being jadeite, a pyroxene. A Frenchman separated them: in 1863, Alexis Damour established that they are two unrelated species. What sets them apart.
The green of nephrite comes from iron, that of jadeite from chromium. And what the word jade does not cover is serpentine, sold as “new jade” or “Korean jade”, nor dyed quartzite, sold as “Malaysia jade”. None of those names designates jade.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Light green
Stone shape
Drop
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Chain
Metal
Gold tone, alloy not stated
Setting
No setting
Worn by
Women
Paired stones
Green stone, not identified, White stones, not identified
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 attributes to a jade pendant
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece of jewellery in this shop is sold as a treatment, and I claim no effect for this one.
The stone worn against the skinJade takes the temperature of the body in a few minutes and keeps it. That is a physical property, conductivity, and several traditions have made something quite different of it. I stay with the first.
The dropThe drop shape carries no symbolic charge of its own in the Chinese tradition of jade: it is a modern jewellery cut, Western in origin. I say so rather than inventing a history for it.
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.
Imperial greenThe market calls imperial green a clear, translucent green, and the phrase circulates with no fixed definition: it is neither a standard, nor an official grading, nor a guarantee of anything. I use it on none of my pages.
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.
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.
