Green jade necklace, a strand of round nephrite beads threaded on doubled thread, metal clasp. A deep green, opaque, even from one bead to the next.
The length is chosen above the buy button. On a strand worn often, the thread wears out before the stone: it gets redone, and there is nothing abnormal about it.
Strung on thread, so not weighable: the clasp and the thread skew the measurement, no figure will be published. Treatment status not determined. What you can check yourself.
A green jade necklace strung as a single strand of round nephrite beads, threaded on doubled thread and closed by a small metal clasp. The green is deep, opaque, and even from one bead to the next. It is precisely that evenness that deserves a pause.
In four lines
A strand of round nephrite beads, on doubled thread, metal clasp.
A deep green, opaque, even from one bead to the next.
Strung on thread, so not weighable: no figure will be published on this reference.
What you can check yourself is written further down, drill holes included.
A green that even is worth discussing
On a natural stone, the colour varies. A strand whose forty beads have exactly the same green comes from severe sorting, or from something else. I cannot settle it from a photograph, and I will not do so here: I have neither unset, nor weighed, nor had this necklace analysed, and its treatment status is not determined, like that of this whole catalogue.
What I can do is give you what I look at myself when a strand arrives. The drill hole is the place that speaks first: on a dyed stone, the dye concentrates there and the rim around the hole is darker than the rest of the bead. The colour also follows micro cracks, in a network, instead of spreading through the mass. Look at a bead against the light, near a window. The checks that need no equipment.
Nephrite, and what that word changes
The beads of this green jade necklace are 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 and leans towards spinach, where that of jadeite comes from chromium and rings clearer. Nephrite is also the tougher of the two: its structure of interlocking fibres resists cracking even better, which made it the material of Neolithic polished axes. Its hardness, on the other hand, stays ordinary, 6 to 6.5. The difference between hardness and toughness.
The thread, and why it gets redone
The beads are strung on doubled thread, that is, two strands passed through each bead. It holds better, and above all it does not let go all at once. On a strand worn often, the thread wears out before the stone: that is normal, and any jeweller can redo it. A necklace that lengthens or whose beads start to turn freely is a necklace to restring.
Store it flat rather than hanging: hung up, the strand pulls on its own weight all year. And put it on after the perfume, never before. Storing a jade piece.
Why I write green jade necklace, and not simply jade necklace
Because the word jade on its own does not say much. What is sold under that name is very often serpentine, labelled “new jade” or “Korean jade”, or dyed quartzite, sold as “Malaysia jade”. None of those names designates jade.
On a bare stone, the scale settles it: the four markers in the record are separated by far more than the uncertainty of a kitchen scale. On a strung strand it settles nothing, and this page writes that rather than letting you believe otherwise. That is also why none of my pages carries the words certified, guaranteed or appraised: I weigh, I do not certify.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Clear green
Stone shape
Round beads
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Bead strand
Setting
Drilled stone
Worn by
Unisex
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 necklace
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 worn at the neck 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.
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 strand of beadsThe necklace of round beads is a late form, come from modern trade, whereas the pierced disc and the pendant are attested from the Neolithic. The age of the stone is not the age of the object.
Green and growthDeep green is, in several Asian traditions, the colour of what grows and renews itself. The association is old and wide; it says nothing about the stone itself.
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.
