Jade drop earrings: an oval water green cabochon, closed set in the hollow of a gilt mount shaped like an elongated petal whose lower point is paved with small pale stones. They close with a lever back, the safest fastening there is.
In four lines
An oval water green cabochon, closed set in a gilt petal.
The lower point paved with small pale stones, not announced.
Lever back fastening: they cannot fall off on their own.
The record will stay empty: a closed setting forbids weighing.
The lever back, and why it is the right fastening
The hook tilts and clips into a small housing behind the lobe. That system is called a lever back, because you could sleep in it without losing it, and it is by far the safest fastening for drop earrings.
Compare it with the simple hook, an open fish hook, found on most of the drops in this catalogue: it unhooks at an unlucky movement, in a scarf or a roll neck. A lever back does not unhook, and that is a real reason to choose this model rather than another.
Its other advantage is that it holds the piece straight against the lobe instead of letting it pivot. The drop stays facing forward, and the pave returns the light in the right place. All the earrings in the section.
Why this page will carry no figure
The stone is held by a closed setting, a collar of metal folded down over the whole edge of the cabochon. It is the setting that best protects a domed stone, and it is also the one that makes it impossible to take out.
To weigh it you would have to open the collar along its whole length, so deform an openwork mount that does not come back into shape cleanly. I am not going to damage a piece to obtain a figure, and I prefer to write that limit rather than pass over it in silence.
The Mineral line of the record will therefore say what my supplier announces, and nothing more. It is flagged as not established, and it will stay so on this reference. The method, with its three limits.
What the stone shows all the same
A closed setting does not stop you looking. The cabochon is a pale, frankly translucent water green: the light passes through it and lights the metal from below, which gives the piece its almost milky look.
That translucency is a good sign, without proving anything: fine serpentine lets the light through too. The colour, on the other hand, is soft and a little irregular, with paler zones, and that is not what a dye gives, since a dye looks for uniformity and brilliance.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to jade
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are customs and beliefs, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
Jade at the earsThe jueshi, slit jade rings worn at the ear, are among the oldest known Chinese ornaments: examples are found in Neolithic burials, long before the discs and the belt pendants.
The drop, a shape with no messageThe drop silhouette has no reading of its own in the Chinese tradition, where it is the carved motifs that carry meaning. It is a shape of jewellery, widespread everywhere, and there is nothing more to say about it.
The water green of scholarly tasteVery pale jades were long preferred to vivid greens in cultivated Chinese taste, where discretion counts more than brilliance. The fashion for intense green is recent, and largely commercial.
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.
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.
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.
