Jade and zircon earrings: a ball of green stone under a collar of openwork petals, hung from a silver tone hook paved with small brilliant cut stones.
Zircon is a natural mineral, not to be confused with cubic zirconia, which is synthetic. My supplier announces zircons, I take up his word and I stop there.
The ball is not set, only threaded: it comes off, so it can be weighed. Why I write it down.
Jade and zircon earrings: a ball of green stone capped with a collar of openwork petals, hung from a silver tone hook whose whole stem is paved with small brilliant cut stones. The light starts at the top and comes down to the ball.
In four lines
A ball of green stone under a collar of openwork petals.
A silver tone hook paved with zircons along the whole stem.
The zircons are not jade, and the page names them.
The record will be published: the ball comes off, so it can be weighed.
Zircon is not a fake diamond
The word drags a bad reputation behind it, and it is half deserved. Two things have to be separated. Zircon is a natural mineral, a zirconium silicate, which exists colourless and has been brilliant cut for centuries: it is a real stone, not an imitation.
Cubic zirconia, on the other hand, is an unrelated synthetic product, created in a laboratory in the nineteen seventies, and it is what is found in the vast majority of cheap jewellery. The two carry almost the same name, which keeps the confusion alive.
My supplier announces zircons. I take up his word and I stop there: I have no means of telling one from the other, and the record writes it as announced. What is certain is that these are not diamonds, and that nobody here claims they are.
A ball under a collar
The stone is not set: it is simply threaded on a post that passes through its drilling, and the collar of openwork petals rests on top of it like a small hat. Nothing grips the ball, nothing glues it.
It is a mounting with two merits. It does not constrain the stone, so there is no risk of its splitting under the pressure of a badly made setting. And it allows the stone to be taken off, so to be weighed, which is not the case for the closed set cabochons in the section.
The drawback is that a threaded ball turns freely on its post. That is not a fault here, since it is round, but it would explain why the collar does not always stay perfectly aligned. All the earrings in the section.
What the weighing will be able to establish
The ball is a frank green, fairly deep, with paler zones that appear against the light. That variation follows the thickness, which is the behaviour of a colour present in the mass rather than laid on the surface.
It is not a proof. What is sold under the name of jade is very often serpentine, around 2.6, or dyed quartzite, around 2.65, when nephrite starts at 2.90. On a green of this intensity the gap is clear and the figure will settle it.
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.
A stone that is not facetedJade is never brilliant cut, and that is not a question of fashion: its fibrous structure lacks the transparency that brings a facet alive. The cabochon and the bead are the shapes that suit it, and that is why it stands here beside faceted stones.
Wearing little, and for a long timeThe old usage was not to accumulate: a single piece, kept for decades and often handed on, was worth more than a collection. It is a point on which Chinese tradition and contemporary jewellery do not say the same thing.
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.
