Yellow jade earrings: a small tube of water green stone veined with white, topped by a bead of translucent honey yellow, the two hung side by side from a gilt clip hoop. The yellow is the colour that gives the model its name.
In four lines
A tube of water green veined with white and a honey yellow bead.
The two side by side on a gilt clip hoop.
The yellow bead is not announced as jade, and the page says so.
The record will be published: the charms unhook, so they can be weighed.
One photograph for several models, and what I did about it
It has to be said, because it is the kind of detail discovered on delivery. My supplier’s listing shows several models in one image, laid side by side as though they formed a pair. They are not pairs, they are variants to choose from.
So I cropped the image to the one model sold here, the green tube and the yellow bead. You will receive two earrings identical to the one in the photograph, not one of each model.
I flag it rather than let the image speak: a product page that shows two different pieces and sells only one is misleading, even unintentionally. All the earrings in the section.
Two stones, and only one is announced as jade
The water green tube is the one my supplier sells under the name of jade. It is veined with white on the diagonal, with a visible gradation from green to milky, and that is exactly the kind of irregularity a natural stone shows.
The yellow bead, for its part, is announced under no name at all. It is translucent, a very clean honey yellow, and it could as easily be an agate, a chalcedony or a resin. The record writes it as not announced, and I will not guess in my supplier’s place.
That is why the weighing will be on the tube and not on the bead: measuring a material nobody names would prove nothing useful.
What the weighing will be able to establish
The tube is drilled right through and mounted on a post with a ring. It comes off by opening the ring with pliers, with no glue to break, and I will do it on the example I order, never on a piece being sold.
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. The gap is clear and the figure will settle it.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to yellow 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.
The colour of the emperorUnder the Ming and the Qing, yellow was a colour reserved for the sovereign, forbidden to common people for clothing and roofs. A yellow jade was therefore nothing trivial, and court pieces carry the mark of it.
Just after whiteIn the hierarchy of the Xinjiang nephrites, honey yellow came second behind mutton fat white. The connoisseurs' treatises of the Qing rank it so, and the prices of old sales confirm it.
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 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.
