Vivid green jade earrings: two large balls of a frank green mottled with white, drilled and hung from gilt clip hoops. The deepest colour in the catalogue.
Sold under reserve on the stone. The white patches stop short instead of melting in, and that is the pattern of a colourant on a grainy rock, not of a colour of formation.
The balls come off, so the mineral will be settled. But dyeing cannot be weighed. Why I write it down.
Vivid green jade earrings: two large balls of a frank green mottled with white, drilled and hung from gilt clip hoops. It is the deepest colour in the whole catalogue, and the dearest pair in the section.
In four lines
Two large balls of a frank green, mottled with white.
Gilt clip hoops: they go on with one hand.
Sold under reserve: the colour is that of dyed quartzite.
The record will be published: the ball comes off, so it can be weighed.
The frankest colour in the catalogue, and that is what should alert you
These balls are a brilliant green, far deeper than anything else in the section, and crossed by milky white patches with sharp edges. The effect is spectacular in a photograph, and that is precisely why it has to be looked at closely.
On a nephrite the passage from green to white is gradual, because the colour follows the density of the fibres and that varies slowly. Here the patches stop short and draw streaks: that is what a colourant gives when it meets a less porous zone of a grainy rock. Dyed quartzite is often recognised by that pattern.
There is a second argument, and it is economic. A natural jadeite of that green, at this size, does not sell at the price of this page, nor at a tenth of it. I am not saying it is certain, I am saying that is what my supplier’s photograph shows and that I have no right to keep quiet about it. The names that do not denote jade.
What the weighing will be able to do, and what it will not
Good news on one point: unlike the closed set cabochons in the section, these balls come off. They are threaded on a looped post under the hoop, so they come out with pliers without breaking anything, and they are large enough to give a measurement with little noise.
The figure will therefore settle the mineral: quartzite runs around 2.65, nephrite starts at 2.90, jadeite at 3.25. There is no grey zone between those values, and the result will be readable without interpretation.
But it will say nothing about dyeing. A dyed quartzite and a bare quartzite weigh exactly the same: the scale establishes the mineral, not what has been put into it. Only a laboratory analysis would separate the two, and I do not have that done. The treatment information sheet.
What you are buying all the same
Two large, well rounded balls, mirror polished, and a clip hoop that goes on with one hand without hunting for the hole. The volume is the most generous in the section, and the pair is seen from a distance, which is exactly what is asked of it.
The weight stays reasonable because the ring is hollow, but these balls weigh more than any others in the catalogue: if your lobes are fragile, look rather at the studs or the small beads in the section.
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.
Vivid green, a recent fashionThe taste for very saturated greens comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, which only reaches China in the eighteenth century. Old scholarly taste far preferred pale and muted stones, and judged brilliance a little vulgar.
Dyeing a stone is nothing newThe dyeing of porous stones is attested since antiquity, from Roman agate to the chalcedonies of Idar Oberstein. It is not a modern fraud, it is an old trade, which becomes a problem only when the process is kept quiet.
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.
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.
