Where My Jade Comes From

The rule that governs all the others: no Burmese jadeite

Burma produces most of the world’s gem quality jadeite, and in particular the intense green the trade calls imperial. That is a fact, and it makes this refusal expensive. I hold to it anyway, and the first reason is not a moral one.

What American law said, and says now

The Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008 banned the import into the United States of jadeite and rubies of Burmese origin, wherever they had last been cut. That ban was lifted on 7 October 2016, by presidential executive order 13742. After the 2021 coup, the United States answered differently: on 8 April 2021, the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state company that controls the Burmese gem trade, without restoring a general ban.

This shop also serves an American market. The official channel for Burmese jade runs through an entity an American may not trade with, and a stone never says where it has been. One supply chain for ten markets, and it has to hold up in the most demanding of them.

What Europe does, and what it does not

This nuance is almost always distorted, including by sellers in good faith, so I write it exactly.

And the ethical argument, which stands on its own

Global Witness put Burmese production at up to 31 billion dollars for the single year 2014, under the control of military networks, in a country whose health budget was then counted in hundreds of millions.

And the human cost can be read in the landslides at the Hpakant mines, where people scavenge the spoil left by the big machines. The one at Wai Khar, on 2 July 2020, killed between 175 and 200 miners in a single morning.

I have no way of guaranteeing that a Burmese stone I bought would be unconnected to that. Which is why the rule is a plain refusal rather than a vigilance charter.

What I ask a supplier, and what I get

Here is the real chain, without dressing it up. I am a small volume buyer: I have neither the weight of a trader, nor an auditor on site.

What I ask for

The mineral, the country of extraction, the country of cutting, and the treatment status.

What I often get

The stated mineral and the country of cutting. The country of extraction travels less well: one crate can hold several lots.

What I do not get

The treatment status. My supplier does not know it, and says so. What that implies, in detail.

What I check myself

The mineral, by hydrostatic weighing, when the stone reaches me bare. It is the only thing I can establish without taking anyone’s word for it.

When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the product page does not state it. A plausible country is an invented country. So you will see product pages that name their origin and others that leave the line empty, and the absence is information.

The origins I look for

There is jade outside Burma, and that is where I look.

• Guatemalan jadeite, from the Motagua valley. It is the second deposit of gem jadeite in the world, the one of the Olmec and Maya cultures, and the only significant channel that raises neither the American question nor the sanctions question.
• Nephrite, far more widely spread: China, Siberia, British Columbia, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan. It is the material of white jades and deep greens, and it is easier to source cleanly.

A word about New Zealand, because I am asked: pounamu has been the property of the Ngāi Tahu Māori iwi since 1997, and both its extraction and its trade are regulated. I sell none. What pounamu stands for.

Where jade is found in the world, deposit by deposit.

Estonia has nothing to do with jade, and I do not suggest otherwise

My business is registered in Tallinn, and that is where I work from. Estonia has no jade deposit, no lapidary tradition and no cutting workshop. No stone in this shop was mined, cut or polished here.

I write it because the opposite device is common: suggesting a kinship between a place and a stone with a workshop photo and two adjectives. France has no worked jade deposit either, which does not stop jade from having a long European history, and a Breton one in part.

What I do is choose the pieces and have them set. I do not mine, I do not cut, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. The whole story.

If you find a mistake

An origin charter is only worth something if it can be caught out. If a provenance on a product page looks wrong to you, write to me: I correct the page, and if the doubt covers the whole lot, I pull the listing from sale while I work out what happened.

• Report something to me
• Hydrostatic weighing
• The treatment information sheet
• The Burmese bracelet case