Jade dragon pendant: a plaque of soft green speckled stone, carved in relief over its whole height, hung from a braided brown cord with a red agate bead.
Those born in 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 and 2024 belong to this sign. Check the exact date before giving it: the Chinese year starts between 21 January and 20 February, so a January birth belongs to the previous sign.
The length is set by a sliding knot, nothing to measure. The red bead is agate, not jade. Why I write it down.
A jade dragon pendant: a plaque of soft green speckled stone, carved in relief over its whole height, hung from a braided brown cord with a red agate bead. The dragon is carved coiled on himself, mane spread and claws out, among clouds.
In four lines
The Dragon of the Chinese zodiac, carved in relief in the mass.
Speckled soft green plaque, braided brown cord, red agate bead.
Adjustable length by sliding knot: nothing to measure.
The red bead is agate, not jade, and the page says so.
The Dragon in the Chinese zodiac
Those born in 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 and 2024 belong to this sign.
Those years are approximate, and that matters. The Chinese year does not begin on 1 January but between 21 January and 20 February, following the lunisolar calendar. Someone born in January or early February usually belongs to the previous sign, so check the exact date before giving this.
The Dragon comes fifth, although he could fly. He stopped on the way, says the legend, to bring rain to a village in need of it.
Tradition lends him drive and good fortune, with a taste for the grand gesture. He is the only one of the twelve that does not exist, and the most sought after of them all.
A carved plaque, and what the stone allows
The subject is not engraved on the surface, it is released in relief within the thickness of the plaque: the ground is cut away, the scrolls stand clear, and some parts are almost pierced through. That is work you cannot do on a brittle stone.
Jade takes it thanks to its toughness, the interlocked crystal structure that resists a crack spreading. This is not hardness: it is the property that made jade into axes before it made it into jewels. Hardness and toughness, two different things.
The stone is a speckled soft green, lighter in places and deeper in others. That irregularity is the opposite of a warning sign: a perfectly even colour is what dyeing produces, not formation.
The mounting, and what can be checked
The brown cord is braided and sets by a sliding knot: pull to shorten, spread to lengthen. No length to choose when ordering, and it wears as well short at the throat as long on the chest.
The red bead above the plaque is agate, a chalcedony. It is not jade, and its deep red most often comes from heating, an old process considered stable. I note it in the record rather than letting it pass as jade.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the sign and 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.
The race of the twelveThe Dragon comes fifth, although he could fly. He stopped on the way, says the legend, to bring rain to a village in need of it.
What is attributed to the DragonTradition lends him drive and good fortune, with a taste for the grand gesture. He is the only one of the twelve that does not exist, and the most sought after of them all.
The year of your own signContrary to what you might expect, the year of your own sign is held to be unlucky, and many wear red that year to guard against it. It is one of the liveliest superstitions of the Chinese calendar, and it holds for all twelve.
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.
Dispatched within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no buffer stock, and I won’t promise a timeframe I couldn’t meet.
Postage charges
€6.99 to any destination, free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount appears in the cart before you pay.
The packaging, and why it matters
Every piece ships in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This isn’t about presentation: the hardness of jade is ordinary, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together end up scratching each other.
Fourteen days to change your mind
With no need to explain yourself. An email is enough to open a return, there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece doesn’t match its listing or arrives damaged.
Warm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That’s all, and it’s enough.
What you must never do, and why
No ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. This isn’t a token precaution: the treatment status of my pieces is not established. My supplier doesn’t know, and weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin tolerates 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 hard to break: its interlocking crystal structure resists fracturing, and that is why axes could be shaped from it 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 sits at 7: that is what dulls 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 the knocks against corners happen. 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. I’m French, from Morbihan, and based in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and I don’t do the metalwork myself. The work I do is the sorting, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am neither a gemmologist, nor a lapidary, nor a therapist, and I don’t claim to be.
I weigh, I don’t 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, not every piece. I don’t handle the piece that goes out to you, and I would rather say so than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I can’t know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier doesn’t know, and the scales say nothing about it: they establish the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I don’t have that done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where my jade comes from
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is a legal one. Not the reason you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did indeed 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-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no general ban, but an American is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has passed through. One single supply chain for ten markets: it has to hold up for the most demanding of them. When an origin isn’t confirmed to me in writing, the listing doesn’t state it. My sourcing policy.
