White jade disc necklace: a small pierced bi, cut from a single stone of a white barely tinged with green, knotted on a braided red cord with pale beads. Sliding knot, no metal.
On a white the weighing separates badly: dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90. So I will also look at the grain and the holding of the edge, and I will publish all three.
The stone is not a porcelain white but a translucent white tinged with green, exactly as in the photographs. Why I write it down.
A white jade disc necklace: a small bi pierced at the centre, cut from a single stone of a very pale white barely tinged with green, knotted on a braided red cord punctuated with pale beads. The length is set by a sliding knot, and there is no metal at all.
In four lines
A small pierced bi, cut from a single stone of a white barely tinged with green.
Braided red cord, pale beads, sliding knot.
No metal: no clasp, no bail, no ring.
The record will be published, with an observation of grain as well as the figure.
The same piece as the green, and a harder stone
It is the twin of the red cord necklace with a green jade disc: same disc, same cord, same beads, only the colour of the stone changes. And that change complicates the work of verification.
On a deep green, density separates cleanly: serpentine around 2.6, quartzite around 2.65, nephrite from 2.90. The gap is frank. On a white a fourth candidate invites itself in, dolomitic marble, sold under the name of white jade, which reaches 2.85.
2.85 against 2.90, five hundredths. That is too little to conclude on the figure alone, and I prefer to write it rather than publish a measurement while letting it be thought that it settles everything.
What I will look at besides the figure
The grain, in grazing light. A marble is made of calcite or dolomite crystals big enough to be seen: the surface sparkles in small facets when you turn it. A nephrite is made of interlocked needles, far finer: it shows a matt and even felting, with no point of brilliance.
The second thing is the holding of the edge. The rim of this disc’s hole is sharp and clean; on a marble, which is soft and not very tough, an edge that fine blunts and chips during drilling. That it has stayed frank is a sign in favour of jade.
It has to be said to avoid disappointment on opening: the stone is not a porcelain white. It is very pale, slightly tinged with green, and it lets the light through on the rim of the hole where it thins.
That is in fact what distinguishes it from a marble, which would be more opaque and colder in tone. This white turning towards water green is exactly what is expected of a pale nephrite, and it is the same as the gallery photographs show, unretouched.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the white disc 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 buckle of peaceThe contemporary Chinese name of the disc, ping an kou, says buckle of peace. The wish is modest and precise: to pass without trouble. It is given for a departure or a move elsewhere, and it commits to nothing more.
Mutton fat whiteOld Chinese taste placed at the summit the white nephrites called mutton fat, taken from Xinjiang. The hierarchy reversed in the eighteenth century with the arrival of the green jadeites from Burma, and green imposed itself by fashion.
The red that wards offRed is the colour that repels bad luck throughout the Chinese world, from New Year envelopes to the doors of houses. A red cord is never a neutral choice, and here it is all the more visible because the stone is pale.
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.
The wrong size is the main reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes of measuring almost always prevents it. The size guide.
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.
