White jade pendant, a pierced nephrite disc, thick and domed on both faces. Threaded on a braided cord, with a red bead above it. No metal.
The shape is called a peace buckle: no sharp edge, no point, which is exactly what a stone of ordinary hardness needs.
Bare stone, therefore weighable, which is rare for a white in this shop. The figure will be published here with its date. Treatment status not determined.
A white jade pendant cut as a pierced disc, thick and domed on both faces, in a clear white with a slightly greasy lustre. It is threaded on a dark braided cord, with a red bead sitting just above the hole. No metal touches the stone.
In four lines
A thick pierced disc, domed on both faces, with no sharp edge and no point.
On a braided cord, with a red bead not identified. No metal.
Bare stone, therefore weighable: the figure will be published here, with its date.
On a white, the weighing cuts less cleanly, and this page explains why.
A white that can be weighed, which is rare in this shop
The other white pieces in the catalogue are mounted, and a mounted piece cannot be weighed: the metal has a density of its own, the thread absorbs water. Here, the cord simply passes through the hole. The disc comes free in a minute and becomes a bare stone again.
That said, on a white the scale is less decisive than elsewhere, and I prefer to write it: dolomitic marble sits around 2.85 where nephrite starts at 2.90. Four or five hundredths of a gap, where green and serpentine have thirty. The figure will be true, it will be less conclusive. That is what a kitchen scale and a glass of water are worth, and that is all I promise. The three limits of the weighing.
The greasy lustre, and what it is worth as a clue
This white is not a porcelain white: it has a greasy or waxy lustre, between wax and soap, more matte than a glass and deeper than an enamel. It is what the structure of nephrite produces, interlocking fibres that scatter the light at the surface instead of returning it as a block.
It is a clue, not a proof, and I am not going to write it otherwise. A well polished marble comes close to it, and a very high polish brings a nephrite closer to the glassy. Look also at the translucency at the edge, in front of a lamp: a nephrite lets light through over a few millimetres, a marble stops it sooner. The checks that need no equipment.
The pierced disc, a shape with a name
This flat ring with a central hole is called in China the peace buckle. It is an old shape, smaller and thicker than the great Bi disc of Neolithic burials from which it descends, and it is worn drilled, with no mount, exactly as here.
Its merit is very concrete: no sharp edge, no point, no corner. Jade is very tough, its interlocking structure stops a crack from spreading, but its hardness stays ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite. It is the fine edges that chip, and a domed disc has none. The difference between hardness and toughness.
White, an old colour
Today’s market overvalues intense green. Ancient China placed white jade very high, and for centuries: jadeite, the stone of clear greens, only reaches China in the 18th century, and everything before that is nephrite. The hierarchy of colours is a matter of period, not of nature. The colours of jade.
The two minerals are not related at all: jadeite is a pyroxene, nephrite an amphibole, and it was Alexis Damour who separated them in 1863. What sets them apart. The cord, for its part, wears out before the stone and can be replaced: thread and cord on a jade piece.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
White
Stone shape
Pierced disc
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Braided cord
Metal
None
Setting
Drilled stone
Worn by
Unisex
Paired stones
Red bead, not identified
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 6.5
Reference density
2.90 to 3.03 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to a jade pendant
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece of jewellery in this shop is sold as a treatment, and I claim no effect for this one.
The stone worn against the skinJade takes the temperature of the body in a few minutes and keeps it. That is a physical property, conductivity, and several traditions have made something quite different of it. I stay with the first.
The peace buckleThe small pierced disc carries in Chinese a name that translates as peace buckle, and it descends from the great Bi disc of Neolithic burials. It is one of the rare shapes of jade whose traditional name is attested and stable.
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.
White, an old colourAncient China placed white jade very high, long before the clear greens the market seeks today: jadeite only reaches China in the 18th century. The hierarchy of colours is a matter of period.
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.
