Apple green jade bracelet: wide slabs in a frank, almost acid green, joined edge to edge on a double elastic.
A vivid green points towards jadeite, coloured by chromium, rather than nephrite, which iron makes dark. It can also come from a dyed quartzite, and the scale settles it: 2.65 is confused with nothing.
Plaques wider than the other models in the section, so a more massive and heavier bracelet. Treatment status undetermined.Why I write it down.
An apple green jade bracelet: wide slabs in a frank, almost acid green, joined edge to edge on a double elastic. It is the most assertive colour in the bracelet section, and the one on which the most questions have to be asked before buying.
In four lines
Wide slabs, wider than on the other plaque models in the section.
A frank, vivid green, sustained from one end of the row to the other.
Joined edge to edge on two elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
Apple green, and where that colour comes from
In jadeite, a sodium aluminium pyroxene, the frankest greens come from chromium: it is the same element that gives emerald its colour, and it produces vivid greens, sometimes almost fluorescent. In nephrite, an amphibole, the green comes from iron and always turns towards the dark and the dull.
A sustained apple green therefore points towards jadeite rather than nephrite. Points, I say: the weighing alone will establish the species, and the two density intervals are far apart, 3.25 at least against 2.90 to 3.03. What separates the two minerals.
The other hypothesis must be stated too, and it is a frequent one: a vivid and perfectly even green is exactly what a dyed quartzite produces, sold under the name of Malaysia jade. There again the scale settles it, because 2.65 is confused with nothing.
Wide slabs, and what they weigh
The plaques of this model are appreciably wider than those of the other bracelets in the same format. Fewer are needed to go round, and each one takes up more of the wrist: the effect is more massive, less jewel and more object.
It is also heavier. A bracelet of wide stone slabs has a real weight you feel at the end of a day, especially if you work at a keyboard. That is not a defect, it is a fact: some look for it, others prefer a row of fine beads.
As on all the plaque models, the slabs are drilled with two holes and threaded on two parallel elastics. The ring stays flat and does not pivot.
What you can check yourself
Look at the drill hole. On a dyed stone the colourant concentrates there and the rim is darker than the rest. The colour also follows the micro cracks, in a network, instead of spreading through the mass: on a green this vivid, that network is spotted against the light without a loupe.
Then look at whether the slabs are all exactly the same green. On a stone they should not be. Perfect regularity over a dozen pieces is the simplest sign of colouring. The checks that need no equipment.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to vivid green
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 green of the emperorsThe frank, sustained green is the one the imperial courts sought from the eighteenth century, when jadeite arrived from Burma. Before it, the jade of China was nephrite, and it was dark or white. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Wearing a colour that showsA vivid green has never been a colour of discretion, and scholarly texts prefer the dull tones to it. It is a quarrel of taste that runs through centuries and is not settled.
The jade you patinate by handA row of beads worn every day ends by taking a polish the workshop does not give. Tradition sees in it an exchange between the stone and its wearer; it is mostly friction, and it is quite real.
The polish, and what is read in itThe scholarly tradition associates jade with a soft rather than a sharp gloss, and makes of it an image of restraint. It is an aesthetic reading turned moral, not an observation about the stone.
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.
Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids it. The size guide.
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.
