Fine jade necklace: a very light gilt chain carrying small oval jade beads in a sage green, spaced out and separated by tiny white beads. Long and supple.
A spacer necklace: ten times less stone than a full row, so almost no weight at the neck, and a chain that follows the skin instead of forming a rigid circle.
The beads do not all have the same tint, and that is good news: perfect uniformity would be suspect, not irregularity. Why I write it down.
A fine jade necklace: a very light gilt chain on which small oval jade beads in a sage green are mounted at regular intervals, separated by tiny white beads. It is long, supple, and almost without weight at the neck.
In four lines
Small oval sage green beads, spaced along a gilt chain.
Tiny white beads between them, not announced.
Long and very light: it is not felt at the neck.
The record will be published: a bead comes off the example ordered.
A spacer necklace, and why that changes everything
Most jade necklaces are full rows: the beads touch, the weight adds up, and the whole ends by being heavy. This one is a spacer necklace, where each bead is set between two links, separated from the next by several centimetres of chain.
The result holds in three things. It is light, because there is ten times less stone. It is supple, because the chain bends where a tight row stays stiff. And it follows the skin instead of forming a rigid circle, which makes it far more discreet under clothing.
Its counterpart is the relative fragility of the mounting: if a link gives way, a bead goes. It is not a piece to wear for odd jobs, and it is better taken off before pulling on a roll neck jumper. How to store a jade piece.
A sage green, not a shop window green
The beads are not a brilliant green. They turn towards sage, a soft grey green, slightly cloudy, and their tint varies from one bead to the next: some are almost beige, others frankly green.
That variation is good news, and I prefer to announce it rather than let it be discovered. On a natural stone, beads cut from different blocks cannot be identical. It is perfect uniformity that would be suspect, not irregularity.
The tiny white beads that separate them are not announced by my supplier: he writes neither cultured pearl, nor glass, nor mother of pearl. They therefore appear in the record as not announced, and I will not guess in his place.
What the weighing will be able to establish
The beads are mounted between two links, and a link opens with pliers without breaking anything. On the example I order, I will take one off, weigh it in air then suspended in water, and put it back. Never on a piece being sold.
A bead of this size is small, and the lighter a sample the noisier the measurement: it is one of the three limits of the method, and I flag it here because it applies in full. The method, with its three limits.
The gap between the candidates stays wide, however, serpentine around 2.6, quartzite around 2.65, nephrite from 2.90, so even an imperfect measurement will say something. The figure will be published in the record, with its date. What separates the two minerals, and all the necklaces in the section.
Additional information
Stone
Jadeite or nephrite, not resolved
Color
Light green
Stone shape
Barrel beads
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Chain
Metal
Gold tone, alloy not stated
Setting
Drilled stone
Worn by
Women
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole, Sodium aluminum pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 7
Reference density
2.90 to 3.36 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes 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 sound of the pendantsChinese scholars wore jades hung from the belt, whose chiming regulated their walk: too brisk a step made them knock together, a measured step let them sing. The sound of jade served as a call to order, and the rituals codified it.
Wearing little, and for a long timeThe old usage was not to accumulate: a single piece, kept for decades and often handed on, was worth more than a collection. It is a point on which Chinese tradition and contemporary jewellery do not say the same thing.
The green that does not shoutSoft, greyed greens were preferred by scholarly taste, for which the restraint of a stone was worth more than its brilliance. The fashion for saturated greens came with Burmese jadeite, only in the eighteenth century.
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.
Shipped within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from the day it ships. I keep no buffer stock, and I will not promise a date I cannot meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 no matter the destination, and free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The exact amount shows in your cart before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece leaves in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not about presentation: jade’s hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust rates 7. Two pieces of jewelry that travel together arrive scratched.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No reason needed. One email opens a return, and there is no form to fill out. Return shipping is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Getting the size wrong is the leading cause of returns 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.
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 cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. The reason is not caution for its own sake: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier cannot tell me, and the weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The treatment information page.
The Scratch, and Where It Comes From
Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it possible to turn it into axes 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 rates 7, and that is what dulls a jade, not impacts. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and lotion, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening, and sports, where the hard knocks happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone does: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. I am French, from Morbihan in Brittany, and I live in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I carve nothing, and I do not do the metalwork myself. What I bring is the sorting, and with this material the sorting decides everything.
I am not a gemologist, a lapidary, or a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not 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, and not every piece. I never handle the piece that ships to you, and I would rather say so plainly than let anyone believe otherwise. The method, with its three limitations.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier cannot tell me, and neither can the scale: it establishes the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only laboratory infrared spectroscopy would settle the question, and I do not have that testing done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information page.
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 October 7, 2016. What applies today dates from April 8, 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but an American is not allowed to do business with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. I run one supply chain for ten markets, and it has to stand up to the strictest one. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin policy.
