Jewelry Blog

>The Chinese call Jade “The Stone Of Heaven”. They treasured Jade beyond any other stone. The Chinese centered their culture around Jade. Since Jade is a very hard stone (6.5) they found that it made a good tool like an ax head and other hammering and cutting tools since at that time, the tool choices were rocks, wood and crystals (no metals were known at this time).

The stone “Nephrite” is a stone found in China. It is a green stone that fooled the ancient Chinese and they treasured it as Jade. They did not know the difference between the two stones.

Nephrite is still sold as Jade. It is hard to know if a stone is Nephrite or Jade without tests. Nephrite is a softer stone (6.0). Nephrite is found in the NW area of China. The Chinese still cut and carve this stone today for the worlds market and many times it is mistaken for Jade. Besides the difference of the hardness between the two stones, there are also structured noticeably different from one another with Nephrite the fibrous structure of the stone is looser interwoven filtrons structure, whereas Jade (Jadeite) has a very tight interlocking granular structure.

True Jadeite is found in Burma, California, Guatemala, Russia, Japan, Hawaii, AND Switzerland. The Jadeite found in Burma is then cut and carved in many of the Asian countries like Burma, Thailand, and China and then sold. Jadeite from Burma was not introduced into the Chinese market before the late 1800’s. Replacement of nephrite by Burmese Jadeite came quickly as the preferred stone, due to the unique colors of the Burmese Jadeite (green, lavender, yellow and orange, and its greater translucent quality. Today Jadeite from Burma suggests fine quality Jadeite. This is why we travel to the oriental countries ourselves and hand select the Jadeite that we have made into our very own designed jewelry.

Because Jadeite is hard, durable and resistant to most chemicals, caring for this stone is safe and simple (soap and water will clean it nicely).