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Subject:The Rarest Nephrite Jade Color
Posted By: Bill Wed, Aug 22, 2007 IP: 192.55.208.10

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the different colors of nephrite jades that are naturally available based on both Chinese and English literature regarding this subject. Since ancient time, Chinese like to describe nephrite by their natural colors. They love both yellow and white jades. At the same time, based on my limited experience, I will also try to render my personal opinion on the rarity of the different nephrite colors. Of course, since these are only my personal opinions, they can very well be off the mark and hopefully jade collectors who are reading this thread will give their personal opinion regarding the rarity of each nephrite jade color with or without pictures. The importance of these discussions are of two-fold:

(1) With a better understanding of the natural colors of nephrite, a collector may be more cautious in the acquisitions of nephrite jade carvings that are with unnatural colors which may be resulted from dyeing or other artificial process. A collector will learn in how to avoid buying non-jade carvings because their colors are simply not that of natural nephrite.
(2) With a better understanding of the rarity of certain types of nephrite (color), a collector may be able to better appraise and authenticate a piece of jade carving due to the scarcity and uniqueness of such jade material. Many unique-colored nephrite jades were found in certain localities and were used to carve certain jades during certain eras.

The discussion of nephrite colors in ancient Chinese literature

During the Shang dynasty, they categorized the color of nephrite into: Bai (white), Chi (red or scarlet), Hei (black) and Wu (mixed colors). At that time, there was no such word as Lu (Green). There was also no such word �Qing� (pale green, blue green, dark green) found in the oracle bone scripts. Therefore, were there any �green� jades found in Shang tombs. The answer is yes. There were jades with different degrees of greenness (not as bright green as jadeite) from Shang tombs. Some were yellowish-brown, some brownish-green, some grayish-white, only a few yellow and not that many black. Therefore, it indicates the preference of white nephrite jades did not start with Shang dynasty. Yellowish-green jades were the most popular at that time.

During the Qin and Han (Eastern and Western) dynasties, the colors �Lu:� (green), Cang (bluish green, yellowish green) and Qing (pale green, blue green, dark green) are always associated with jade colors. However, Qing color can mean blue, green or black color. (*I have seen a lot of jade carving pictures listed on many Chinese jade books that are labeled as Qing jades but they look more yellow than green to me.) The word �Cang� is hard to understand. It is usually used to describe the color of the sky (bluish green), e.g., Cang Tien. It is also used as Cang Bi (A cang-color jade bi) and Cang Yu (a cang-color jade). According to ancient Chinese literature, Cang is very similar to the color of �grass�, from fresh grass (bluish-green) to dried grass (yellowish-green). Since there is no such thing as �blue jade�, Qing jade can be jades with color from black to green; Cang jades are jades with color from green to yellow. Therefore, the literature from both Qin and Han dynasties are very ambiguous in the definition of jade colors.

Current Classifications of Nephrite by their colors (based on their rarity)

The following are the different grades of nephrites based on their rarity (from the rarest to the least rare) based on some modern Chinese literature: (I do not totally agree with them and I will explain in later sections)

1. Mutton Fat Jade (white nephrite) � this is the top quality of Hetian (Khotan, Hotan) jade, a white nephrite, found only in XinJiang, China. According to some Chinese literature, to be qualified as Hetian jades, the stone has to contain at least 90% tremolite, to be labeled as Mutton Fat jades, it has contain at least 99% tremolite. The highest quality of mutton fat jade has to have at least a specific gravity of 3.000 and a hardness of 6.0 or higher. The major component of white nephrite is tremolite (with a large amount of magnesium) and very small amount of actinolite and iron. One interesting fact is the �whiteness� is not the primary criterion for �mutton fat jade� because many other white nephrite such as Russian white nephrite and Qinghai (from other side of Mt. Kunlun) can actually be more white that mutton fat jades. It is rather based on its texture and the degree of its emulsified look (I have posted the definition for Mutton Fat jades in another thread and not going to repeat it here). Another interesting fact is that while we are always equate �Hetian Jade� with �White Nephrite�, in fact, there are many other color of Hetian jades and I will describe them later.

In the current Chinese market, a mutton-fat jade rough that slightly exceeds 1 kg, will be worth about US $12,500 to 30,000. It is very difficult to find any mutton-fat jade rough that weighs more than 10 kg. Any mutton-fat pebbles that exceed 100 gram will be worth from US$2,500 to 6,000.

2. Qing-Bai jade (white-green nephrite)

The basic color of qing-bai jade is white with a green tint or a grey tint. Mr. Eric Hoffman told me one time that in order to make sure a piece is indeed made of mutton fat jade and not qing-bai jade, you have to place the jade piece in front of a piece of white paper and see it you can detect the green tint. The white nephrite jade ru-yi that was just obtained by my jade friend, B, is made of this type of jade material. At first we thought it was made of mutton-fat jade (white nephrite) but when we moved it back and forth we could detect a trace of green tint. This type of qing-bai jade is worth about US$250-1,250 each kg. Many are sold as �White Nephrite� in the current Chinese markets.

3. Huang Jade (yellow nephrite)

Huang jade can be found in pale yellow, deep yellow, brownish-yellow, pumkin yellow, yellow-flower yellow, egg yolk yellow, tiger skin yellow. The production of yellow nephrite are very scarce. Their prices are quite high. Top quality yellow nephrite will exceed US $ 6,250 a kg. Intermediate grade of yellow nephrite is around US $ 2,500 a kg.

4. Qing Jade (pale green nephrite; see other definitions of Qing in early section)

Qing jade can range from very light green to very dark green (I am going to post a Qing jade bird here in this thread, fig. 1 as an example). The better quality of qing jades are those that of lighter green color, very delicate color, very fine texture, it is a very good nephrite. Due to large fluctuation in the qualities of Qing jades, their prices can range from US$20 to 1,000 a kg. The top quality Qing jade is about US 1,250 a kg.

There are many authentic Hongshan jade pieces made of Qing jades, some are nephrite and some are serpentine. However, many Hongshan fakes are also made of Qing jades which are mostly serpentine. Therefore, the Qing color is the most difficult color to tell if a jade piece is made of nephrite. I will post the picture of a pair of Qing Jade Fu Lions as picture 2 which are made of serpentine for comparison with the first Qing jade bird (made of top quality nephrite).

5. Mo jade (Ink nephrite or Black nephrite)

Mo jade ranges from a bluish-greenish-black (like the Chinese ink) to a completely black color. Once polished, the Mo jade pieces are glistening. This type of nephrite is not commonly seen. The author of the article predicts Mo jade carvings will be a hot collector target. He believe the price of top quality Mo jade will increase tremendously.

6. Bi Jade (bluish green nephrite)

Bi jade can be further divided into: green, dark green, gloomy green, not-fresh green. Their qualities are inferior to other types of nephrite, you can easily see black patches and crystal structures inside them.

Classification of Hetian jades (nephrite) by their colors:

Very often Hetian jades is easily equated with �white nephrite�, however, in real life, there are many different colors of Hetian jades and they are very similar to that of nephrite jades (see above) except the last one (sugar jade).

1. White Hetian Jade � it has to contain at least 95% of nephrite with at least 90% tremolite (*these percentage may not be totally accurate) to be called white hetian jade. The top grade white hetian jade, mutton fat jade, has to contain at least 99% tremolite, their material have to be smooth and pure and with a �fatty� llik with brilliant luster (I have posted the definition of mutton fat jade in another thread). The Qing-bai jade is the next top grade of hetian jade and its material is equal to that of mutton fat jade with only a small green tint. The lowest quality of white hetian jade will be white nephrite seen with green colors (more than a tint).

2. Qing Hetian Jade (pale green nephrite) 3. Huang Hetian Jade (yellow nephrite 4. Mo Hetian jade (black nephrite) 5. Bi Hetian Jade (dark green nephrite) are very similar to that of nephrite colors described above.

6. Sugar Hetian Jade � one of my jade pal once told me this jade should be translated as �Candy Jade� (or the other way around?) due to its candy color. However, I read the article and it explain the reason it was called sugar jade (Tang jade) is because its color looks like brown sugar. It can also be found in �red� color. However, this is really not a true �Red� nephrite because its outside �red� color is formed by the oxidiation of iron (to form ferrous irons) on the outside layer of a hetian jade pebble. As a result, different degree of �red� outside layers are formed on the nephrite pebble. The deep red one is called �Sugar Jade� (red nephrite). Some are called tiger-pelt jades. The white one with pink tints are called �powder jades�. (Look at last picture for a sugar jade)

In the following link: http://www.hetianyu.com/htywj/htyzs/200609/288.html

Titled: �What is Sugar Skin?� explains what sugar hetian jade is:

�Sugar Skin � the outside yellowish-brown layer found on hetian jade pebbles, because of its resembling the color of brown sugar, therefore, the sugar-skin hetian jades were called �sugar jades�. The inside of the sugar jades are either Qin (pale green) or white jades. This outside layer is quite thick, ranges from 20mm to 30 mm, therefore it completely wraps up the inside Qin or white nephrite. �.from analysis it is found that such sugar skin is formed from the oxidation of Hetian jade, such sugar skin is formed from nephrite crystals with light brownish iron materials. �..Upon chemical analysis, the composition of white nephrite is very similar to that of sugar skin with two exceptions:

There are more Fe2O3 than FeO in the sugar skin but more FeO than Fe2O3 in white nephrite;

There are a higher concentration of SO3 (around 1.28%) inside the sugar skin but lesser SO3 found in white nephrite (0.24 � 0.6%).

These two major differences indicate that Sugar Jade is a product formed by oxidation in the environment. It was produced after the formation of the hetian jade, water flow through the cracks on the hetain jades, and it changes the iron in the hetain jades to Fe2O3. Therefore, the sugar skin is a result of iron being oxidized.�

My Opinions on different nephrite colors and their rarity

Not too long ago, I bought up the discussion of the existence of real RED nephrite in another forum and a few jade pals show the pictures of their �RED� nephrite jade pieces to show the existence of such nephrite. Many dealers are selling RED nephrite items on the internet. So far, based on my researches and actual studies, I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty that there is no such �RED� nephrite existed in nature. Yes, there is red jadeite. Most red nephrite are either dyed (if soaked in water, the red dye will come off) or �Sugar Jades� (white or Qin nephrite with a red coating). (*There is a rumor some very authentic Hongshan pig dragons are made of red nephrite. However, it is possible these may be nephrite mixed with some other red stones such as corundum (ruby).)

In the same token, I am very suspicious with any nephrite jades that are dirty brown, dark brown, brown sugar brown. Many of them are also dyed. However, I did see quite a few smaller Hongshan fakes are made of some types of very hard brownish stones that have similar physical properties (hardness and S.G.) as nephrite. I cannot confirm if they are nephrite or not without further studies.

I do not believe there are blue or pink nephrite and if there are they are probably a mixture of nephrite with some other stones and they will not be able to pass the hardness and S.G. tests.

I think they are some gray nephrite but I normally trying to avoid them because they just do not look good at all.

Now out of all these different color of nephrite I have so far discussed which one do I believe is the most difficult to find or the rarest, in terms of raw materials and in terms of being used in carving archaic jade items?

I believe it is �YELLOW NEPHRITE�. The reason I am saying that is because so far I have not been able to obtain either a real yellow nephrite slab/rough or a jade carving that is made of real yellow nephrite (not dyed). In ancient China, because the pronounciation of the Chinese word Huang (yellow) is similar to that of the word Wang (King or emperor), all yellow nephrite are highly treasured an reserved for the use of emperors. At one time, its value exceeds that of white nephrite. While it is true that the current price of white nephrites are much higher but they are actually readily available if you can afford the prices. The same cannot be said about yellow nephrite. I am not very sure if one can find a large piece of top-quality bright yellow nephrite (more than 1 kg) anywhere. May be somebody will know the answer for my question. Another interesting fact is that according to an article, the basic color of nephrite jades found in Xiu-yan that were used to carve authentic Hongshan jades are: white, yellowish-white, green and black. If you look at some of these Hongshan jade books, you will find quite a few authentic Hongshan pieces are made of this type of pale yellow or bright yellow nephrite. Therefore, if one can find Hongshan pieces made of such yellow nephrite with brilliant luster, new-stone age carvings, there is a very high possibility that such piece will be authentic. Again, that is only my personal opinion.

The next one I believe is Black nephrite. The only places I have heard of black nephrite can still be found are in Wyoming, U.S.A. and Australia. The mines in Wyoming have closed long time ago. I have yet to see a truly BLACK nephrite rock (with no tints of green). I have seen a few jewelry that are made of Australian black nephrite but they are quite expensive. I have not seen too many archaic Chinese jade carvings that are made of genuine and completely black nephrite. Therefore I believe it is rarer than white nephrite.

Well, the next one will be white nephrite. The rest, I guess you may use your own imaginations.

Your comments are welcome.

Bill







Subject:Another link for jade colors
Posted By: Bill Thu, Aug 23, 2007

This is a link discussing jade colors:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=1959

One of the messages actually list the most popular color of jades used in each dynasty. I do not know how accurate they are without doing some further researches. However, the source is a well respected jade collector.

Bill

Subject:Hongshan jade materials
Posted By: Bill Thu, Aug 23, 2007

The following is a translation of an article "The Hongshan-Culture jade material" written by a Hongshan jade expert in China, XU Qing, the author of the famous Hongshan jade book,

"Hongshan Wenhua Guyu Jinghua: Tianyutang Shoucang
Hongshan Antiquated Jade: Tingyutang Treasures"


http://www.hongshanclub.org.cn/showart.asp?art_id=74&page=3

http://www.hongshanclub.org.cn/showart.asp?art_id=74&page=4

In this article, he discussed the different materials used for Hongshan jades. Unfortunately, the translation is not as good as the original Chinese article.

The home page of his web site shows a lot of archaic Hongshan jades (on the bottom of the page):

http://www.hongshanclub.org.cn/index.asp

If you click on each picture, it will show a close up picture of each item with both Chinese and English descriptions.

Many of his essays also come with English translations.

This web site should be a welcome reference for those who are interested in Hongshan jades.

I do not know how good this expert is but his book seems to be endorsed by many Hongshan jade collectors. He is supposed to have a new book coming out with many new articles (some are publised in his web site). You can also become a member of his Hongshan club by paying RMB600 (about US$ 75). He also offered authentication service for Hongshan pieces with picture alone or by examing the real piece for a fee of RMB50 (about US$ 6.50) If the piece is authentic, then he will charge a certified fee of RMB400 (about US$50). However, sometimes he cannot authenticate with pictures alone.

(NOTE:I do not know this author personally and therefore I am not recommedning any of his services to any collectors. You are at your own risk if you decide to use any of his services.)


This link shows an authentic Hongshan piece "Jade Bee" that was made of yellow jade. (*It doesn't look very yellow to me.)

http://www.hongshanclub.org.cn/showpic.asp?pic_id=116

Have fun.

Bill

Subject:Re: Hongshan jade materials
Posted By: James Tue, Aug 28, 2007

Hello Bill
I have had a look at the site, and this colour seems to be very subjective, what he calls yellow is green, or shades of, to me.I know I am not colour blind.
Cheers
James

Subject:Re: Hongshan jade materials
Posted By: James Tue, Aug 28, 2007

Another look at that Hongshan club web site. The "jades" have tool marks in the grooves perpendicular to the length of the groove. Is this normal for Hongshan jades?
Cheers
James

Subject:Yellow color and tool marks
Posted By: Bill Tue, Aug 28, 2007

Hi, James:

Good eyes. I assume you are talking about the yellow jade bee, correct? I agree with you, it is really more green than yellow. In the same token, on many jade books, many really yellow jade carvings are being labeled as "Qing" (pale green) jades while many seemingly greener one are labeled as "yellow jades". I do not know whether it is because the way the camera caputured their color or they are totally subjective. I have no idea whatsoever how they clarify something as "yellow". May be some jade experts can give their opinions in this regard. I will try to post some pictures of yellow jades here for everybody to judge.

Once again, I guess when you commented in your second message, "The "jades" have tool marks in the grooves perpendicular to the length of the groove", you again referred to the yellow jade bee, correct?

I posted a close up picture of the yellow jade bee here to make sure these are the tool marks you mentioned
(see pic 1).

First of all, although the club is a Hongshan club, they didn't lable all these archaic pieces as that of Hongshan. I assume they are with the title of their club. I can be wrong. However, some of them are supposed to be archaic (some cannot be confirmed without examininng the real pieces, according to the author.)

I have bought up the same questions regarding to similar tool marks found on some of these pieces, in one of my threads "Not too modern tool marks" posted at the other forum:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=23884

(*I am posting a picture of the yellow serpentine bird here with this type of tool marks on its lower grooves. (see pic 2) )

These are Mr. Randy's Li's opinions regarding this type of tool marks:

"Dear Bill,

Neolithic jades such as Hongshan styles are not my specialties. xxxx and xxxx have good observations on Neolithic carved lines, so do xxxxx's microscopic examination. xxxxxxx has good exposure to that too as he had worked with xxxxx xxxxxx who had studied differential ratio of speed and torque of rpm by ancient man-power and modern electric power.

Both man-power and electric-power can generate the result like the lines on the bird's tail. Foot-padel or electric power machine are turning in one direction, while bow drill turns back and forth.

As for the lines on the tail, they were sawed into straight lines first, then pushed the drill bit forthward and backward to widen the lines into concave lines. It seems to be from a steady flow of motion and a steady source of energy at low speed. The lines appears too uniform to be done by bow-drill, as bow-drill turns back and forth and is less stable in the flow of motions, drill-bit at Neolithic time was also not well developed. The carved line would have left some unparalleled lines, some deep and some light.

The carve lines on the tail appear to be from one steady flow of energy and turning in one direction and not at a very high speed. So they were either powered by electric or foot-pedaling.

I may be wrong, and I only base on what I can see from the jpg. It is best to observe these line under a microscope to verify."

Then another jade pal disagreed with what he had said and he once again expressed his opinions in confirming his statements.

Yes I believe you can find tool marks on some Hongshan jades but I am not expert enough to be able to recognize if they were marks made by modern tools or ancient tools. May be somebody like Diasai can shed some lights in this aspect.

Lastly, I listed a picture of another green jade bird from the same site as comparison. You do not see a lot of modern tool marks on this bird, but rather you see long and smooth lines along its grooves. If you compare them with the new stone age carvings shown at this link, you should see the similarity:

http://members.tripod.com/chinese.archaic.jade/appraise-2.htm

You can see that they do have some types of tool marks or carving lines on authentic new stone age jade carvings that can be very easily mistakened as that of "modern tool marks". I did previously think so myself on the tool marks found on a beautiful jade bird.

The earlier green jade bird I posted in this thread also have this similar type of carvings. However, I cannot say that it is Hongshan because it doesn't have any authentic "chum-sik" (color fitration), or bao jiang (gel-like layer on the jade surface) or any signs inside the jade texture to confirm its age.

However, on my other Qing jade bird, I did see some very good signs indicating that it may be an authentic Hongshan bird and I will list it at a different thread when I can take better digitatl pictures of it. (*Bad pictures simply will not show how good it is. I think that may be the problem with the yellow jade bee. The description describes it as lustrous; the picture shows a very gloomy surface.)

Lastly, the best things about the yellow jade bee I believe are:

(1) Its bao jaing is absolutely authentic looking, look at the gel-like layer wrapped around its surface.

(2) The chum-sik (black stains around crack lines) are simply authentic and the "jade cloud" (milky look substance) inside the jade texture confirms the old age of the bee.

I do not know if I have answered you questions or not because I simply do not know all the answers myself and it may be just "the blind leading the blind". Hopefully some Hongshan experts will speak out and teach us one thing or another. Thanks.

Bill







Subject:Re: Yellow color and tool marks
Posted By: James Thu, Aug 30, 2007

Bill
It strikes me there is a lot of anecdotal knowledge concerning jade, which may be correct or may be wrong.(This is not a criticism of you.)
As a result there are a lot of conflicting opinions of what is good jade and what is bad. To the newcomer this is very confusing, but paradoxically makes the subject interesting because there is so much potential knowledge a person can research and contribute; the field of jade collecting is wide open to the amateur not just to the museum curator.
I am a mining geologist by profession, so have a strong scientific background, which means among other things I look at jade in a systematic, cold blooded way to check for age wear etc, before I purchase, plus then I add the bit about aesthetics, "Do I like it?"
What I wanted to obtain from the forum were hints and facts like, "Hongshan jades typically have such and such a patina, worked with grinding tools etc etc", something along those lines.
In my mind I have a check list which I go through.
1) Provenance ...none, bought on a Hong Kong stall, go to next point.
2) Tool marks Yes go to section B Are they right for the piece ....and so on.
So at the end of my check list I reach a conclusion...or have sufficient information to have an informed opinion, which as time goes on with more experience is honed to wheedle out the duds and pick out the gems in the trash. At the present time, I may be unsure of a piece but if it is at a low price, I will take a gamble and buy the piece. At this point in my collecting, fakes and copies are just as informative as the genuine article.
Tool Marks
I spent my days as a budding geologist learning to polish rock thin sections and samples by hand, and doing some polished lapidary work on a cross section of rock types of different hardnesses from limestones to agates.
In general the process involved cutting slices off rock with a diamond saw to get a rough plane to work on.
Then on a flat surface, such as a glass plate, I used different grades of carborundum grits going from coarse to fine to very fine and worked the piece by hand to a polished finish, finally finishing with an extremely fine diamond paste on a leather cloth.
That was with the use of modern classified abrasives, with have a very tight size distribution, because if I contaminated the grit I was using with a coarser grit, I scratched my polished surface. I would have to go back and start again. This process took me a couple of hours.
So how did the ancients manage?
This is speculation on my part!!
Quartz is an obvious abrasive to use, and as it happens is commonly graded by natural processes from grits to sands to silts. Found also in solid form as gritstones, sandstones and siltstones and the cryptocrystalline forms such as chert, jasper and agate.
I have experimented and found holding a solid abrasive gives more control over shaping than to use the loose abrasive, in much the same way as one uses a whetstone to sharpen steel. It is also a good way to make grooves. But one does get tell tale striations from these materials when looked at under a lens.
Drilling holes can be done using the methods of hollow points and solid points which seems well documented. For small holes I would be tempted to use, not loose abrasives fed on to the end of a solid bamboo point, but a drill point of quartzite attached in the manner of an arrow head to act as a bit.
For that final polish, you need extremely fine material. Certain plants like Equisetum have minute silica in them , and I think, so do the husks of rice. I have also discovered that rubbing jade on jade gives a fine polish.

So in the days before steel tools, I would expect to see fine irregular striations, in parallel sets, in a cross hatched pattern produced as the worker rubs the abrasive back and forward. Similar as you mention to the pattern expected on a rotary bow drill that spins back and forward. Striations that seem to go in one direction and are regular, evenly spaced and show similar depth of cut, I am wary of, as indicating machine tooling of some sort.

James



Subject:Examples of Bao Jiang
Posted By: Bill Tue, Aug 28, 2007

Posted here are three very good examples how bao jiang should look like on archaic jade pieces.

Look at the gel-like layer covering up the surface of the whole jade piece. It is so lustrous and yet likes it is covered up with a layer of transparent gel. So very pretty.

Bill







Subject:Examples of yellow jades
Posted By: Bill Thu, Aug 30, 2007

I was trying to find some good examples of yellow nephrite but it was harder than I thought because many yellow jades were being called "Qing" (pale green) jades while some not so yellow jades were actually called yellow jades.

Here are two pretty good examples:

These are two items from the collection of a private collector, Mr. Li. I do no know whether they are authenitc or not, my purpose is to show their yellow-color jade material:

Hongshan yellow jade turtle

http://news.xinhuanet.com/collection/2006-04/14/xinsimple_49204031409191872225132.htm

Hongshan yellow pig dragon (it was not labled as yellow jade and it does have a tint of green in it. I just listed it for comparison)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/collection/2006-04/14/xinsimple_492040314091998427034134.htm

If you are interested in looking at other items in his collection, here they are:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/collection/2006-04/14/content_4422509.htm

Enjoy.

Bill

Subject:Re: Examples of yellow jades
Posted By: James Sun, Sep 02, 2007

Bill
I went back to my dealer and teacher in jade and asked her about the yellow jade. She gave me several examples to look at which looked a pale green in the light. However when I held them up to a bright light such as the halogen spotlight, sure enough they glowed a yellow translucent colour.
Apologies for the picture of a coiled snake (Han Dynasty)but this apparently is an example of the yellow jade.
James



Subject:yellow jade snake?
Posted By: Bill Mon, Sep 03, 2007

Hi, James:

Thanks for posting the picture of the coiled snake. Unfortunately, if only based on this one picture, I believe it is a almost a darker green color than yellow. I guess if I may see its yellow color in front of a halogen light then I may be able to understand exactly what you meant.

Is this piece nephrite jade? I simply cannot tell from its brown stain (may be natural coloring) on top of its green color.

Thank you for sharing. I do not know of too many Han piece that were made of yellow nephrite.

Bill


Subject:Re: yellow jade snake?
Posted By: James Tue, Sep 04, 2007

Yes it is nephrite.
Again the photo is not as good as I would like.
I have still to ascertain to my satisfaction what yellow jade is. The pieces I was shown were pale bluey green in day light, not yellow like your turtle shell picture.
James

Subject:Re: Examples of yellow jades
Posted By: James Mon, Sep 03, 2007

Hi Bill
I have just worked out why some of those yellow jades appear pale green but when white light shines through them they appear a lovely lemon yellow.
You can try this experiment at home.
If you have a fish tank full of water and shine a white beam of light through it not a lot happens. If you then start adding milk into the tank, you will see that as you add the milk, the water goes a greeny blue colour, and the light coming out of the other side goes yellower towards the red end of the spectrum.
The reason is the milk particles are interfering with the white light and allowing only the longer wavelengths of light, yellow , orange and red, to pass through while the blue green wavelengths are being "scattered" by the milk particles.
So no, the jade does not have milk in it , but it does have minor impurities which are small enough to scatter the blue green wavelengths and allow the yellow spectrum to pass through, which does indicate the homogenous (quality)nature of that piece of jade.
If you try this on jade make sure you use a good source of white light, but it is very dramatic to see.(when it works!)
Cheers

James

Subject:Re: Examples of Bao Jiang
Posted By: James Thu, Aug 30, 2007

Bill
This is most useful.
Again thanks

James

Subject:Re: Examples of Bao Jiang
Posted By: Pipane Thu, Oct 18, 2007

Let me thank you Bill for posting here three pictures (those with the good baojiang and no comments) from our website without any kind of agreement and with any reference to his source. This is OK.
But I must make the point that Pipane Asian Art Gallery totaly disagree with all phony arguments about HS jades developed up front.
Also that we are doubtful about other items posted here.

Regards,

Pipane
http://www.pipane.com
Fell free to contact us for free expertise


URL Title :Pipane Asian Art Gallery


Subject:Jade-Nephrite hardness
Posted By: Marian Wed, Dec 04, 2013

Can you tell me please if you've heard of softer nephrite type. What are the common colors of such.

Subject:Re: Jade-Nephrite hardness
Posted By: James Thu, Dec 05, 2013

No, nephrite jade is hard, unscratched by steel(eg scissor blade). If it is soft then it is not true jade and probably serpentine or similar and the piece is a copy.
Colours of jade vary from black brown to green through to white.

Subject:Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Marivic Ramonal Thu, Dec 25, 2014

Hello,

May I ask you guys to identify the stones if its a white nephrite (whitish color) from just the picture?your opinion is highly valued thank you.



Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Ken Baltimore Sat, Dec 27, 2014

green is muscovite or green mica...white is surely white schist.

Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Marivic Ramonal Sun, Dec 28, 2014

Hello Ken,

I can't hide my disappointment because these samples are being marketed as jade and white nephrite. I find it difficult to distinguish jade from nephrite because both have different shades that could pass up as one or the other. Can an assay or laboratory test tell if it is really jade and white neph?

Thanks for replies.

Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Super Tue, Jan 06, 2015

The only white nephrite jade I know of are Hetian white nephrite jade, Qinghai white jade, Russian white nephrite jade, most of them I believe contain at least 90% or more of tremolite. I do not have a single piece of white nephrite jade rock or slab. Now I think about it, they are probably very difficult and expensive to obtain. If they are truly white Hetian nephrite jade (without any green tint on top of a piece of white paper), then they may cost more than gold.
Both of you stones do not look like nephrite to me.

Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Mari Wed, Jan 07, 2015

these stones are from the greenstone mines in Mindoro, Philippines. These are the famous "Mindoro Jade"

Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Super Sat, Jan 10, 2015

"Other sites have yielded jade-like artifacts such as talc, steatite, muscovite (alsoknown as “
Mindoro Jade
”).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/67697962/Jade-in-the-Philippines#scribd

Subject:Re: Can you identify white nephrite from picture?
Posted By: Maury Sat, Feb 21, 2015

Hello. I acquired some pieces of what appear to be nephrite jade to me but I do not have access to an expert to confirm. I suspect a real confirmation would require hands on testing but I was wondering if anyone here can give an initial impression or some advice based on these pictures. Of course, I'm particularly interested in whether the brownish river stone might be white jade.
It seems to have all the characteristics of white jade that I've read about. I also have some pictures of other pieces that I could post later if I get a response here. With respect and thanks, Maury.







Subject:Re: The Rarest Nephrite Jade Color
Posted By: Robert Wed, Sep 30, 2015

Following up on your discussion about red nephrite. The third ring on the left was appraised as a Red Nephrite. His observation was that the ring was the reddest nephrite he had ever seen. The ring was purchased in HK in the early 70's.

Subject:Re: The Rarest Nephrite Jade Color
Posted By: Bill Thu, Oct 15, 2015

Pictures?

Subject:Re: The Rarest Nephrite Jade Color
Posted By: John Urlaub Thu, Nov 12, 2015

In the state of Washington we have some very unusual nephrite jade in the Cascade Mountains. I collect mostly Botryoidal (bubble jade) forms and travel many miles to find these extremely rare pieces. Here are some samples of massive white botryoidal nephrite (100+ kg), blue nephrite (not botryoidal) with yellow skin, and very rare red botryoidal nephrite. We also have some very nice black nephrite here too but it is very rare. Hope you find this interesting. Much of our nephrite is moved by glaciers from British Columbia Canada.








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