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It is very disappointing that many opinions expressed on jade carvings in this forum or other forum regarding their authenticities or ages are based on personal opinions without any evidence or proofs. It is equally sad that similar comments on their material, tool marks and unique characteristics are also based on personal judgments that may not be backed up by any studies or references. Of course personal opinions expressed by jade experts based on their professional experiences and researches should be well respected. The problem is that there are simply not too many jade experts who are professional jade experts or appraisers or they simply do not explain how they have obtained their conclusions.

It is worse when I tried to share some of my findings here I would be attacked with having personal agendas in selling my jades pieces on eBay. Actually, I do not believe it is a sin even I really try to sell my jades on eBay since many of the �respected� members here seem to sell their wares on eBay or in their own sites. It is funny that sometimes they are the one who will attack the most. Are they trying to protect their territories from the newcomers? If I am starting selling my pieces on eBay, I would make an official announcement here because at least one thing I can guarantee is that all my pieces would be tested and verified to the materials they were made of. Therefore, if I label a piece as �genuine nephrite piece� you know it would be indeed made of 100% nephrite jade. If I call it agate, it would be 100% agate. I would further list their exact weights, dimensions, specific gravity and hardness there. If I am not sure of their ages, I would label them as �Modern�. Cannot be fair than that, will it?

It is puzzling that many jade collectors do not bother to study jade carving material or tool marks but seem to immediately attack many �jade� pieces (both mine and others�) and called them �modern� without any types of evidences or proofs. That is truly amazing. Many times, even jade experts and professional appraiser cannot do so by just examining low-resolution pictures (this forum only allows pictures that are 100kb or less).

Many of them seem to know so much about �jade� material but yet not too many people have taken up this fun challenge in naming the jade material I posted on the other site:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=29669

May be you can try and see how good you are. I have painstakingly studies and tested over 1,000 pieces of jade carvings, rocks, cabs, slacks and continue in acquiring more for my studies. I still miss 20% of the time.

I have never claimed that �jade� material is the most important or only criterion in the authenticating and dating of any jade carvings. However, the study of such material is probably the easier stepping stone for jade novices and they are vital because:

(1) Jade materials used in different Chinese dynasties for making jade carvings are unique and limited. The supplies of quality jade materials in ancient China were always very limited and were constrained by their sources. For example, during Shang and Zhou dynasties or even later dynasties, based on pieces excavated from known tombs, most excavated jade carvings were made of these three major jade materials:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=29339#29366

�According to analysis performed on jades excavated from famous tombs including the Lady Fu Hou at late Shang, late Western Zhou, early Spring-Autumn and early Warring States, the materials of all excavated jade pieces can attribute to known Chinese jade mines and their jade materials are as follow:

http://www.chinajades.cn/asp_club/read_zj_paper.asp?id=181&zj_name=%B9%C5%B7%BD

(1) Hetian jade - mined from Khotan, XinJiang. Many pieces found in these tombs are indeed made of Hetian jades, mostly in white or celadon colors. (hardness: usually 6.0; S.G. 2.92 or higher)

(2) Xiu Yan jade - many jade pieces, especially found in lesser nobles, were made of a serpentine jade very similar to Xiu Yan jade (found in Xiu Yan, Liaoning). (Bowenite: hardness >5; S.G. 2.50 � 2.67, very seldom over 2.70)

(3) Nam Yan jade - also known as Dushan jade which is a feldspar with hardness as high as 6.5 (found in Nam yang, Henan) (S.G. between 2.50 � 2.70; hardness 6-7)

Therefore, most early jade pieces (Shang, Zhou, Spring Autumn and Warring States) are made of high quality Hetian jades (resistant to weathering) or lower qulity non-jade materials (not as resistant to heavy weathering) but never this kind of low quality green nephrite found with heavy weathering.�

Also, see:

Jade materials using in Shang and Zhou dynasties

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=29339#29381

Jade materials found in ancient China:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=29339#29379

Therefore if one sees some authentic Shang or Zhou dynasty jade pieces made of some cheap green nephrite materials that were never found in ancient China, what should one think?

(2) Importance of Local (Area) jades:

Each culture employed jades that could be found in their localities to make their jade carvings. In each dynasty, when an emperor passed away, there would be a large demand for making a large quantity of burial jades. Very often, not enough quality jades such as Hetian jades could be found to meet the demand and deadline (for burial), therefore many local jades found in the proximity of the tomb were being used. By comparing the jade materials of unknown pieces with those excavated from known tombs, one can then either confirm or reject the authenticities of know pieces. It is not true that every nephrite piece is identical in their physical properties. It is almost like DNA typing of jade material. Each jade material has its unique fingerprinting.

There have been great debates even among many Hongshan jade experts regarding the �credible� jade materials found in authentic Hongshan jade carvings. The one jade material that seems to be liked by many experts is the dark green Manassa (River) nephrite material used to make many large C dragons. However they also believe the OLD Xiu Yu (xiu yan jade) which was a nephrite jade or a nephrite-serpentine combination material are also credible. Some believe New Xiu Yu (xiu yan jade) that is similar to bowenite (with a hardness of at least 5.0 and higher) is also a credible material especially on large carvings (harder to find large nephrite pieces).

I have seen several credible jade materials on Hongshan and Hongshan style jade carvings. The most common one are Cai Shi (colorful stone) which is a green nephrite with orange-red colors mixed in it. The first time I saw them I believe they were dyed because when I soaked the piece in water, the water turned yellow. However, I believe its color were natural. Such stone has been documented in many Hongshan jade books and were found in Hongshan areas. This type of nephrite has a hardness that is between 5.0 to 6.0 and usually a S.G. between 2.90 to 2.96 They were found in the making of many cheaper Hongshan style jade carvings that couldn�t possibly be Neolithic based on the quality of their carvings and the tool marks found on them. There is also a better quality darker green nephrite material with S.G. as high as 3.00 and a hardness of around 6.0. I am not sure this is a local jade or simply jade materials used in later dynasties to make Hongshan style jade carvings. There is one unique nephrite jade, always appears to be almost �red� in appearance and with a S.G. between 2.86 � 2.93 and variable hardness on their surfaces. I am not sure if their red color is due to some types of stains such as from iron elements or from cinnabar. They are unique because many times fissures and old tool marks are found on them. Although again they cannot be genuine Neolithic, but I believe this type of material is indeed old and unique. I believe it is possibly a mixture of nephrite-serpentine..

I have also seen three types of serpentine materials. One dark green serpentine material that could be scratched and is not often encountered on Hongshan style pieces, believe or not. Most modern xiu yu (serpentine) jade carvings that were imported from China are now that of celadon (light green) color. Although once a while you may see some large dark green serpentine pieces. There are two types of yellowish-brown bowenite or serpentine materials I have seen in Hongshan styles pieces. The better and older one is the one that cannot be scratched, with better stains and old tool marks and the newer one can be scratched, with suspicious stains and in lesser carving quality. Again, while the older one is still not good enough to be Neolithic, they are indeed much older. I have seen many �authentic� Hongshan pieces (jade bird, Apollo) sold on big auctions and listed on Hongshan jade books, made of this beautiful and lustrous yellow jade material
but I cannot confirm if it is nephrite or serpentine.

However, the most convincing jade materials I have seen so far on authentic Hongshan jade carvings such as bird, pig dragons, etc. is this type of celadon nephrite material that is of a quality that is equivalent to that of Hetian jade. Many of them has a S.G. exceeds 3.0 and a hardness exceeds 6.0. On the earlier Hongshan period pieces, they were made in a celadon nephrite material with some types of white-spot like texture inside the jade material, most were not highly polished, with tougher surfaces full of convincible stains and weathering. On later Hongshan pieces, they were carved much more refined, with fine details of even feathers on the bird�s talon being shown vividly. The surface is finely polished and often lustrous. Of course, in theory it is still possible to find high quality celadon Hetian jade to make such fakes. However, this type of jade material, for some reason, is rarely seen on �fake� Hongshan jades, even the high-priced one. Rather, they were often made in white Hetian jades or with lesser jade materials.

Of course, there are a few other local jades that had been used in the making of authentic Hongshan jades, however, since I do not have the privilege in studying them yet, I do not want to discuss them here.

Conclusion:

Once again I want to stress that by itself, jade material is not good enough in the authenticating and dating of a jade carving. However, when a supposedly archaic jade carving was made of jade material that was not known or found in its time period or locality, that something is definitely wrong with such piece. In the same token, if a jade carving is made of such fine jade material that is similar to those of archaic one and with credible tool marks and workmanship, then one should look further into such piece. For example, I have not yet seen any authentic Hongshan carvings (in human or animal forms) that were made of either lapis lazurite or agate. The reasons may be such materials are either not available at the time or locality or the tools available at the time were not good enough to carve them.

It is a misconception that a few forum members believe that it is easy to make a modern �archaic� jade carving. They believe if they can combine �new� technology with �old� materials/technology they can achieve the production of a convincing �archaic� jade carving. They also believe many �old� tool marks found on jade pieces are �modern�. They do not understand even with today�s modern technology, they cannot even accomplish or copy some of the Neolithic or ancient carving skills. They may not understand that modern electrical carving tools are operated with high speed (rpm) and often in one direction (clockwise) while older manual tools were low speed (rpm) and often in two directions (both counter-clockwise and clockwise) (*Note: Mr. Randy Li said he had seen manual tu operated in one direction also.) The tool marks left by such modern and older tools are distinctly different from each other, the holes drilled by them are not only different in their overall width but also in the threads left by them inside the holes. There are also certain characteristic one can look for inside those holes and around their edges, the shape of the holes to tell if they are authentic. However, one can never confirm the authenticity of a piece by its holes alone.

Furthermore, on the grooves in authentic Hongshan jade pieces, if one can examine carefully, there are unique tool marks inside the grooves that were actually three different tool marks left by three different tools. Although many times not all three tool marks are visible at the same time, however the last tool mark is a distinct tool mark found only on authentic Hongshan pieces.

There are many unique tool marks and characteristics found on authentic Neolithic pieces because at that time metal tools were supposedly unavailable (there are debates on that) and carvings were done with the minimal stone tools. Unfortunately, the jade carving tools at those time period are simply no longer available for later study. Therefore even among jade experts, there are big debates in whether these Neolithic people were using stone tu or string cut in carving their jade pieces. However, if you would examine the celadon stone slit ring I posted in another message, it would not be difficult for you to find traces of tool marks left by such old tools. Of course I am not claiming such ring is a Neolithic piece but I do not believe another jade collector�s claim that it is modern and indeed make an offer in buying up every single �modern� ring similar in material and workmanship to the one I have posted. We believe such slit ring was used as �burial ear ring� at ancient time. Also, we had found concrete evidence on some of the tabular beads that they were also used as burial pieces.

I am fortunate in not having to depend on myself in obtaining and studying my jade pieces. I have many jade friends who travel in China and who knows Neolithic jades. We correspond all the time and compare our pieces with each other. In short, while we do not always agree with each other, however we do learn from each other.

I have come to the point that I believe I am starting to learn more about jades especially Hongshan jades. I no longer enjoy getting into any argument with people who simply love to argue. I find that I can never learn anything from them and by fighting with them it only raise my blood pressure. I am also too tired even to explain things to them because many of the stuff I have since learned I cannot share with them due to my promises. Even I explain to them, they would find other arguments so the fight can continue. That simply serves on purpose whatsoever. Therefore if there are indeed some jade lovers out there sincerely want to talk about jades and not in fighting about them, please do drop me an e-mail. Thank you.

Bill

Hi Bill. Came across your site, looking to identify jade piece; am overwhelmed by volume. Hope you can help. In cleaning out my mother's house, I came across lots of dung-shee, brought back from Tsingtao, where my Marine father was stationed w/family 1947 til the ascent of Mao Tse-tung. May I describe:

1) 2.25 inch tall, round, hollowed, withhole thru the top; "classic" jade color, looks like a tiny bottle; and,

2) two smaller "bottles" of a a pale grey-green, a little mottling.

What are they? If you dont' want to bother, can you send me to someone else?

many thanks, sue in virginia

Sue,

It sounds like you are talking about snuff bottles. See examples below.

Cheers,
Stan

Interesting colour, but is it jade?
Ernest

We had a discussion of this piece last May.

Cheers,
Stan

URL Title :Lavender Snuff Bottle

Hi, Sue:

Agreed with What Stan said. If you can post pictures here it would help. I am not expert in snuff bottles but many members are. They should be able to help. I would be able to tell their material for you, more than likely.

Bill

Sue,

You may get more responses if you post in the moderated forum. This is the visitor's forum. Please use the following link to the moderated forum.

http://www.asianart.com/phpforum/index.php

I know two forums can be confusing, but many of the more knowledgeable forum members don't read the visitor's forum.

See you there!

Mary, for your information, before you confuse everybody including yourself.

This is not the Visitor's forum. This is the Message Board, a public forum or message board for the public to post their messages.

The link you refer is the Main Forum, where you will find the link to the true Visitor Forum on the top of the page.

Just to let you know so you would not be so confused in the future.

B

Dear Sue,

Please understand, this site is not Bill's site. He began posting about a year ago to both this site and to Chicochai (the jade forum equivalent of the Jerry Springer show). He is an admitted novice who reads and posts a lot. He is not what many consider an authority on jades.

Posting your pieces may get you some responses, but finding good online advice on jade is very difficult. Many people who pretend to give advice are hoping to arouse interest in jade to boost their own commercial ambitions. These people, like Bill, buy jades cheaply from eBay sellers in China (known to sell fakes) for $5 plus shipping, then resell them on eBay here in the states for $48.88. They dress them up with romantic stories and sucker in unknowing buyers who think they are getting a bargain from a scholar.

Please be careful!

To Mary the jade novice:

Did I ever say this is my site? Of course it is my site just like it is your site. Thanks for correcting Sue. Did I try to give her my opinions?

Did I say I am authority on jade? Are you? Who are the authorities on jade in this forum? Please stand up. All of us are just amateurs. Which one of you are professional jade dealers? Oh, I am sorry, I forgot Mary you are the jade professional. Are you a dealer yourself? Can you answer that honestly here so we would have a record?

For a person who would only buy jades with provenance, how much do you know about jades yourself? Probably nothing.

You advised Sue, " but many of the more knowledgeable forum members don't read the visitor's forum."

That is really funny, since you not only read it but you actually had to put your two cents worth here. Therefore, are you an unknowledgeable (yes, a new word) forum member?

Another funny thing is: how can you speak for other forum members by saying they do not read this visitor's forum (actually should be called Message Board)? You do need to wear your bifocal. Did you not see Steve's Antique Jade fish carvings received over 2,000 hits? Nobody reading it?

Lastly, it is all right for you to disagree with me, or not like my jades or not like anything I said, but who give you the right to make false accusations, to accuse me of being an eBay jade dealer and made up such a stupid story to harm both my reputation and my integrity without any proof or evidence.

You better be very careful, since you are in the U.S., if you continue to make false accusations toward me, it would leave me with no choices but to file a false libel suit against you. Therefore be warned! Be careful in what you are saying in the future.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for asking about me, I am sorry you have forgotten that I have responded to you before. I am a conservator and private collector, not a dealer. I do not sell or trade jades. I do not hold a business sales license, and I don't sell anything, whether on eBay or anywhere else.

I think you misunderstood my statement, and for that I am sorry. Let me clarify: I meant you, like some dealers, buy jades from China on eBay. You have stated this, yes? You have also recently said on Chicochai that you sell some of your stones on eBay, yes?

There are some eBay sellers who buy jade from China on eBay, and sell similar items on eBay. I have shown evidence of one in the past: penumbra2001. This seller and a similar local seller earthworksgallery sell jades for $48.88 and sometimes much more.

One thing seems clear, this may be a very select group. A search for "hongshan" and "archaic jade" on eBay shows only five people in the US whose sale listings contain these keywords. The search result may be anomalous, as it would not include those who have sold in the past.

Mary:

What you said was incorrect. I had never said I had sold any of my stone on eBay. That is your word, not mine. Therefore you still owe me an apology for accusing me. I have never sold a single piece on eBay or any of my jade pieces, per se. Yes, I bought some of my stuff from eBay, but not limited to jades. eBay is also not my only source of jade. Therefore please do not put words in my mouth.

Also, I did not just buy jades from dealers in China only. That is incorrect, I buy jades from U.S. dealers who sold on eBay also. I did not buy jades from China to resell but to study. You do not know enough about Hongshan jades to make a blanket statement that everything from China that are sold on eBay are fakes. You cannot prove that.

I do not believe you should falsely accuse anybody because it makes you look very vindictive. So far, I have not done anything to hurt you and therefore do not deserve such animosity from you. If you were cheated by any dealers including those on eBay, you need to get even with them by filing complaints or law suits against them. I would have nothing against your actions against them. However, I do not appreciate your falsely accusing me in this forum and your intention to hurt my reputation.

Therefore, I would like to urge you to take precaution in making any falsified statements in the very future because there is only so much an average person can take.

If you are indeed a jade collector as you said, then you should not carry such hostility toward another collector. Disagree with them, yes? To attack them, NO! I hope we would have a better understanding in the very near future.

Bill

Dear Marry,

I agree with you on much, the chicochai forum etc., but I think Bill has not deserved such an hostile opposition from you. Bill cares to study archaic jade and he is asking good and legitimate questions about jade in this forum. The research he is doing is great, and to my believe, Bill has aquired more knowledge in 2 years of jade appraisal than many others after livelong research. I wish there could be more analitic and intelligent people like Bill in the field of jade research.

Best,
Diasai

Diasai,

Agreed, that place is crazed. Its like a cage fight, I don't know why anyone posts there most days. I am surprised someone has not made their own forum to replace it. There are art and antiquities forums where respectful, scholarly debate is the norm, not the exception.

AAF is a great resource and a good starting place for a wide variety of things, just like Sue's snuff bottles. There are other good specialist forums too. It is sad some of the same issues from Chicochai have bled over here. If there was a new, moderated home for the jade pals maybe things could cool off. New home and a fresh archive may attract new scholars.

Dear Mary,

thank you for your response, again you are right in what you are saying and I agree.

Since I am not a native english speeker for me it is much labour and time consuming, to read through, and reply to, comments in the chicochai forum. The reason while I still post there; My aim is to prevent that other unexperineced collectors interested in collecting jade get caught in the trap of wrong conceptions and in the net of lies that the Wilson's and her followers are continuosly spinning. Further I can't accept by no means, the continous manipulation, brainwash and wrong information of public opinion by these people. I am confident that many others see this the same way and will join the path of truth.

Diasai

Bill I hear you... I have some nice pieces and have run in to the same problem... Would love to talk to you about jade....

Have a great day....

Hi, Jammie:

Thank you very much for your kind comment, you may email me at jadelover8888@yahoo.com

When I first started collecting jades, many jade "experts" criticized my jades as "modern". (they could very be right at the time.) Yet when I posted the following two questions in this and other forum:

"How modern is modern?"

"What are modern tool marks (found on jade carvings)?"

Nobody seems to be able to answer my questions satisfactorily.

Since then, I have been studying very diligently and learned that it is indeed very difficult to answer the above two questions.

First, "How modern is modern?" regarding a jade carving?

Well it depends in how you define "modern" and I believe "modern" jade carvings can be defined in one of the three following ways:

(1) Modern jade carvings are those jade carvings that are made with modern electrical carving tools assisted with diamond grit(or other grit with high hardness such as corundum). Since such carving tools are operated under high rpm and only goes in one direction (clockwise), therefore the tool marks left on the jade carvings are "modern". Jade carvings in China were made with manual tools until early 1960 when such manual carving tools were replaced with modern electrical tools. Therefore, we may call jade carvings with modern tool marks or those made after 1960 as "modern".

(2) According to laws of China, any antiques that are older than 120 years must have the wax seal for such pieces to be exported out of the country (I can be wrong on this, correct me if I am incorrect). Therefore, we can call any jade carvings that are less than 120 years old "modern".

(3) The Republic of China was established in 1911 and before that it was Qing dynasty - the last dynasty in China. Therefore we may call any jade pieces made after 1910 "modern".

Of course, these are only my recommended definitions for "modern jade carvings". Many jade collectors and experts in this forum may have different ideas and I would love to hear from them.

Now the second question:

"What are modern tool marks?" is a six million dollar question and not even jade experts can agree on the answers.

First of all, some carving marks left by modern electrical tools are very similar to those left by manual carving tools.

To make matters complicate, it is possible some modern jade copies are still made with manual jade carving tools.

Even with manual carving tools, there are six different types of manual tu (a metal or stone wheel used in cutting, polishing and carving jades) since the early ages in China.

It is not easy to differentiate between even tool marks left by metal carving tools or stone carving tools.

There is no universal agreement in what types of carving tools were available in the new stone ages in China because not too many of such tools survived today and therefore tool marks left by such tools were very difficult to understand. Even in the Shang dynasty, we knew they had metal carving tools made of bronze, however since bronze was such precious metal at the time, many of such metal carving tools were melted down after a jade piece was finished for other uses. Therefore, not too many bronze carving tools are available for study today.

Many jade experts simply do not know or cannot agree in how tool marks found on jade pieces carvings in different dynasties or from different cultures in ancient China should look like.

What irks me the most is many jade "experts" in this or other forum simply did not have any concrete reasoning when they call a jade piece "modern".

The pieces may just appear to be modern to them based on their own personal experience in collecting jades and/or their personal feeling toward the jade piece. Very often, if a jade piece is made so bad that it looks like it was made yesterday, their opinions of course would be right on the money and there would be almost an universal agreement among the forum members (like the modern fish jade carving posted here in the forum) However, very often, a jade piece that is unusual in its style, form, material and carving, it would be very difficult if not impossible in dating such a piece without being able to personally handle and examine it. Yet some of them would just call it "modern" without any explanation or evidence presented in supporting their opinions.

A celadon jade slit ring I posted in another thread had experienced such fate. The dZi beads and buddha head jade carving posted by Randy in the main forum had experienced similar fates. (One or two experts did bring up some good arguments regarding the jade buddha head piece). It makes me wonder how much many of these experts really know what they are talking about?

The celadon jade slit ring I posted in this forum was a genuine archaic jade slit ring due to its unique high quality nephrite material (now extinct), its genuine weathering but most important of all it was based on my study of tool marks. It simply was made modernly because the cut at its slit was simply too uneven to be made with a metal blade or even a stone tu with grit. It was indeed made with two string cuts. Such string cuts were only seen during stone ages. Nobody would be stupid enough in trying to make a modern jade piece with string cut because the labor involved would be simply too time consuming and therefore unprofitable. Then they had to put such genuine weathering on it after they made it. If you do not believe me, please find a piece of similar quality celadon nephrite jade like my slit ring (it would be a difficult task by itself),get a piece of string (animal tendon, bamboo or tree bark string, etc.) then try to cut a slit on it with quartz grit (with two cuts) and see how long it will take you to complete such task.

Yet this one dealer in China had the audacity to call it "modern" without any explanations despite the fact that two of my experienced jade friends had called it "archaic". When I challenged him to post pictures of similar jade slit rings or sell me as many similar pieces he could find for me at "modern fake" prices he never give me any concrete responses. It is almost like when you play poker, and when the other party call you bluff you simply fold your cards.

I never claim I am a jade expert and very often I admit I was wrong. However, I have been spending as much money in acquiring jade books as the amount spent in acquiring jade pieces and had spent a lot of time in studying anything to do with jades. When I began to understand more about tool marks, I was disgusted in finding out that indeed many of my archaic Hongshan jade pieces could not possibly be authentic neolithic jade pieces because metal tool marks were found on them. However, when I posted a genuine HS piece with all the characteristics of authentic Hongshan jade pieces, it was being attacked and ridiculed from top to bottom by people who really did not understand Hongshan. It makes me understand it is indeed very difficult in both authenticating and dating a jade piece. There are simply so much to learn, even for established jade experts. Therefore we should not call any jade pieces posted in this forum "modern" unless we are 99% sure and can present convincing evidence.

I am going to post pictures of three pieces of jade carvings here and let all members decide if they are modern or not. If they can explain in how they make their decision or in estimating how old (or what dynasty) or modern each piece is, I would appreciate very much. This test is not my attempt to put down anybody but in showing how difficult it is in deciding what a "modern" jade carving is.

Bill

In my last message regarding the jade slit ring,
"It simply was made modernly because the cut at its slit was simply too uneven to be made with a metal blade or even a stone tu with grit"

should be

"It simply was not made modernly.......,"

sorry, mistyping of one word changed the meaning of the whole sentence.

B

was wondering whether you can identify the period of these jade pieces. The white stuff you see on the chicken thing are traces of coral, and so are the ones on the chinese ghostcatcher. Are coral traces eligble for TL test?

sorry to disappoint you, because the first item is made from a softer Serpentine, and is modern.
The second item is also modern, and could be Bowenite. The third one looks like Burmese Jade, Jadeite, and like the first one, it seems to have been dipped in acid, to make it look older.
Ernest

I am sorry I did not see these pieces until now. I actually like the first piece - a lohan (?) hold a jar of wine with a wine cup, with the Chinese character "wine" carved on the jar and a small kid holding a "yuan Bao" (money)in his two hands. Does that mean he rather enjoys the wine than taking the money? It is a high possibility that it was made of serpentine but there is a slight chance of it being made of nephrite. A scratch test can confirm it is not nephrite (if it can be scratched). The white patina was possibly created with acid like Ernest said. The piece did look modern but I believe it was not made recently. This piece is quite big (how much does it weigh) and if it cannot be scratched, it is old material even if it is serpentine and such large rock is not easy to locate.

The second rooster is either made of some translucent serpentine or quartz, probably serpentine. Its carving is bad.

The third piece does look like made of jadeite, cannot tell how good the quality of the jadeite is because of the light reflection. It appears to be quite big and if it was made of decent jadeite with no cracks, then this piece may be the most valuable piece just by material alone. Such a large piece of genuine jadeite material is not cheap in today's market.

Thanks for sharing.

Bill

P.S. On the three jade carvings I posted, the top and the bottom one are both archaic. The middle one is freshly out of the factory. Surprisingly no member would even try to render their opinions.

hey bill-bob-o here-we have spoken to each other a couple times-can you tell me if it is worth investing 1000.00USD on a raw hunk of xiu jade-looks like it has river wear-emerald green to light green in color-it weighs 60 pounds-and is 22 inches tall-7 inches wide-looks beautiful-almost like jadeite-but by sight is definitely older river piece-let me know-thanks-bob-o-:)

Sorry, Bobo:

Yahoo treated the email notification from this forum as spams and I did not see your posting till now.

When you said xiu jade I guess you mean older serpentine rough, right? Or do you mean nephrite? What are you going to do with it?

I believe $1000 is too high unless you have some purposes for it because I do not believe it would go up in price raw material alone.

You are better off if you can get some genuine Hetian jade pebbles. They really go up but there are many fakes.

Be careful.

Bill

Hello

is it possible to tell if the objects on the pictures are Late neolithicum from Hongshan culture as they are said to be?

first object is about 24 centimeter and said to be in green jade.
second and third are about 16 centimeter, first one said to be in yellow jade end second in green jade. These are tomb figures from north-east china/mongolia??

Thank you in advance

Dear Freedriek:

I saw these 3 pieces of yours in the Yahoo Hongshan group and I believed I had sent a reply to you. However, since you have posted larger and better pictures here and I am at home therefore I would have more time in examining these 3 pieces closely.

I do not believe I would change my original opinions toward these three items. I believe the chance of any of them being authentic jade carvings of Hongshan culture or any neolithic cultures are very very low.

First of all, it is very difficult to find such large size of raw material to carve these pieces in neolithic times. (even in today's China, it is neither cheap or easy to find large nephrite rocks) Secondly, even if such large samples could be found, the neolithic people lacked any metal tools in dissecting (cutting) and "carving" such large jade carvings easily. Therefore, while there were indeed some large neolithic jade statues, they were quite rare and were mostly owned by museums in China. Also, most large authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of black-skin hard nephrite that contains a large amount of ferro-actinolite. Their surface will sound like metal when hit with a metal subject. Others were made with dark green nephrite sometimes with golden specks embedded in them.

Your first piece is a large C dragon (with a pig-dragon head) connected with a goddess (?) or beast. The piece is quite cute and quite creative. However, its chicken-bone white color and brown weathering look quite suspicious. I believe inside of this piece it was made of light yellowish-green serpentine and could be scratched (with a needle or pocket knife). I believe both the chicken-bone-white color (by burning) and brown weathering were artificially created.

Although occasionally one may find a few chicken-bone-white Hongshan pieces but almost 90%+ authentic Hongshan jade carvings did not have this type of chicken bone white color. The reason is:

"The reason there are rarely chicken bone white color or severe weathering found on authentic Hongshan jade carvings is because most of the Hongshan tombs are either stone-coffin tombs in Liaoning or earth-pit tombs in Inner Mongolia where the soil is very dry. Therefore no water or moisture could get inside most of these tombs and as a result the burial jades inside were not affected by either moisture or water. That is why many authentic Hongshan jades look like they are newly-carved and are in pristine conditions when they were excavated. This always puzzles many novice Hongshan jade collectors who believe any jade carving that were five thousand years old must be badly corroded and with severe weathering." (quoted from one of my threads posted in Chichochai)

Another reason is many authentic Hongshan jade piece were made of high-quality nephrite resemble Hetian jade in both quality and appearance, such quality nephrite jade simply would not corrode easily no matter how long it would be buried in water or moist soil. Some other authentic Hongshan carving were made of bowenite, a type of serpentine with hardness of >5 and cannot be scratched; some were made of dark green nephrite (large C dragons) and again cannot be corroded easily.

In short, it is really rare to see authentic Hongshan jade carvings, large or small, with badly corrosive or chicken-bone-white surfaces. Now on Liangzhu jades, because some were burned with the deceased during burial, therefore it was quite common to see Liangzhu jades with chicken-bone-white color.

The third piece (bottom picture), a mythical beast, is bad news. It was most likely not made of nephrite, probably serpentine or some other hard stones and I believe it could be scratched easily. Its brown weathering (alteration) on its surface is dyed or artificially created. I believe you can wipe them off with acetone or some other solvent. Its inside is probably yellowish (which will be serpentine). Everything about it is wrong. Posture and form is very awkward. I recommend you not to have anything to do with it.

The middle piece, the Apollo or Sun God or boar-head Beast may be the best out of the three although I believe it is also modern. There is a 50% chance of it being made of nephrite. A scratch test should confirm it. Its reddish brown weathering is not natural and I do not believe it was the result of burial with vermillion (cinnabar). By the way, there was no official records showing cinnabar was ever found in any of the Hongshan burial sites. The eyes of this beast is willow-leaf shape and is typical for C dragon but not for jade apollo/statue which should have elongated eyes that are bulky in the middle but narrow at both ends. Its horns were also wrong. The material is also wrong. May be that is why they are trying to sell it as neolithic only but not Hongshan. But which neolithic culture? I do not believe it is good enough to be any. At best, it is a pretty good modern piece. If it was made with nephrite and the price is right, it can be a very good study piece.

It is hard to judge any jade pieces with low resolution pictures only. Without able to examine them closely, some times with a 10x loupe, it is not possible to examine the carving marks on the pieces. Therefore, any opinions expressed on them can be only 50% accurate at best.

Bill

I have a jade carving of two dragons that appear to be fighting one another, with a circular shape connecting the two. It appears to be very old and in need of some restoration, but very neat looking piece. I am not a collector, but have had this piece for a while.The color in the picture is a bit brighter than the actual piece due to my camera and lighting. Can you suggest anything you may know about the piece and a possible place I can list it for sale? Thanks!

Good day sir

I d like to know if you could send me your adress mail or contact me please.
I m found of jade, but i have all to learn. And my messages have t success..any réponse or a fews....
So cordialement
Karine

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