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This little bird measures 40 x 45mm. I have not performed a SG test, but, it can not be scratched with any metal blade. Can some one please tell me if this this jade?

I will post 2 more pictures later.

Dear Tiger

it's possibly an aventurine. It's a flying sparrow.

It's a modern work.

Have fun
Anita Mui

This is a copy of an ancient carving. As far as I can tell, the material seems to be quartz, probably a very light coloured adventurine. The brown colour could be artificial.
Ernest

Thanks Anita and Ernest.

While it could be well be what you guys said, but, it looks like B.C. jade to me. The colours are real as far as I can tell. I bought this in Vancouver, BC, at one of those monthly antique fairs. I thought it could be an old carving by the natives.

I have attached 2 more pictures. the crack is recent because when I ran my my nail over it, I can discern the separation/crack. Also, there are innumerous scrath marks which might denote old age. while the surface is very smooth, it is quite pitted with many tiny indentations.

Appreciate you have another look at the new photos.

Being in BC, having studied enough about our Jade, I can assure you that this carving is not BC Jade, and that it was carved in Asia, most likely China. On these pictures the colour looks natural. I stick to genuine Aventurine.
Ernest

It does look like a quartzite type material such as aventurine because of the specks of green color. It also shows a high polish that indicates the higer hardness of this item.

Dear Tiger

Aventurine is from quartz family, the green dots are from copper. The BC nephrite and any nephrite have no sparkling and light green dots like that.

It may be made by native American Indian there, sorry I have no knowledge about American Indian art, however, you can see this style of bird as well as American Indian stone carving animals, beads, pendants..etc selling at teenage boutique accessories shops. They are made from China, India and South East Asia, not exactly made in USA and Canada.

Have fun
Anita Mui

Tiger:

In my opinion, your bird is a very beautiful piece.

I agreed with others that it was made of aventurine because I have just studied some modern Hongshan style carvings that were made of Indian aventurine. The unique green specks in it and its semitransluscency separates it from jade. It cannot be B.C. jade. If the color shown on its picture is its real color, then this may not be Indian aventurine and may be a unique type of aventurien that could only be found in Canada. (*I do not know if aventurine can be found in Canada without researches.) You may want to find out if any similar aventurine can be found in Canada.

Like you said the crack might be a recent crack otherwise you should see some color stain inside the crack if it had been buried.

I believe your bird is an old carving and was not made modern because:

(1) On the second picture you show, the tail end of the bird. those long vertical carving lines were made with some types of manual tu and not with modern tools because it is wider in its midst and narrow at its ends. Another evidence is its hole where the ring goes through, if you look inside you will see some black stain around its inside edge. Most of the time, grease was put inside such hole in order to polish it or in facilitating the drilling of such a hole. In older pieces, the grease attracted dirts after a long while and as a result black stains would be found inside the hole. You would not see such black stains in newly made pieces. Of course, it is possible for fakers to put artificial stains inside the hole to make it look old. Also, use your finger to feel around the edge of the hole (or holes, I cannot see the other hole)and feel if the edges are smooth. In new pieces, the edges of the holes are always very sharp. Another thing you can do is if you may take the ring off and observe how the hole looks, if the outside of the hole is bigger than the inside of the hole (like a trumpet) that you know it is more than likely the hole was made with a solid stone or wood drill (or a soft metal drill) head because when such holes was drilled the drill head would be worn down and sometimes more than one drill heads would have to be used to complete the drilling of such hole. If this material is indeed aventurine then it would have a hardness of 6.5-7 and it would be much tougher than the drill head. It is like putting a pencil (drill head) into a pencil sharpener (the hole), the tip of the pencil (drill head) would become narrower as it was sharpened, therefore the inside diameter of such hole would be wider outside and narrower as it goes further inside. With a modern metal drill (with diamond grit) such a hole would be in equal diameter all the way through. (see enlarge picture)

(2) I also like its eye (see enlarge picture) because again I do not believe was made with modern tools.

Due to the limit of the resolution of the pictures being allowed to be posted in this site. I cannot examine any of the tool marks or carving lines found on your bird.

However, I believe it is quite possible your bird is an older piece and you may want to study it more or ask somebody who have been collecting old stone carvings (American, Chinese, etc.) to examine it for you. They would look in confirming if your piece was made of modern tools or older carving tools including stone tools.

This is only my opinion and hope I did not confuse you.

Bill

Hi Bill.

I am not a novice (at least I don�t think so myself) nephrite jade collector and I bought the bird because it was simply, yet �powerfully� carved, knowing full well that the material might not be jade. And it has all the markings of an old piece as mentioned in your response. As far as I can tell, no modern tool marks whatsoever. I don�t collect latter Qing-style carvings because they are too ornate/detailed for my liking.

I like the way you state your case (not because you agree with me that the bird is old although it doesn�t hurt.......ha, ha........we are all humans) in a detailed and easy manner to understand. I think all responses should be in a similar fashion irrespective whether the writer is correct or not. It shows he/she has thought carefully about his/her response and indeed knows the subject matter and not waste other�s time. We are all here to learn; at least I am. If one truly knows the subject, one can argue his/her case in very simplistic terms/words for everyone to understand, and not having to hide behind bombastic and esoteric explanation to confuse.

Hi, Tiger:

I appreciate your compliment though I do not believe I deserve them yet. However, my joy in collecting jades is not just in their ownership but rather the continued study of jade in order to seek knowledge. I first focused in learning different types of jade materials and now I try to learn more about tooling. However, it is so very difficult to learn about tool marks because the one left with modern tools and ancient tools sometimes can be very similar and therefore very confusing.

It disappoints me a lot when a few jade collectors would call many jade items posted in this forum modern without presenting any types of evidences, proof or explanations but based just on their personal feelings. Sometimes it is so apparent a jade piece cannot be achieved with modern tooling because its cuts and carving were resulted from archaic jade carving skills such as string cut or solid stone drill (in drilling holes) but yet they would call it a modern copy. Many times they also ignored the fact that unique and high quality jade (or non-jade) materials were simply too rare or too expensive in using to make cheap fake jades. Any time when one encounters a jade piece (or non-jade) that was made of quality and unique material, or with that is similar to those of archaic jades, and such a piece was carved exquisitely, they should never discard it as a modern fake without closely examining and studying it or we would simply miss a lot of good pieces.

Bill

Hi Bill,

I finally took out my trusty Pesola Scale (30 gm) and found that the SG is 2.70. It is quite definitely not nephrite. While it falls under several types of stones, I tend to agree with Anita, etc. that it is most likely to be aventurine. Good call guys.

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