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Hi All!

Anita helped me to discover that some of the extra large pieces I've found, but did not buy are modern fake archaic jades. Some points that we discussed to tell the fakes, but mainly her ideas are as follows:

1. Pieces are much larger than real ancient pieces.
2. Style is not right.
3. Pieces have way to much patina, especially white patina, which is most likely put on by using an alkaline solution.
4. Pieces are proper weight and hardness of nephrite, most likely, because the base material is made of nephrite, though British Columbian version which Anita said sells for about $40 USD a kilogram in Hong Kong.
5. Big heavy pieces passed the harness test of 5 to 6 hardness points.

I can't help but notice that the majority of these pieces have a small area where the patina was removed to show the material underneath is green, but not the nice lighter apple green I've seen on real archaic pieces.

Normally in museums they don't clean off the patina to show a small portion of the original base material.

Well I hopes this helps?
Tim

Dear Tim

BC nephrite wholesale price in China is USD -4 / kg, not USD 40 in HK. That's is why this kind of junks can made profit to Pinocchio, Chicco and Sky a lot. The retail price is USD 10-15 per piece, but those kind of people selling on the net for USD 900-3000.- Selling one piece will break even for the whole warehouse. They just wait to bait the newbies by putting Taiwannica Geological miracle on fake archaic jade artefacts.. blah blah blah... to their heads.

If anybody want these kind of stuff for home decor (not for cheating people as authentic artefacts), you can contact me. You can visit those fakers' stores website and pick one, I can find similar piece with 70% discount.

Have fun
Anita

Hi, Tim:

I probably should have kept my mouth shut but I just cannot help it. While I respect Anita's expertise in jade carving in general and her experience in recognizing authentic jade carvings in most of the time I would like to respectfully beg to differ with her opinions rendered on jade materials and the price of which. You can only take them with a grain of salt.

I believe it is really very irresponsible for any of us to mislead members of this forum or anyone who happens to read this forum that the price of nephrite jade including BC jade is indeed cheap and is readily available in China.

If this is truly the case, then you should find many modern fakes selling inside China or listed on eBay by dealers from China made of genuine nephrite jade. This is simply not the case because almost most of the modern fakes were made of cheap non-jade materials such as serpentine. Another fact is it is just more costly to carve real jade due to its hardness (harder than fake material).

It always irks me when respected jade collectors start making unfounded and unsupported statements about the availability and prices of jade materials. I have posted so much evidence here in this forum previously to refute them it had almost become redundant.

If you would just refer to this article published by Friends of Jade in 2004:

http://www.friendsofjade.org/current-article/2004/3/29/bc-nephrite-report-2004.html

The following statements can be found inside this article:

"Cassiar jade will be available in limited quantities at prices from $20-$50/kg for bulk exports to China, more than double what it sold for before the asbestos mine closed. Expect smaller amounts available to lapidary and small market users as well as prices about $20-$50 per US pound (not kilos)."

"Nephrite Pricing, 2004:

The bulk of the pricing has remained steady, except for jewelry-grade nephrite rough, which is rising.

Prices in Canada, stated in US dollars:

Grade aa (jewelry) $20-$50/kg
Grade a $10-$15/kg
Grade b (carving) $5-10/kg
Grade c (tile and industrial grades) $1-2/kg

These prices are for bulk exports (mine run), based on 5000-20,000 kg purchases. Prices for small collectors, users, individual carvers would be double this."

If the Grade b BC jade is already 5-10 per kg in 2004 and that is for large 5000-20,000 kg purchases, that means most of the jade carvers would have to pay $10-20 a kg in 2004. Remember this price does not include shipping cost, duties, customs, sales tax, overhead, etc.

Now another interesting thing you must remember, since 2004, the Canadian dollars had gone up almost 50%. That means in terms of today's Canadian dollars, the BC jade will cost $15 to 30 per kg and this is wholesale price. This does not include price increase caused by inflation and increased labor, production and transportation costs. If you do not believe there is inflation, just ask Anita how much everything in Hong Kong and China are costing now. In short, how in the world can any Chinese businessman sell genuine BC nephrite jade at US$4 a kg when they have to pay way over $20 for each kg. Have you ever seen any jade carvings carved with BC jade? Do you have any idea how expensive they can be even for a small piece?

Now, may I ask where in the heck can one find BC jade (carving grade) in China at US$ 4 a kg?

Have any one tried to buy any raw BC jade rocks/slacks lately?

Now I do not disagree that many of these "archaic" and "antique" carvings listed for sales by all these Chinese dealers at high prices in Hong Kong or other cities were indeed "modern fakes" and may be made of BC jade or other nephrite jades. They were all made of identical material with similar weathering despite they were supposedly made in different dynasties. But the fact is in order for them to make money, especially for the bigger pieces, they must sell them very high. You are not going to buy genuine nephrite pieces no matter how modern they are for $1 a piece.

It irks me when Anita once told me she could find pig dragons that are similar to a pig dragon (I have) that was made of genuine green nephrite jade with beautiful carving for US$ 1 a piece in Hong Kong (I believe she later told me it would cost more). In the same token, Pipane said he could find similar jade (ear) ring like the archaic one I posted here for nominal prices. However, when I challenged both of them, none of them could produce any real articles at the prices they mentioned. If you travel to the jade markets in Hong Kong or some Chinese cities, even modern fakes are no longer cheap and most of them are not made of genuine nephrite.

The funny thing is bad modern fakes will actually cost more, some times, than carvings that were made of genuine nephrite jade and are archaic.

I once challenged anybody in this forum to show me evidence of his or her ability to purchase any jade carvings that are made of genuine nephrite jade, that is at least 10 inches long and weighs at least 1 kg at US $20 or below inside China. None of them can. Why? It is because it is simply not feasible to to make such large carvings with genuine nephrite jade and sell them at such low prices and are still able to make a profit.

Any large quality jade carvings that were made of unique and sometimes extinct nephrite jade materials with convincing ancient tool marks should not be discarded as "modern fakes" without further studies and examinations due to the simple fact that it is no longer possible to make such large modern fakes at present time.

I have studied a lot about jade materials, their origins and availability, but I have not been able to identify a large window of opportunity for genuine nephrite jade materials to be available in large quantity at any time for fakers to make large modern fakes and selling them for peanuts. There are simply no evidence at this time to prove this is indeed the case.

I know many collectors and members may have already made up their minds regarding nephrite jade (they are cheap and they are readily available). However, I cannot help but caution all of you, like any natural raw materials such as oil, the supply of nephrite jade is very very limited. Once they are used up, they will be gone forever, only old stocks would be available. If you do not believe me, just study the Taiwan (nephrite) jade and the Wyoming nephrite jades. Those jade mines were long gone.

Many nice BC or Siberia nephrite jade rocks that was at least half a kilo had fetched for over $69 or more each piece. I was very astonished to the fierce competition bidders were willing to pay for them. I had actually asked one of the winners who won two BC rocks at high cost what exactly he was planning to do with them. He told me he would just keep them for twenty years and sell them when their prices go up. I did believe he was very serious when he told me that.

In China, people had bought and kept large pieces of nice hetian nephrite jade rock for 20 years and obtained 20 times or more profit when they sold them. This is a fact.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, to believe that any genuine and carving-quality nephrite jade are readily available in low prices will be both naive and unrealistic. I am sorry if I have offended anybody. These are simply my personal opinions.

Bill

thanks to Anita !

Good luck

:)

Dear Bill

So what grade of BC nephrite those fake hongshan made of? possibly grade "D-Z".

Why eBay bidding winner for those kind of piece at USD 5 + shipping 30, eBay seller still be happy to ship to USA happily? The profit and the cost is in shipping fee already, the bidding cost is just for paying eBay and Paypal fee. You may ask Pipane for the price of those junks around where he lives.

I ship bulky shipments of Mediteranian granite to Fuzhou, those Chinese factories have a special deal which cheapest market price I have never known of..how they do that?

Pls do not rely on friendsofjade too much, some info there have never been updated by the authurs.

Have fun
Anita Mui

Not to long ago, I challengend Anita to find me a jade artifact similar to that in the Ostasiatica Museet of Stockholm, she stated that it could be readily available an reproduced in HK or mainland China. Until now nothing has happened.

I agree what Bill has researched above on jade/nephrite prices and availability.

I highly doubt the expertise of Anita Mui on Hongshan jade. It is very easy to play the sceptic and to declare everything posted in the forum as fake and readily available.

The facts are different! Nowadays only low quality serpentine Liangzhu and some Hongshan fakes are produced and it is hard to come by any well executed neolithic jade carving, real or fake, authentic or reproduction.

I will strongly advise any neolithic jade collector to hold on to their collections and not to sell a single piece. Due to my yearlong research, collecting experience and recent correspondence with antique dealers and experts across China and Inner Mongolia, I must come to the conclusion that more of the so called Hongshan and Neolithic artifacts that has been found on the market since the end of the Mao era, are indeed authentic and unique antiques. The time in which it has been possible to find such pieces on the market in modest quantity and for low prices will soon elapse. This is, among others, due to the awakening of consciousness for the importance of Inner Mongolian pre-historic artifacts. Museums and experts in China and Worldwide are more interested than before.

Fine reproductions cannot be made anymore, it is not profitable and possible to produce them nowadays (see Anita). What remains in future are easily distinguable low production cost fakes, produced with minimum effort, modest craftmanship and cheap materials like serpentine or varieties of soapstone, soft stones or marble.

Diasai

Dear Diasai

I try to find the best copy of horn figurines like that European Collections you dream of, but til now I can not find the beautiful pieces like that. There are many fake horned figurines made of true jade but the quality will not match your standard.

I tried to take pictures from those kind of shops. If I do not buy anything first, they even pushed me and pulled my mobile phone away, then asked to delete pictures from my mobile phone memmory. In HK, if the shops owner do not allow you to take pictures, it can be a criminal case..

There are plenty of nephrite HS pieces in HK and Shenzhen. I know that the only one source you get fake HS jades is only from eBay..don't you think that eBay sellers from Mainland China are tired to pay eBay fee with nobody buy or even care to look at their products?

Truly authentic archaic jades are not cheap like that, and the Mainland Chineses are not that dumb to sell you few dollars, since they can trade one small authentic HS bead with 20" color television set.
-----------------------------
As for your Neolithic expatise, you just don't know Prof.Guo Dashun who spend his whole life in Nui's excavation and the one who declared Anderson's collecttion is a "fake"?

Have fun
Anita Mui

Anita:

The question here is not whether you are correct about fake jades were being made and were being sold for high profit. In that regard, I totally agree with you.

The question is you should not render generalized and dramatic statements without any evidence or supports regarding the availability and price of nephrite jade (raw material).

The reason the BC nephrite jades were classified into different grades had their reasons, grades that were lower than carving grades would probably be unsutiable for carving. Even with Taiwan jades, a very high quality nephrite jade, they initially encountered difficulty in carving them because they would break during the carving process. Such lower grades can only be used for tile or other commercial purposes.

The thing I am trying to point out is that genuine "nephrite" jade is a semi-rare (if not rare) natural resource and there are not too many places where it can be mined. Similar to gold mines, when the price of the commodity (such as gold and silver) drops so low, it would become unprofitable for the mines to continue their productions. Therefore, when gold price dropped to around US $300 - 350 a troy ounce, many gold mines were closed. Similarly, if the wholesale price of BC nephrite jade is only $4 a kg, what nephrite mines could remain open for productions?

The increase in oil prices jacks up the fuel cost and therefore the production costs and transporatation costs for the operation of nephrite mines. With global inflations, the labor costs will also have to increase. In short, there is absolutely no way any "decent" and genuine BC nephrite jades can be bought at US$4 a kg in any substantial quantity anywhere in the world. Even in Canada, one cannot hope to purchase them in such low price. I believe you had exaggerated both the availability and costs of nephrite.

If you refer to this article published on the July/August 2005 issue of Canadaian Geographic magaine:

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ja05/feature.asp

It says,

"In 2004, jade boulders in B.C. sold for about $15 a kilogram, varying according to the quality of the stone. A small fraction goes to local artisans, but most is shipped to the workbenches of hundreds of experienced carvers in Hong Kong, Taiwan or mainland China. B.C. jade is prized for its toughness and its almost mirror finish when polished."

It is true that inferior grades of BC nephrite jade can be bought in price as low as $2 a kg but such low-quality jade is unsuitable for carvings. On the other side, high grade BC jade can fetch up to $100 per kg in wholesale price.

In short, there are not too many places (or any) in China one would expect to find raw BC nephrite jades at US$4 a kg or find jade carvings made of such material in US$1 a piece. If you can find them in China, please do enlighten us by posting them here in this forum. Thanks.

Bill

Thanks all for your opinions! I'm not sure about the pricing for the BC nephrite, and sorry about making the mistake on the pricing Anita, as I forgot the exact amount you told me from before.

Everyone seems to make sense with their points, but unfortunately, without the proper scales and considering how large these pieces are I am unable to do a specific gravity test on them. Thus, they can be either serpentine or jade, though having passed the hardness test of a five point and I think a six point (Doesn't seem to scratch, but I'm never sure if I'm pushing too hard.) I would say this is probably nephrite and the Canadian version as Anita pointed out.

I think I left off the hardness point test.

In regards to nephrite pricing Bill, I believe the high cost of carved BC nephrite pieces in the USA & Canada can be attributed mainly to the artist's labor and cachet cost more so than the actual cost of the raw material, though like you said raw material is getting more scarce, so the prices is going up.

Perhaps best compared to the Hawaiian hardwood Koa, which in the 1980's sold for about $6.00 a board foot, well I was in a exotic hardwood store yesterday and it's going for $40.00 b.f.

Thanks!

Tim:

The two pieces you posted here did not resemble BC nephrite jades. I do not believe the large pig dragon was made of nephrite jade but made of serpentine. Cannot tell what the cong was made of with the picture, possible nephrite but not BC nephrite. Labor in China may be cheaper than those in Canada or U.S. but not that cheap. If a large cong is made of genuine nephrite, even if it is made modernly, it would not be cheap. It is really not that easy to make a cong especially one with more details and is carved with real nephrite. Most modern and phony congs are not made of nephirte but were mass produced.

Bill

Dear Bill

Pls read Tim's message carefully, they have passed 5-6 hardness picking tools. Serpentine have hardness of 4-5 on Mohs'.

------------------

Dear Tim

Pls notice that the lumps of needle-like growth of crystal (whatever the term fakers reffered to) are obvious and not naturally influanced by burial environment.

They are not sharp, but ground smooth which indicate the polish works, to grind the sharpness and show the original stone color after the lumps were artifically made. The worst of all is that the fakers stupidly re-craved repeately on the original incised lines after that. It can be detected with your gut and naked eyes.

Have fun
Anita Mui

That is correct, as I wrote in my email on 9/12 the exposed green areas seem to have a hardness of 5 - 6 and as Anita pointed out the bi disk was polished smooth, which I thought was odd as well in addition to the unusual patina coloring, which is nothing close to what I have seen in any museum.

My original point was it seems that the fakers appear to be using a material that has the characteristics of nephrite making it a bit harder to tell if they are fake or not to those who maybe lacking the expertise and experience of knowing what the correct patina should look like of real archaics. Additionally, I wanted to point out that it seems these pieces have an undercoat of green material and magically some subtle areas are exposed so the seller can see this, so they would think they are buying a real nephrite piece that looks archaic.

Bowenite, a type of serpentine, can also pass the
scratch test and has a hardness of >5. Hardness picks come with points with hardness at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Sometimes it is very hard to perform the hardness test correctly due to slippery surface. Carvings made of quartz, agate, jasper can also pass 5 and 6 hardness points. In my opinion, these two pieces posted here are not made of BC nephrite jades and the cong may not be made modern although not archaic.

B

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