Jade

What it actually is

Two minerals. Nephrite is a calcium magnesium iron amphibole, and jadeite is a sodium aluminium pyroxene. Both are hardness 6 to 7, and both are extraordinarily tough.

Toughness is the point. Nephrite is a felted mass of interlocking fibres, which makes it one of the most break-resistant natural materials known, tougher than steel by some measures. Jadeite is a granular interlocking aggregate and is similarly tough. That is why jade was worked into axes and adzes long before it was worked into ornaments, and why a jade bangle survives what would shatter almost any faceted gem.

Hardness is only 6 to 7, so jade scratches. Toughness and hardness are different properties and jade is the clearest illustration of the difference.

Jadeite is rarer and forms only at high pressure in subduction zones. Nephrite is more widespread.

Jadeite comes in more colours, including the intense green imperial jade coloured by chromium, and lavender, white, black, orange and red.

Where it comes from

Myanmar's Kachin State produces essentially all fine jadeite, and the trade is significant enough to raise serious questions about conflict financing and labour conditions that a buyer should be aware of.

China's own jade was nephrite, from Khotan in the Tarim basin, and the material worked for millennia in Chinese culture was nephrite rather than jadeite. Jadeite arrived from Burma in quantity only in the eighteenth century.

Guatemala's Motagua valley supplied the Olmec and the Maya with jadeite.

New Zealand's South Island produces pounamu, nephrite of deep significance in Maori culture, whose extraction and trade are governed by settlement arrangements with Ngai Tahu.

Russia, Canada and Taiwan produce nephrite commercially.

What the traditions claimed

China's tradition is the deepest. Nephrite was worked from before 6000 BCE, and Liangzhu culture ground bi discs and cong tubes with sand over months. Confucius, in a passage of the Book of Rites, reads the qualities of jade as the virtues of the noble person: its warmth as benevolence, its firmness as intelligence, its edges that do not cut as justice, its ring when struck as music, and its flaws visible from within as honesty. Jade burial suits of thousands of plaques sewn with gold wire were meant to preserve the body.

Mesoamerica valued jadeite above gold. The Olmec carved it into were-jaguar figures, the Maya set it in the mouths of the dead, and the Nahuatl chalchihuitl covered a family of green stones standing for water, maize and breath.

Maori pounamu carries mana and is treated as taonga, treasure, with named heirloom pieces and specific protocols around gifting.

None of these are decorative traditions. In each case the stone stands for the standard a person is held to.

How it is worked with

Jade is the one stone in the catalogue where the correct use is to handle it. Chinese practice explicitly favours wearing and touching jade so that skin oils build a patina over years, and a bangle worn daily for decades is the traditional object.

That makes it unusual: most stones here are looked at, and this one is meant to be worn smooth.

The virtue reading is the substantial one, and it is about conduct rather than about feeling. Jade is a standard, not a comfort.

For wear it is excellent: tough enough to survive daily life, though it scratches at hardness 6 to 7 and should be kept away from high heat, which damages treated material and can dull the polish.

Buy nephrite if you want the material with the deepest tradition, and expect to pay real money for good jadeite.

Buying it honestly

This is a market that requires specific questions.

First, which mineral: jadeite or nephrite. Both are jade. Serpentine, aventurine, dyed quartzite, prehnite and glass are all sold under jade-adjacent names, of which new jade for serpentine is the most common.

Second, for jadeite, which grade. A jade is untreated and only waxed. B jade has been acid-bleached to remove brown staining and impregnated with polymer resin, which can yellow and degrade over years. C jade has been dyed. B and C material looks good initially and is worth a small fraction of A grade, and only a laboratory report is conclusive.

Third, provenance. Burmese jadeite raises real questions about conflict financing and mining conditions, and a seller who cannot discuss it is not one to buy from.

Serpentine also deserves a caution: some varieties contain asbestos fibres and raw material should not be sanded without dust control.