It has been my wish to rewrite my guide "Is it really jade?" because in my first guide I simply did not do as well a job as I wanted to due to the limit of my knowledge and experience at the time.  Strangely enough the more I learned about jades it seems the less I really know about jades.  I used to believe I could tell with at least 80-90% accuracy if a piece of carving is made of real jade (nephrite or jadeite) or not.  With better digital pictures it actually makes my job more difficult in telling if a piece is made of real jade.  Sometimes even when I could handle a piece in person and was very confident such a piece had to be jade only to find out that it was made of other material such as serpentine after testing such a piece.  Therefore I no longer believe the western definition of "jade" as nephrite or jadeite is sufficient because many authentic and archaic Chinese "jade" carvings were made of beautiful stones such as serpentine, agate, turquoise, etc.  Therefore, any beautiful stones that would have virtues of jade such as hardness, beauty, purity, crispy sound, translucency can be called "jades".  I would try to explain more in my future guides.

The main purpose of this quick guide is to warn all jade lovers especially those who have just started collecting jades:

1.  In the past two years I have seen things going from bad to worse.  Two years ago the chance for one to buy an authentic archaic jade piece (at least 1,000 years old and correctly dated) or even an antique one (at least 100 years old or at least that of Qing dynasty) on eBay was not good, but one could at least find pieces that were made of genuine nephrite jade.  At one time, during a six-month period, on about 80 pieces I bought from different dealers in China, 90% were made of genuine nephrite jades.  Of course, I did have an advantage because I had personally tested and studied over 1,000 pieces of jade carvings, rocks, pebbles and jade slabs before I bought these pieces.  However, at that time at least many new jade lovers can still find and  buy pieces that were made of real jade although they were not authentic (not as old as they said) on eBay at very affordable prices.  This is no longer the case.

2.  Recently, there have been so many fakes started to appear on eBay to the point of becoming annoying.  Not only most of these pieces are not "old", they are not made of jade at all.  The funny thing is many of these pieces that were freshly out of the factory and were made of fake materials, were actually listed with higher minimum bids due to their manufacturing costs while the real jade pieces carried lower minimum bids..  Strangely though, people were aggressively bidding on these fake pieces and quite a few had fetched very good prices.  There seems to be a huge hunger of jade lovers in hunting for good jades.  Large items that were made of turquoise, agate, crystal, lapis, coral, amber, etc. that were currently listed on eBay, in my humble opinion, were mostly fakes because while I was studying all these different materials I found that it was almost impossible to find large samples of such material in nature and if you could find one they would be worth a fortune.  Have you ever seen a large piece of genuine turquoise or do you know how much a large piece of lapis lazurite rock will cost you on eBay?  How in the world they found such rare materials to make such large carvings and sell them below the cost of materials alone?  To me these carvings made of these type of  materials were obviously fakes, yet they were listed with high minimum bids and some fetched very high realized prices.  Therefore, unsuspected jade lovers, please be warned!

3.  To the ancient people in China, the hardness and the beauty of a stone is almost more important than whether it is nephrite or jadeite.  They simply did not have complex tools to test each piece of stone.  Strangely enough, for a country that loves jade so much, there were actually no records of jades ever being mined in China.  Jadeite were never found in China.  Nephrite materials used in making jade carvings in China were mostly imported from Khotan, Xinjiang (SinKiang) which was not a part of China during many dynasties in China.  Due to civil unrests and invasions by foreign tribes/nations, the import of such nephrite materials had been both difficult and expensive during many Chinese dynasties.  Of course, there were small pockets of nephrite mines found in China but almost all of these mines had long been exhausted and no evidence to their whereabouts could be officially established.  Therefore it is a misconception that nephrite jade could be easily and cheaply found inside China.   Many times, local jades that were neither nephrite nor jadeite were used for jade carvings such as those used in burials of emperors or of royal family members.  The reason is due to the unavailability of truly high quality nephrite jades.  Jade carvings made with high quality nephrite would only be found in emperors or more important royal family members' tombs.  Therefore, jade can be any beautiful stones other than nephrite and jadeite.  The only time there seemed to be a larger than normal supply of nephrite jades being available in China may be during the late 20s and early 30s, when some very nice imitation archaic pieces were made with an unique spinach green nephrite material (with black streaks inside) that was imported from Russia.  Such material was called "Liu's Jade" due to the founder of such materials.  Many were made for sales to foreign tourists and many were made by skilled jade carvers who had worked in the imperial jade shops for the Qing emperors.  Many of these pieces were carved so well that they were being displayed today in major oversea museums or were being sold by big auction houses as genuine archaic jade carvings.  During the late 60s and early 70s some very nice green nephrite jades were found in Taiwan, however most Chinese did not like its look or color and they were mainly used in making small jeweleries.  The Taiwan nephrite jade does not look like jade and is very transparent, almost have a plastic look.  However, this nephrite mine in Taiwan was soon exhausted in the 70s.  There were also both nephrite and serpentine found in California.  Today, one can still find small samples of truly high quality nephrite pebbles in California locations such as Big Sur beach.  China has been imported nephrite jades from California in making different jade carvings and jeweleries.  In the last 60s there was black nephrite jade being found in Wyoming, U.S.A.  but it was rumored that a Chinese guy had bought up the whole "black jade mine" and nobody seems to know the whereabouts of such black jade.  The Chinese do not seem to prefer black jades, but rather white, yellow and celadon nephrite jade and imperil green jadeite.  Many of so called Wyoming black jades currently listed on eBay are simply not nephrite jades but some types of black quartz, obsidian or serpentine material.  Black nephrite jade is actually so rare that I have only be able to obtain one or two samples.  On the other hand, black jadeite is quite common.  However, even in the 80s nephrite were in very short supplies in China and such material was reserved for the most skilled jade carvers in making high-priced Han dynasty (or earlier) jade fakes.  Lower priced fakes were made of non-jade materials such as serpentine.  In the last century, nephrite jade were found in B.C., Canada but their prices were simply not cheap and their color and looks were unique and can be easily identified.  It was therefore extremely difficult to explain where they obtained nephrite material in China to carve some apparently "modern" large Hongshan carvings that were were once prevalent on eBay.  I understand how difficult and expensive to find a nephrite rock or slab that weighs at least 1 kg, many average jade collectors do not understand that.  Therefore to make a piece of nephrite carving with a final weight of 1 kg, one must almost obtain 2 kg of nephrite material and then spend hours of labor in carving it to the finished product and then listed it for sale on eBay for $8.99   Is this feasible? Are these pieces fakes? This would be a six million dollar question. I simply cannot find an answer to my own question at this time and would continue to do researches on such pieces.  In today's modern China, nephrite is simply too cost prohibitive to use in making low priced modern "jade" carving.  Many such modern were almost 100% made of low quality of celadon (light green), whitish green or light yellow serpentine jades mined from Xiu Yan, Laoning, China and they were commonly being labeled as "Xiu Yan Jade" or "Xiu Yu" (Yu means Jade in Chinese) due to their origin from Xiu Yan.  This type of serpentine material cannot pass the scratch test, has very poor luster and pieces made of such material were almost 100% modern.  Older serpentine pieces made prior to th 50s were made of a type of celadon serpentine that cannot be scratched or a type of dark green serpentine (many jade horses were made of this material) that can be scratched.  Therefore there are even different qualities of serpentine jades were being used during periods in China and I would try to discuss more about them in later section.

One has to be very careful in looking at digital pictures of jade carvings on internet, I have learned from painful experineces that many celadon (pale green) jades would appear to be perfectly white in their photos while the truly white jade would appear pale green.  When you consider buying any types of white nephrite jade carvings, you better ask before you bid.  It is because many Chinese jade collectors are salivated after jade carvings that were made of the truly white nephrite Hetian jade from Xinjiang.  The problem is that if they are indeed Hetian jade and are truly white (with no green tint in front of a piece of white paper)  they would be worth more than gold.  The top quality white Hetian nephrite jade material would be worth up to US$30 a gram.  Not too long ago, I have seen a very beautiful white nephrite jade piece with delicate carvings listed on eBay with very low minimum bid, I bid up to $250 and did not really believe I could get it.  I was correct, the piece was realized for an astounding $1,280, bought by an oversea collector.  Therefore, almost many of these white "jade" carvings listed on eBay with low minimum bids are simply not "jade" and not old.  Many times when I tried to ask more questions regarding such jade pieces, many of these dealers would tell me not to bid on them if I did not like the look of their pieces.  Some told me I should not expect to get a genuine white nephrite jade piece for such a low price.  I believe at least they were honest and yet they were still trying to sell these pieces to other unsuspected jade collectors.   Things had become so bad lately that one dealer who listed as being based in U.S. but his pieces were actually being sent from oversea.  I found that only 2 out of 8 pieces I got from him were made of real jade.  All were made modern and yet when I confronted him he had told me that all his pieces were confirmed by oversea jade experts to be made of real jade.   It left me with no choice but to report some of his "fake" piece to eBay. 

4.  There is a major difference between quality and composition of ancient serpentine material with the modern serpentine material.  According to my study, many of the modern serpentine carvings are of these very light green (almost light celadon) color, with low hardness (less than 5.0)  and can be scratched by a pocket knife or steel pin.  Their specific gravity (density) is often less than 2.60.  On the other hand, the more ancient serpentine is almost much harder, with a hardness greater than 5.0 and cannot be scratched with a pocket knife and sometimes their S.G. can be as high as 2.70  They are either what some would call "bowenite" (I do not like this term because there is no such thing as bowenite in any official mineral book) which is a brownish or yellowish brown serpentine.  I suspect some of the authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of this type of bowenite material.  Some older serpentine material are of these very dark green color that almost look like nephrite.  I have several such pieces that not only fooled me but fooled some very experienced jade collectors because they thought they were nephrite instead of serpentine.  Many of them could not pass the scratch test and their S.G. is about 2.6 - 2.7.  I have yet seen any serpentine material that has a hardness of higher than 2.70 and therefore if one sees a green jade material that has a S.G. between 2.80 and 2.90 one may almost assume it is closer to being nephrite than being serpentine.  Interestingly enough no matter what stone I tested I found that the best materials, though their specific gravity is lower than that of nephrite (2.90) or jadeite (3.20 or 3.30), their hardness is always higher than 5.0  That tells me that hardness of a material is almost the most critical criterion in confirming the quality of a material.  The harder the material the more difficult it would be for ancient people to carve them, especially with only stone or wood carving tools.  Therefore, I have not seen any authentic neolithic carvings that were made of agate or quartz materials that has hardness of close to 7.0 because at that time they simply could make tools with material that was hard enough to carve this type of materials.  Most authentic neolithic agate carvings were very simple carvings such as beads, tubes, etc.  When there were so many small and large Hongshan agate and crystal (also close to 7.0 hardness) carvings being listed all over eBay, some with very high prices, it almost made me want to laugh.

5.  While I had recommended the hardness as a useful too in confirming if a piece was made of real jade.   I have discovered such test especially the "scratch test" is almost useless.  Many pieces that can pass such test can still be non-jade because some serpentine, agate, quartz, jasper material can pass this scratch test easily.  Furthermore, some truly authentic and archaic jade carvings would have hardness of less than 5.0 due to weathering or long burial.  The specific gravity test is more helpful in determining the true material but sometimes it is also not conclusive because some authentic nephrite jade carvings may have a S.G. less than 2.90 but usually higher than 2.80  Therefore, one must use caution in confirming whether a piece is made of real jade and in verifying their real ages.

6.  I have been attempting to study and learn more about tool marks found on jade carving in order to determine their ages but had found that it was really difficult because there were simply not that many jade experts who could explain such subject adequately or in simply language so any jade novices including myself can understand.  If you have ever posted your jade pieces in any forums you would soon find that some of the forum members would attempt to call your pieces "modern" with no clarification to what "modern" meant or what "modern tool marks" are.  This is because in most of the cases, many of them simply do not know and were only expressing their opinions based on their personal experiences and not from studies in arriving such a decision.  It was believed that in neolithic times the only jade carving (one cannot really carve jade) tools were those made of stone, wood or other non-metallic materials.  However, it was now believed by some jade experts that simple metal carving tools such as those made of bronze had to be used in making some beautiful Hongshan or other neolithic jade carvings.  It is still debatable to what type of tools were used in making jade carvings in ancient China.  Many agree that some types of rotary tu had been in use since neolithic period and  there were about six different types of tu being used in the last 5,000 years in China and almost nobody could tell the difference in tool marks made with different types of tu.  The only thing we can almost know for certain is that, it is not until the early 60s that manual carving tools (with quartz grit with hardness as high as 7.0 and low rpm) were replaced by modern electrical carving tools (with high-hardness grit such as corundum and diamond; in high rpm).  Therefore any jade carvings with modern tool marks could almost be assured that they would be made after the early 60s.  In my opinion, there are not too many jade experts who can clearly distinguish the difference between ancient and moder tool marks found on jade carvings.

This guide may not seem to be very organized because I simply try to write it in a very personal manner, like a letter to all of you who are jade lovers, in order to warn you not to fall for some of these  "too good to be true" jade listings, especially the very expensive one.  You will almost always get what you paid for.  The chance for one to obtain an truly authentic archaic jade piece in a ridiculously low prices on eBay or anywhere is "NIL".  Strangely enough, there is one dealer here who had actually listed a few "authentic" jade pieces at quite reasonable price but they received no bids because most people would not be able to tell that they were truly genuine while the "modern" pieces that were made of nice nephrite material were selling like hot cakes.  (*He actually sold them as modern pieces without any claims to their authenticities or ages).  There is why all these early Republic or Qing white nephrite jade pieces were hot due to their easily identifiable material (actually not really that easy.)  It makes one wonder how much most of us really know about jades.

I have been very fortunate, that is, many of you who had read my guides had written me, many asked for my opinions regarding jade pieces or for recommendations of dealer which I regret to say I am not in a position to do so. Some actually know more about jades than me and from them I had learned.  Therefore I hope eBay will post this guide so that I would feel I have done my parts in cautioning some of you to be very very careful when you consider bidding on any jade carvings.  Do not be greedy.  Just buy what you like at prices you can afford and bid only on jade pieces you can enjoy looking every day.  Buy jade books first and learn as much as you can before you bid on any jade pieces.  If you need my two cents' worth, I would be more than willing to help, but please use your real name and be honest.  Also please understand my opinion is not that of a professional, you only get what you paid for, which in this case is nothing.  I find that some of my best jade pieces are not the most expensive pieces I have paid for.  But even with lesser pieces I have a lot of fun with them and I hope you have the same fun with jades too.   Thank you.

Wildgoat2005
April 12, 2008
In the middle of U.S.A.

Edited: April 13, 2008.