What is Jade?

Jade is one of two gemstones, nephrite jade or jadeite jade.

Nephrite jade: (a silicate of calcium and magnesium), is the historical Chinese Jade, or Stone of Heaven, a stone revered by the Chinese for more than 5000 years. Nephrite is prized for its special qualities: its extreme toughness, (the toughest of any natural stone), its alluring translucency, and a smooth polished feel.

Colors of Nephrite Jade range from pure white to all shades of green.  

Jadeite Jade: (silicate of sodium and aluminum) A relatively new jade introduced to China from Burma in 1784. Gem quality Jadeite is extremely rare and thus extremely expensive. Often mislabeled as "Chinese jade," (it was never found in China), jadeite is slightly harder than nephrite jade.

Colors of jadeite range from white to black with intense greens and lavender being the most sought after.

How is Jade cut?

Nephrite jade is an extremely tough material to work on. Nephrite Jade is fibrous in structure, similar to a handful of human hair. Due to this fibrous structure, it cannot be cut with chisels, it has to be ground using very hard sharp abrasives, diamonds. All of the saw blades we use have a diamond embedded in a soft matrix. This allows the soft matrix to slowly wear away exposing new diamonds. It is the hardness of the diamond particles being dragged over the softer jade that does the cutting.

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