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There are several misconceptions held by some jade collectors in this forum. First of all, they believe most of these large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings are modern fakes. Secondly, they believe they are fakes because they believe cheap nephrite roughs are readily available inside China despite the fact that there are no confirmed nephrite mines inside China and most nephrite were imported into China. Thirdly, they believe all these large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings are so common that one can find them everywhere in China.

I just posted a message showing what a modern fake would look like and incidentally the Chinese dealer in China (Beijiang) told me now those large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings were now very difficult to find. He is now selling mostly non-jade fakes.

My goal here is not to argue whether these large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings are fakes or copies or even if they are modern. I would never be able to prove them one way or another at this time. I am also not trying to prove how scarce nephrite is. My primary goal is to challenge those forum members who said they traveled to China all the time to find a large Hongshan style jade carving that is made of genuine nephrite that weighs at least 1 kilogram (1,000 gram) with a length of at least 9 inches or longer in anywhere inside China for less than US $20. With the approximate exchange rate of 6.94 RMB to one US$ (as of May 30, 2008), that means to purchase such a large Hongshan style nephrite jade carving for under RMB 140.

I am posting here three pictures of jade carvings being offered in a flea market inside the Changzhou City Center, Jiangsu province to show you what types of jade carvings were now being offered inside China. Many of these jade carvings did not look like they were made of nephrite although they were not cheap. Some with asking prices as much as RMB800 (price will come down with negotiation). These pictures were taken about a week ago and therefore they were quite up-to-date.

I would try to post more pictures from different dealers inside the flea market once this message is posted so you would have an idea what types of jade carvings were being offered in Changzhou, Jiangzu, China.

One thing interesting is, no large Hongshan style nephrite jade carving could be found in this flea market.

Since a picture is better than a thousand words, it would be great for any of these "frequent travelers" to China to take pictures of jade carvings being offered in any flea markets in any Chinese cities they would visit. Especially if they see any large Hongshan style jade carvings (whether they believe they are made of nephrite or not), take the pictures with their asking prices posted here. Better yet, if they buy any large nephrite jade pieces (according to the standard listed above), post their pictures with their purchase prices here.

I believe this would show all other forum members what are really happening inside China and whether my theory is correct or not.

Thanks.

Bill

hi friend,

actually i don't know what are you trying to do...and which theory you are trying to prove...

why you collect jade ,Bill?

for me...the stone make me appreciated.
so when i buy a piece of jade ,i will looking for its beauty... the quality of jade material is very important to be noted here and the next one is style of carving.
especially with an antique one ,i have to looking for time signs or/weathering marks and trying to catch modern tool marks on another way.
i believe other jade collectors do the same.

at first glance i see your attached photos...a word "die" pops up in my head and only a few of them i look at it again.

for me, a property of good nephrite should be nice color with translucent.
an antique one should be a living stone.

i apologize if i make you feel bad and sorry for my not-good english.

regard,
senztone

Senztone:

I do not know if you have followed all my previous messages posted in this forum or not and that may be why you may not understand what I am leading to.

The jade pieces posted so far in this message were representations of what were currently being offered in one flea market inside China (Changzhou, Jingzu). In my opinion, most of them are not jades and are of supicious qualities and authenticities. Of course, one may find better pieces somewhere else in China.

However, the main goal is to show readers that there have never been easy or economically feasible for fakers to make "fake" or copies of "jade" carvings with genuine nephrite especially those of larger sizes (at least 1 kg and nine inches long). Why? It is because no nephrite mines were ever officially being documented inside the China border at any periods of Chinese history. The main source of nephrite used in making jade carvings inside China were Hetian (Khotan) nephrite jades being tranported from XinJian (Sinkiang)at high cost to the Chinese capital for mostly imperial uses. (*Of coures some were being smuggled). Very often the buying and selling of jade materils were controlled by the imperial governments. During the Qing Emperor QianLong era, the cost of such nephrite was tremendously high and therefore any authentic imperial QingLong jade carvings that existed today would be worth a fortune. It was only in the later part of the Qing dyansty that the cost of Hetian jades had come down. Then in the 20s and 30s in China, larger supplies of apple green nephirte jades (with dark spots) were exported from Siberia and were used to make high quality "archaic" jade copies. Quite a few of them were being displayed in some oversea museums today as genuine and authentic Chinese jade carvings.

According to the the article "Stone of Heaven" published in the September, 1987 issue of National Geographic there was a shortage of nephrite during the 80s and nephrite were reserved for making high quality archaic fakes such as Han jade disc and by the best jade carvers only because they could fetch the best prices. Most low-end fakes were made of non-jade materials such as serpentine. Even today, most nephrite jade materials were being imported to China to make high-end jade carvings or copies. Low end carvings were made of low-qality serpentine (can be scratched) comparing with high-quality bowenite (a type of serpentine) being used in ancient China.

The Hongshan fever was not caught on until this last decade. At one time the collectors from Taiwan were buying Hongshan jade carvings by the thousands in order to corner the market. Only later did they find almost most of what they bought were fakes. Therefore, for a long while, there were simply no Hongshan jade carvings being offered in any Chinese auctions (inside China). No oversea auction houses would even touch any Hongshan jade items because there were simply no way they could authenticate them. At one time, even the National Palace Museum in Taiwan had bought and displayed some very ugly Hongshan fakes as authentic items. Many jade collectors were very fearful of any Hongshan jade carving. Even if you offer them an authentic one, they would not dare to touch it.

Due to this fear, many jade collectors were very quick in calling every single Hongshan style item "fake" or worse as "modern fake" without taking into consideration of the difficulty in obtaining larger nephrite roughs in making some of these larger Hongshan style Hongshan jade carvings. Some of the larger Hongshan style jade carvings were made of high quality nephrite materials and with manual tu marks and were definitely not being made "modern". Of course, some were very clumsy "copies" and lack any qualities resembling artistic values. However, a few were genuinely well made and were one of a kind item. Therefore, they are simply not copies but "creations" and therefor "work of arts". Whether they are even archaic or antique, that would be debateable. But I truly believe a few of them were made in Song or even earlier dynsties. Yet many jade collectors have the misconception that one can find these large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings easily all over China at very low prices. I do not know how they have arrived such conclusions and therefore I am challenging them to find any such piecs at lower than U.S. $20 a piece in anywhere in China and post their pictures and purchase prices here.

There is one statement in your message I have to respectfully disagree with:

"the stone make me appreciated"

Yes, the quality of "jade" would be one of the main criteria with which we should use to appraise a jade carving.

However, you must be very careful in not using it as the only criterion in the apprisal and especially in the authenticating of any jade carvings or you would fall into your own trap.

First of all, you said stone and not jade. What are your defintions of jade? The western one that includes only jadeite and nephrite or the Chinese one, "Any stones that are beuatful."?

Secondly, what criteria would you use to grade the quality of your jade material? Again, do you use the Chinese five virutes of jade (some even said six or eight)such as the luster, color, purity, translucency, sound, hardness to grade your jade material?

If that is the case, then I am afraid you would be only able to purchase Hetian jade carvings, especailly those made during the Qing dynasty because Hetian jade is the only jade that posseses all these virtues. I am afraid you would miss a lot of archaic jades such as those of Hongshan, Shang or Zhou dynasty because many of them would be made in serpentine (Xiu Yu) or Dushan jade (feldspar).

Thirdly, the quality of jade would not confirm or reject the authenticity of a jade carving. Just because a piece is made of Hetian nephrite jade or high quality jade would not make it either authentic or archaic. In the same token, many neolithic pieces (such as those posted by Pipane and believed to be genuine by Diasia) would not pass your "quality" of jade test because the quality of their stones are simply not up to par.) Would that make them "fakes" simply because they were not made of quality stones like you said?

Lastly, some authentic and archaic jade carvings were simply "ugly" and if some of them were posted here many jade colletors would be tempted to call them "modern fakes" based on their low resolution pictures alone. How did I know? Because at one time I posted such authentic jade carvings with some modern one in this and other forum and not too many jade collectors would take up the challenge in identifying them. Another member has posted eight Liangzhu jade items with four being authentic and four fakes and asked other members to identify them and once again not too many had taken up the challenge.

Do you believe it is easy to authenticate an archiac jade carving without closely examining it? Or even we can closely examine it, how many of us can really authenticate and accurately date it? If we can then we would have already been working for Soetheby's or Christie's.

Many more advanced jade collectors seem to have a lot of faith in themselves, while on one hand they attack any jade carvings they see posted here or being sold anywhere (including antique markets in Hong Kong and China)as fakes, yet for some reasons they believe those they have purchased (some from the same sources they attacked) were genuinely archaic and authentic. Do you not find these a little bit ironic? I once asked Mr. Eric Hoffman why it was so diffcult to find archaic jade carvings (Han dynasty or earlier) and he told me becuase they were really rare and were very difficult to date and authenticate. He had only three pieces of archaic jade carvings he believed were authentic (one is a little bit questionable) but even then it would be almost impossible for him to show their authenticies with photos alone. This comes from a well respected jade scholar. May be that is why some jade collectors would only buy such "archaic" jade carvigns at inflated prices from reputable auction houses so they may hold on to their provenances in order for them to resell such item in the future.

Therefore, why do you collect jades? Just because of their beautiful stones? Does it matter to you if they are truly authentic and archaic? How can you ever be certain?

Is that a fool's dream?

In the same token, how would any collectors who collect bronze, potteries, Chinese paintings can ever be sure about the authenitcities of their collections? Who can they and should they trust?

The bottom line is, if a dealer or auction house would sell you an "authentic" Hongshan jade carving, authenticated by the top Hongshan experts in China (or in the world) for US $ 200,000, would they even buy it back for $100,000.

Therefore, to me, collecting jades especially so called archiac or neolithic jades is probably one of the biggest gambles in one's life. It may be safer to stick with high quality Qing dynasty or early Republic Hetian jade carvings or only purchase any archaic jades from large auction houses with provenance. Better yet, it would be much safer to invest in coins esepcially bullion coins with numismatic values.

Or, using my coin collector's "intrinsic value" approach, buy jade carvings with the values of their jade materils and the quality of their carvings far exceeds their sale prices.

I know it may sound very foolish and naive but it would be much safer until one learns enough.

Why do I collect jades? Because I like them and can study them. I appreciate their beauty and enjoy them. I can touch them and feel them. I can give them away as gifts. I can appreciate the effort and love the carver put into the creation of a beauiful jade piece. Truly beatufiul and quality jade material, whether they are made into archaic or modern carvings, are truly scarce and therefore it would be more and more difficult and costly to obtain.

Bill

hi Bill,

i took a long time to read your reply...


First, ***Why i collect jade? Because the stone make me appreciated.***

"The stone" here is jade and which one i am appreciated most is chinese jade
,for me, the stone is only a kind of nephrite and... maybe jadeite come later.


Second, ***How to grade the quality of jade material?***
***Do you use the Chinese five virutes of jade (some even said six or eight)such as the luster, color, purity, translucency, sound, hardness to grade your jade material?***

Yes, my answer is quite same as you have posted.
for a piece of nephrite, i will looking for color ,texture ,size ,design ,and what it was made for.

But i don't understand why i would be only able to purchase Hetian jade carvings, especially those made during the Qing dynasty.
because nephrite has been used for a very long time before Qing and since ancient time, people have already knew well this stone is very special.

***I am afraid you would miss a lot of archaic jades such as those of Hongshan, Shang or Zhou dynasty because many of them would be made in serpentine (Xiu Yu) or Dushan jade (feldspar).***

Yes, i did miss.


Third, ***The quality of jade would not confirm or reject the authenticity of a jade carving.***

Yes, for me i will see skin ,texture ,hole to prove it is old or not first.
Later i will look at style of carving matching with period of time which some can be...some can not.


Last, ***Some authentic and archaic jade carvings were simply "ugly" and if some of them were posted here many jade collectors would be tempted to call them "modern fakes"***

Just some of them...

Most of authentic pieces are very beautiful both of quality of stone and neat work, while most of contemporary pieces lack of both.

In general ,a good jade material will be came to hands of skilful carver to create a piece of fine art.
if it happens to be at hands of apprenticeship, what we get can be called folk art.
in case of a low quality jade material with a rude work of carving can be really called ugly and worthless for me.

that all,
i just collect some of jades not a gambler nor an investor.
regards,
senztone

Hi, Senztone:

I appreciate your taking the time in reading through my message before you replied. I can see from your replies that you had put a lot of thought into your detailed replies and I am thankful for your sharing how you feel about jade with me. I can tell that you are a true jade lover.

In the following link I had discussed the five virtues of jade:

http://asianart.com/phpforum/index.php?method=detailAll&Id=30125

Another forum member, Judy Tan, has also put her interpretation of the five virtues of jade there Many of them are very good. You may read them at your leisure and see if you would agree with any of them.

I am not the one who said that “Hetian jade is the only jade which would possess the five virtues of jade.” This is the general consensus of many jade experts and jade collectors in China. Of course, once a while you may find a piece of exceptional nephrite from a different place other than Khotan (XinJiang) that may possess the five virtues but that would be far and in between.

The reason I said Qing dynasty is because not until the Ming dynasty the supplies of hetian jade was quite limited. During the Song dynasty, due to frequent border unrests and foreign invasions, the acquisitions of hetian jades in quantity was extremely difficult. Even in the earlier period of the famous Qing Emperor QianLong’s reign, supplies of hetian jade was both scare and costly. It was not until QianLong had stopped the unrest of the Muslim tribes in XinJiang (Turkestan) then the supplies of Hetian jades had become more abundant. Yet even during his reign, all transaction of Hetian jades was highly regulated by the imperial government and therefore their prices were extremely high. Due to the love of QianLong in jade, he employed the best jade carvers from Soochow to work in his imperial jade shops or commissioned them to make imperial jade carvings for him. Therefore some of the best hetian jade carvings were made during his reign. Therefore I should have said the best hetian jade carvings to acquire would be those that made during the QingLong era. However, many of these hetian jade carvings made during the early republic era (1920s-1930s) were also carved by the same Soochow artists in Beijing who had been working in the Qing imperial workshops and therefore may of these hetian jade carvings were exceptional and quite often could not be distinguished from those made during the Qing dynasty.

When I first heard the statement that “hetian jade is the only jade which possesses the five virtues of jade” I was quite surprised and did not necessarily agree with it. However, the more I think about it the more it makes sense to me. The basic definition of jade is any stone that is beautiful. However, if we apply the five virtues, then a beautiful piece of stone cannot really be called jade unless it possesses all the five virtues. I believe the number one criterion the ancient Chinese used to select any stones as “jade” for them to carve would be the “hardness” of the stone (beside that they were beautiful) because it was simply not easy to carve any hard stones with rudimentary tools that were made of stone and wood. It is also not easy to accomplish a beautiful luster on “jade” stones that have low hardness with any polishing. Therefore, if you examine all the “jade” stones that were used in ancient times to make jade carvings, whether they are nephrite, serpentine, turquoise, lapis (not until 600 BC), agate, they all have one simple common characteristic – all of have them have a MOH hardness of 5 or higher and cannot be scratched. During my study of jade stones, I was surprised to find that almost the better and older carvings, whether in what materials they were being made of, could easily pass the scratch test. The more modern lapis carvings, could all be scratched and with lower S.G. and the better and older lapis, all could pass the scratch test and had S.G. approaching 2.7

I believe serpentine were being used very often in making Hongshan jade carvings and they were being labeled as Xiu Yu because they were found in Xiu Yan, Laioning, China. However, the OLD Xiu Yu was actually nephrite (combination of tremolite and actinoloite) and some of them resembled hetian jade and that was why it confused a lot of Hongshan jade experts in China for a long time because they could not figure out how the Hongshan people could have transported such jade from a far away place like XingJiang. Some of the nephrite used to make large C-dragon is dark green nephrite that might come from the Manassa River and many Chinese jade experts believed this was the most authentic Hongshan jade material. There were also stones with a mixture of nephrite and serpentines. Many such stones found locally around Liaoning were called “colorful stones” (Choi Si) with vivid orange-yellowish color mixed with green. If you soak them in water, the water would turn yellow and you would think they were dyed but these colors were actually naturally present inside the stones. Then there are serpentine (some called them bowenite) but they were either yellowish, brownish or even dark green and some of them were found in authentic Hongshan jade carvings. They are quite easy to tell apart from modern serpentine (new Xi Yu) because they could not be scratched. Recently I have seen a lot of modern jade carvings made of either celadon or light green (almost white) new Xi Yu and you can almost scratch them with your finger nails. They are totally worthless.

Hard is almost easy. But to be pure and have a good texture is hard. To be quality jade, the texture of the nephrite jade has to be really good. Jadeite is harder than nephrite but jadeite could be broken very easily. Nephrite is much tougher than jadeite because of its inner structure. Almost nothing can destroy a piece of good nephrite jade, not even fire.
The translation of nephrite as “soft jade” and jadeite as “hard jade” or Fei Cu is incorrect. Many quality nephrite jades were as hard as jadeite but were mostly owned by imperials or nobles. (or the riches) There is no official standard for hetian jade at this time. However, some Chinese jade experts and government officials had tried to suggest that for any jades to be called hetian jades or top grade hetian jade, it must have a MOH hardness of at least 6.0 and a S.G. of at least 2.96 In short, it was never easy to find a nephrite piece that would have a hardness of 6 and a S.G. of at least 2.96 If one could find one with a S.G. of 3.0 or higher, then no matter how bad or modern the jade piece may look initially, one needs to pay special attention to it.

So far I have only seen a beautiful hetian jade ru-yi possibly made in Qing dynasty, owned by my friend, B, has a hardness of approaching 7 but the S.G. is only around 2.92 (this is from my memory only). However, the luster of it is so beautiful it looks almost like glass to us at first. The sound it made when hitting the piece with metal was simply heavenly. It was white with a slight green tint. It is also highly translucent. In short, it is a piece of jade worth killing for.

This comes to the next two virtues. It is much easier to find a jadeite piece to be translucent (transparent). It is almost impossible to find a nephrite piece that is highly or totally translucent. I only see them on hetian jade carvings or nephrite that is as good as hetian jade. Many serpentine are very translucent, same with many agate material but they cannot pass other virtue tests. Therefore, it is almost a bad sign if you ever see a jade carving is too translucent because 99% of the time they are not jade. More so with any celadon or white jades.

The most difficult virtue to be found on any jade stone is “sound” or when you hit the jade piece it would make the most beautiful sound. One of the Chinese saying describes the most beautiful sound as the one made by dropping large and small beads onto a jade bucket (container). I do not know if the beads are pearls or jade beads. I do not know what would make some jade stones make beautiful sound while some high quality jades would only make a “thumping” or dull sound. I have several small C dragons made of this dark green nephrite and when I hit one against each other, I would obtain a very beautiful metallic sound like that come from some musical instruments. I believe they were made of a high percentage of actinolite and therefore their iron contents are very high and therefore they could make these “metallic” sounds. Unfortunately, the greener (to the point of being black) the nephrite is, the more actionolite and iron it would contain and the less chance of it being translucent. However, the almost white hetian jade ruyi my friend had would also make this beautiful sound and yet most hetian jade especially the white one is almost 90% tremolite and only has a very low content of iron. Therefore, it is hard to pinpoint what would make a jade piece make beautiful sound.

Therefore, as you can see it is truly not easy to find a nephrite piece especially one that contains a lot of actionolite to have such high hardness, high S.G., and yet possess both translucency and the capability of making great musical sounds at the same time. Hetian jade seems to be the only nephrite that was known to have all these virtues. I am not even sure all hetian jade would pass the test of five virtues, may be the only the higher grade one.

I do not know if jadeite can possess all these virtues or not but prior to the middle of Qing dynasty, Chinese had never been heard of jadeite and jadeite is a stone that was being looked down upon until recently in the last two hundred years. Incidentally, Taiwan jade, a type of nephrite jade is very translucent to the point that it looks like clear green plastic.

I would try to answer some of your other concerns in separate messages without overwhelming you with my bubbling.

Thanks.

Bill

Hi Bill,

i took longer time to read your reply...
At first i would like to thank you for knowledge on Hetian jade and link you have posted.
i will read it soon.

Actually i have to accept with myself that i don't know much about kinds of nephrite used for chinese jade.
What i can do is examining and feeling a stone piece in my hand is nephrite.

However, i feel much appreciated and if i have any curious /question or need any comment i will come here to share with you and all friends because i think i have to learn a lot in depth.

regard,
senztone

Hi, senztone:

I must applaud you for your humbleness. Your refreshingly honest attitude truly humbles me. I believe you truly love jade and appreciate it more than a lot of people. When I first started collecting jades, I found that I did not know too much about jade (I still do not know that much), I was very excited to attempt to learn as much as I could from this forum and another jade forum. To my chagrin, I was being attacked by some of the jade "experts" in this and another forum. They would call everything I posted modern fakes and a few even accused me of being a dealer who was trying to sell my jade items despite the fact that I had never sold a single piece of my jade items.

A few nice jade friends who did not participate regularly in this forum recommended me to join another Yahoo group because it would better suit my deep desire to learn. The members there were more of academic types. Unfortunately, to join the group, it would require a stereomicroscope, which I did not possess and there were not too many topics, related to jade. Those jade friends also gave me advice and explained to me why they believe some of my pieces were not authentic. For that I was truly grateful and was not offended because I knew I would learn from them.

Unfortunately, many times that was not what happened in most forums. Very often, a piece posted in very low resolution picture was being labeled as "modern" fake without any types of explanations or with explanations that were not supported by any reference or evidence. In short, most of them were simply personal opinions.

After reading quite a few Chinese jade books and Chinese jade articles, they all suggested that the easier thing for a novice jade collector to learn first would be jade material. That means if one can develop an eye for recognizing high quality jade and/or unique jade materials distinctive for jade carvings made during certain Chinese dynasties, then one may have slight edges over other novice jade collectors. They said in order for a jade collector to truly understand the carving styles, forms or unique tool marks that were distinctive for jade carvings made during each dynasty, it would take at least ten years' time or longer.

Therefore I spent the beginning of jade collecting in studying different types of jade material (nephrite, jadeite, lapis, agate, aventurine, turquoise, etc.) in forms of roughs, slabs, pebbles and jade carvings. Due to my studies I did obtain a few jade carvings made of superior material. However, I did not believe too many of them were archaic or authentic.

I soon found that the dating and authenticating of a jade carving is simply not an easy task, not even for jade experts including those work for large auction houses because even they can make mistakes and end up in buying fake archaic jades.

The problem is that there were simply not that many archaic jades that were excavated from known tombs, documented meticulously by reputable archaeological teams and then ended up available for sales to the public. Therefore they are simply not too many of these first-generation archaic jade carvings available in today's jade market. Most of them would be owned by different museums.

The second best a rich collector can achieve is to purchase archaic jade carvings come with credible provenances from major auction houses. Unfortunately, their prices are simply not cheap and are out of reach of average jade collectors.
Even one would spend a lot of money in purchasing such jade pieces, that would be no guarantee that one could always get back one's original investment or with 100% guarantee in their authenticities.

Therefore, it always makes me wonder why would anybody would attempt in collecting jade because it is simply both risky and difficult to find any authentic archaic jade pieces (Han dynasty or older).

I believe the reason is because of the "love of jade" or the excitement in "jade hunting" because you would never know when you would find the best "museum" jade piece in your jade life. To many jade collectors, it is this hope and excitement makes them addict to jade collecting.

For me the fun in collecting jade is to have the opportunity in studying and understanding more about jade carvings and in sharing my ideas with other jade lovers.

Unfortunately I also found the attitude of many "serious" jade collectors very suffocating and some times I may be even guilty of it myself.

First, it seems a lot of "serious" or "expert" jade collectors have no tolerances for any jade pieces that do not meet their personal jade standard regarding authenticity and quality or what they would call a piece of art. If any pieces that do not meet any one of their "personal" jade standards, then that piece must be "junk", "modern" or "modern fake" and there are almost no middle ground. If you do not believe me, you may read some jade postings in this forum with totally opposite opinions regarding the authenticity, age and material of the posted jade carving. It would truly confuse you.

Now I must admit that a very few jade collectors in this forum do know their jade business and not only that, they are very willing to share their knowledge with others and in explaining how they base their opinions toward a jade pieces in simple and easy understanding languages. In short, they are teachers and not simply "jade critics".

Unfortunately, a few jade collectors whom I respect have extremely low tolerances, once they have rendered an opinion on any jade pieces it would be final. Only in rare cases, I had seen a few (very few) of them would admit in public that they did make a mistake and stood corrected. More often, they would only render their personal opinions without any references or evidences because they believe they are the ultimate jade experts.

I have been attempting to learn in how to distinguish between tool marks that were made with modern high-speed tools plus high-density polishing material (such as diamond and corundum) and those that were made with manual tools and quartz. I had purchased a few books (they are not easy to find) regarding this subject and yet it is not easy because they simply lack detailed enlarged digital pictures in explaining their major difference. The most difficult part is to be able to distinguish between the tool marks that were left by non-metal carving tools (such as tools that were made of stone, wood, animal tendon, etc.) and those left by metal tools (such as bronze, iron, steel). Let me tell you, it is almost impossible even for some of the jade experts. Only Margaret Sax and a few other scholars had attempted in comparing tool marks found on known archaic jade carvings with unknown jade carvings in order to authenticate the unknown one.

In the same token, some scholars had attempted to compare unique jade materials found in jade carvings from different dynasties with that of unknown one for the purpose of authenticating the unknown jade pieces. In the jade book, "Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing", Jessica Rawson even listed a chapter starting on p. 413 titled "The Mineralogy and Occurrence of Jade" authored by Andrew Middleton and Ian Freestone in which they discussed the different jade materials found in China, their sources (locations) and their physical properties (color, surface alteration, translucency, toughness). At the end of the chapter, the authors conclude, “The discovery of previously unrecognized nephrite sources in China allows the realistic prospect that the jade from different geological sources may be “fingerprinted”. It could then be compared with carved jade artifacts from well dated contexts from the extensive excavations that have taken place in China in recent years, allowing us to determine the source of the jade used.”..”… recent advances in laser sampling techniques, coupled with mass spectrometric measurements, allow elemental fingerprints to be derived from small laser ablation pits only a fraction of a millimeter in diameter and unnoticeable to the naked eye. …..” Now that is truly exciting!

Incidentally, almost six decades ago, the well respected jade scholar, S. Howard Hansford used one chapter (Chapter III. Sources of Supply of the Jade Stone) in his jade book, “Chinese Jade Carving” (1950) in discussing jade materials and their sources and 18 years later he again spent one whole chapter (Chapter 2. The Material and Its Sources”) in his other jade book, “Chinese Carved Jades” (1968), in discussing jade materials and their sources.

Is that just coincidence? I do not believe so. In many Hongshan jade books written by respected Chinese jade experts and scholars, the first criterion they would use in authenticating a piece of Hongshan jade carving would be the credibility of the material it was made of. For a long time, even many Chinese Hongshan jade experts were debating on the credibility of the high quality nephrite jade material that resembles hetian jade in its beauty and quality that they found in the carving of some of the authentic Hongshan jades. They couldn’t figure out how in the world the Hongshan people were able to transport hetian jade from the far-away Khotan, XinJiang all the way back to the Hongshan area. Therefore, some jade experts did not believe at first Hongshan jade carvings made of such high-quality hetian (or hetian-like) jade could be authentic. It was not until recently that three professors in China had acquired rock samples from eleven different localities within the Hongshan area and after analysis had confirmed the existence of nephrite jades within Liaoning and the quality of some of these nephrite samples are as good as hetian nephrite jade found in XinJiang before such mystery was solved.

For a while I still have some doubt with some of these high quality celadon (pale green) nephrite jade because although they did have a S.G. from 2.96 – 3.10 with a hardness higher than 6.0 and very close to 7, yet one should still be able to find such quality hetian jade in making this type of high-quality Hongshan jade fakes. According to my studies of hetian jade, it seems white (absolute white with no green tint) is the most sought after hetian jade with mutton-fat jade being the highest quality of white hetian jade. Some even define top-grade hetian jade should be composed of at least 98% of tremolite, with a S.G. of 2.96 or higher and a MOH hardness of 6.0 or higher. The second grade hetian jade would be those white hetian jade with just a slight green tint. The celadon hetian jade would be a grade or two below the first two. Yet I do not have any luck in obtaining more than a couple samples of truly beautiful celadon (pure and translucent, bright pale green) hetian jade carving or pebbles. It seems there should be an abundance of them in China since they are much lower grade. The only conclusion I could come up with is although these celadon hetian jade are supposed to be of lesser quality, it is still not easy or cheap to find them in large quantity or in large sizes. I believe such celadon jades would be used in making high priced archaic jade fakes such as those of Warring State or Han jade carvings which were almost much more desirable to the Chinese jade collectors than Hongshan jades and therefore can be sold for high prices. On the other hand, there were indeed some high-end Hongshan fakes that were made of white or celadon hetian (or hetian-like) jade. However, up to now I had not yet seen an authentic Hongshan jade carving made of white hetian nephrite jade. Diasai once told me he had indeed seen them before but he had not been able to show me an authentic example. It is also unlike many people’s belief that it would be easy to obtain beautiful luster on quality nephrite jade especially on hetian jade (or hetian-like jade). Sometimes, that is simply not the case. Even with the modern polishing tool and jade polishing material with, high-hardness and fine quality, one would assume that it would be very easy to achieve a high-gloss luster on hard nephrite jade. Unfortunately, I found that very often that was simply not the case. It appears that the Hongshan people seem to have the best technique in polishing their jade carvings and after their era, even in Shang or Zhou and later dynasties, such jade polishing techniques were lost and luster found on later jade carvings were simply not up to par with that found on authentic Hongshan jade carvings (or course not all authentic Hongshan jade carvings would have beautiful luster). Therefore, material alone would never confirm the authenticity of a jade carving, but rather one must combine the study of its materials with other significant factors such as style, form, carving skills, tool marks (lines, holes, etc.), alterations, etc.

I found with interest in seeing two different messages with jade carvings being posted recently in this forum. One was labeled as white jade buffalo. The picture of it looks yellowish and I immediately believed that it would not be its true color because white jade color was the most difficult color to be captured in digital photo. You almost have to have perfect natural lighting (sun-light or full-spectrum lighting) to capture their true colors. Many white jade carvings would appear to be celadon on their pictures while many celadon jade carvings would appear to be white in pictures. There are almost no genuine yellow nephrite jade carving, most of them would be serpentine or “false colors”. It was almost impossible to find genuine and bright yellow nephrite jades because most of them were reserved for the Chinese emperors due to the color Yellow (in Chinese) resembles the sound of Emperor (or King) in Chinese pronunciation.

I immediately suspect that the white jade buffalo was made of hetian jade especially it was made of a natural hetian jade pebble with natural jade vein and natural “jade coat”. I enlarged its carving lines and examined them and was excited to conclude that it was made with manual tu and therefore had to be made before the 60s. My conclusion would be a Republic piece and possible a very late Qing piece since tool marks found on jade carving made in period between 1890-1930 were really very difficult to distinguish. However, I was not 100% sure with my conclusion since I still have doubts with my ability in differentiating “old” tool marks. However, I was delight to learn that two other jade collectors confirmed my opinions and I had more respect for them in their ability in recognizing a good jade piece. I am not sure this piece could be called “mutton-fat jade” or not without examining it personally. However, I believe I owner of the piece got a tremendous bargain in stealing it for US$500. (This is from my memory) Interestingly, another jade collector seems to have no clue to what it was and did not like it because of its “mixed” color. However, if he would study some Chinese jade books, he would find that as early as Song dynasty, and most commonly during Ming and Qing dynasty, jade carvers would select such hetian jade pebbles with natural mixed colors or weathering in making special “Zhiu Si” jade carvings. These types of jade carvings were highly sought after by Chinese collectors. I truly believe with today’s strong Chinese jade market, this piece would obtain at least 5-10 times its original purchase price inside China or list in an auction attended by Chinese jade collectors.

In another thread, three similar jade discs (rings) were posted. Just by looking at their material, my immediate comments were “bad, bad, bad”. They were obviously made of serpentine and were artificially stained or weathered. I believe most of the jade collectors in this forum had come to the same conclusion. Therefore, based on quality and uniqueness of jade material alone, one may be able to decide: (1) if a jade piece is a bad fake; (2) if a jade piece can be authentic. If a jade piece is apparently made of apple green B.C. (Canadian) nephrite jade, how can it be authentic? That is why when I saw those “archaic” jade carvings posted by jade dealer/collector at the other forum, from Shang dynasty all the way down to Qing dynasty (including some Qianlong imperial jade pieces), yet they were made of the same green nephrite jades with the same weathering (white patina). How could they be authentic when they were made of green nephrite jade that was not known to be mined or found inside China? How in the world there were such severe weathering found in some Qing dynasty jade carvings? If you bother to open up any good jade books and look at those archaic Chinese jade carvings, it would be very easy to see that almost 90% of them were made of beautiful hetian jade. What does that tell you?

I apologize for my bubbling. I had been criticized by a few forum members for such shortcoming and very often I was guilty as charged. Yet it is because I often become so excited in learning more about jade and in bringing forth some of my theories and new findings regarding jades no matter how laughable they may be. Unfortunately, not too many people are very open-minded and once their minds were made up they would never wither. They believe every single jade carving that cannot meet their jade standards have to be nothing but “modern jade fakes”,

I often find it extremely ironic that many of these advanced jade collectors who do not believe anybody can find any authentic jade carvings on eBay, in antique shops or jade markets in Hong Kong or China, yet some of them kept spending tons of time in going through eBay and in jade hunting in the same places they despised. A lot of time they would attack many jade carvings without any explanations or concrete proofs and yet at the same time they have never posted a single jade carving from their own collections in this or any other forums. It makes you wonder why that is the case?

I believe in any hobbies (yes, jade collecting is only a hobby for me), one should truly enjoy it, in not only trying to accumulate a nice collection, but also in learning as much as possible about the hobby and most enjoyable of all to share your opinions and knowledge with other fellow collectors who share the same true love of jade as you. After all, who can be always be right, in regard to jade, or for that matter, anything in life?

Thank you for listening.

Bill

hi Bill,
see you again and thank for your applause.

about friends in this forum, i think each one have his/her own criteria which their collection and experiances in collecting is factors.
i think it is valuable, at least they give comments.
for me, if i have got the same comments from 3 persons, i think it should be accepted first.

about low-resolution picture that one cannot catch a detail, it's very hard to give a comment.

i began to collect jade because i admire old-date chinese culture (before replubic era) and i just know chinese people love this stone.
and then i know why...

Chinese jade soothe my eyes by its soft lustre & translucent,
give me a smooth touch by its well-polished skin & fine-grained texture,
and i hear a vibrant sound when two pieces touch each other.

there is also an auspicious meaning hidden in the piece of chinese jade.

i really feel a chinese jade -nephrite- is the stone of peace.
it's very sad that most of modern pieces is only made for commercial purpose rather than for appreciation.


regards,
senztone

From the same dealer.

From a different dealer.

From 2 different dealers

What you show this forum nothing related to Hongshan. Just some makers' idea of 'archaeistic' appearance, though some sellers may call 'Hongshan' to sell to ignorant.

Your question like asking how George Zee Company furniture made like 17th century.

You could set up blog site for those interested your line of inquiry.

Good luck,
Cal

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