u/GingerJadeJewelry

Item: Natural Burmese Beaded Bracelet

Jade Type / Seller Identification: Burmese Floating Emerald Green on Minty Light Green Base Jadeite

Treatment Status: Certified Type A

Certificate / Lab Report: Included

Measurements: 13mm Diameter x 16 Beads

Weight: 62.15g

Condition: New, Never Worn, Eye-Clean with Very High Degree of Perfection (No Cracks, No Dark Spots, No Rough Areas)

Price: $250

Shipping From: US (IL)

Shipping To: Free for US, Int’l Shipping Welcome (On Buyer)

Payment / Checkout Method: PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, Chime, Wise

Return Policy: Case by Case

Seller Review History: Mentioned in External Thread

Photos / Video: Pics Attached (White LED & Natural Light), Additional Pics + Video Upon Request

Additional Notes: Anything I sell I guarantee for life. Regardless of lab cert, if it were empirically determined something purchased was material other than A jadeite, buyer entitled to full refund. Indefinitely.

There’s plenty more but this gives you an idea. I’m in IL near Chi, pick ups are welcome, can inspect anything you’d like in person.

If you’re in the US too, I cover shipping (USPS Ground Advantage with tracking). International welcome but on customer.

Please message if interested, need prices / additional pics or have any questions. These pieces pictured start at $50ea, most are under $200, nothing shown over $400.

I have more Guatemalan and much much more for Burmese. Everything natural, lab certified and guaranteed by me for life. I take PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, Chime, Wise or cash if picking up.

Have a beautiful Sunday, my friends!

The jadeite’s seed water is the first and most important consideration for its potential value. It’s a measure that describes the texture and resulting degree of translucency and it provides a framework for jadeites to be grouped according to their “species” type. It also relates to the material’s maturity (geologic age) with the larger, more prominently visible grain structures being a sign of “younger” jadeites (often called new mine / new pit).

The 4 basic Zhong being:

Bean (Duo), Glutinous (Nuo), Ice (Bing), Glass (BoLi) -Species (Zhong)

There are also subspecies and hybrid types that exist within and between these basic 4 like NuoBing (waxy-ice) or GaoBing (high ice).

When assessing or comparing pieces regarding value there’s a degree of nuance required that goes beyond just the ranking place of their species on the chart. How they rank within each of their own categories can influence value relative to those of different species types. For example a piece of glutinous that’s truly top tier quality in its category with uniquely desirable coloration can be worth more than a piece of ice that’s otherwise unremarkable. The presence of flaws or lack thereof is also relevant. So the ranking order reflects the general tendency in value but it’s not all-encompassing. It’s not purely linear and fixed.

This provides a good starting point as thinking of jadeite material in terms of Zhong is integral to connoisseurship.

A Visual Introduction to Guatemalan Jadeite Part II: Yellow "Sand-Skin" Stones

This part will discuss and compare the 2 unique varieties of jadeite with skin color as each origin zone has its own. There will be some practical tips for differentiating them as they can appear similar at a glance and unscrupulous dealers regularly try to misrepresent them. To better understand and appreciate this more recent Guatemalan variety, it’s necessary to first review Burma’s skin color-bearing jadeite (Hong Fei - Red).

Burmese rough jadeite gets categorized into 2 main types: "mountain stones" and "water stones." Mountain stones are found on land, they tend to be quite large, encapsulated by a thick skin which obscures the internal color and they're often younger, geologically speaking. This is considered "new mine" material and tends be coarser grained. Water stones began as mountain stones but through erosion or other natural processes they migrate into a river bed, or they’re unearthed along the path of an ancient river long since dry (“old mine”). Known as secondary (alluvial) deposit material, it generally consists of higher quality small stones, geologically older, often with very fine grain textures (“old pit”). Much of their once-thick skin gets eroded or polished down by flowing water. What’s left is the densest part of the stone as fractured and low quality, poorly formed parts erode faster. These stones are where you get the natural reds (also orange and browns) occurring in a very thin outer layer. Interior colors will usually range from white or colorless to green to lavender- or a mix. A good carver will use the relatively thin red skin layer to create interesting designs with the contrasting tones. In their entirety, the river stones are quite small and usually pulled out by hand.

To my knowledge and that of my teachers', a true equivalent to the Burmese red skin (Hong Fei) material does not exist in Guatemala. This could change any day (and likely will). What Guatemala is known to currently have, however, are stones with a sandy looking, yellow-golden outer skin. When opened, a relatively thick “yellow”-ish color layer is seen surrounding the actual internal portion. The interior color of these is almost always (thus far) a blue and or blueish-green with possible smokey gray undertones. The texture of these jadeites can range from a very dry, almost opaque gray-blue to icy & high ice blues and greens (in terms of ZhongShui: Bean, Glutinous / Waxy and Ice Species). The inner color is what’s often called "blue water" and or "lake green” both of which encompass the usual range of possibilities. Not all blue water or lake green Guatemalan jadeite stones have sand skins with inner yellow layers, but so far all sand skin stones have blue water / lake green or otherwise blueish-gray interiors.

Compared to the Burmese red skin river stones, the Guatemalan yellow sand skin stones can be absolutely massive. Vehicle-sized, even. When sliced the yellow layer is much thicker than the thin red in Burmese. For carving, this thicker layer is more forgiving than Burma’s red and when utilized well it can create an equally impressive and dramatic contrast. The yellowish layer itself (can also be green-ish to orange-ish) has a much more opaque and thick texture reminiscent of caramel. It can be quite different from the icy, translucent textures of the internal color / material. The area closest to the sandy exterior skin is softer so the carvers know just how close they can get to the outer edges to utilize the material with the yellow color but not so much that the hardness of the piece will be compromised. It can difficult to ID Burmese or Guatemalan based solely on the skin color because they can appear somewhat similar (with Burmese skin colors tending to be or have more of a true red hue). Therefore it's important to also analyze the adjacent "internal" or actual base color:

If the skin is more yellow and the internal color is blue, smokey, blueish gray, greenish (think of lake water green) and or a mix it's almost certainly Guatemalan.

If the skin is more red and the internal color is colorless, white, lavender, a more floral green and or a mix, it’s almost certainly Burmese.

With the Guatemalan, the body of empirical knowledge is in many ways still being written. Compared to the millennium + of Burmese jadeite usage in Asia, the Guatemalan overall is a relatively recent emergence. As such, I'm just sharing what’s been encountered thus far. I don't have the full geologic or scientific explanations for the chemical origins of this yellow layer. But, according to those who’ve been working with it the most and for the longest now, the outermost exterior has a slightly differing composition from the yellow towards the interior. The far exterior regions appear are "less pure" and thus are softer. The parts utilized for carving are considered “fully” jadeite, having absorbed the external, environment-induced yellow color in localized areas, yet retained their purity / jadeite chemical composition, and thus their adequate hardness.

Visual Introduction to Guatemalan Jadeite Part I:

"Commercial Green"

Guatemalan jadeite has some really impressive colors and high quality textures but pointing out this particularly modest variety and how to easily spot it can be a good start. As far as green jadeite goes, this particular variety has an understated look yet it’s become widely used- though virtually never labeled or sometimes actually mislabeled.

You’ll it see commonly used for $10 Temu items but pieces carved from this material also end up wrapped or set with 18K & diamonds and sold at $1000+ prices.

I’ve been referring to it as “Commercial Green" since its attributes (relatively low-cost, wide availability, visual uniformity and very low translucency) lend themselves more towards large batch, mass produced, fully-CNC’d projects and generally not those of a more artisanal focus.

One of the first things noticed might be its visually “dry” texture. When polished well it gets a nice surface sheen, but it's really quite opaque relative to other jadeite varieties. Lacking any sort icy feel or visual translucency it would be considered “Bean Species” on the ZhongShui chart.

It’s rather consistent, coarse and sandy appearing grain pattern makes it relatively easy when identifying / differentiating this variety if one has seen it before and knows what to look for. Compared to Burmese or even other varieties of Guatemalan jadeite, it tends to be much more homogeneous. In terms of color tone, feasibility for commercial-scale use, affordability, availability etc., its closest Burmese equivalent might be a dry "oil green” and or “bean green.”

The Guatemalan commercial green jadeite material can have a certain degree of appeal. It is green, it is natural jadeite and compared to any Burmese material it is of a lower cost. But delving into the structure itself there’s another merit worth noting: when comparing an approximately equal sized area of the material to Burmese oil green (or any Burmese variety for that matter), on average this Guatemalan will have lower incidences of fractures and or brown-orange oxidation stains. It tends to have fewer opaque black inclusions also. It’s a geologically younger material and as such was subjected to shorter durations of tectonic stress than a lot of other varieties.

It's far less translucent compared to fairly cheap "commercial" grades of Burmese oil green, however, aside from fewer observed incidences of major issues like fractures & oxidation stains, this material displays fairly high uniformity in grain size / shape as well as relatively even color tone / saturation. For larger-scale projects in which consistency of appearance is a desired result (especially when talking about groups of 100s and 1,000s of units not just dozens,) the benefits of this particular jadeite material can be clear. Icier texture will always be denser and harder due to its inherently smaller grain size but some carvers / facility operators will point out the uniform grain shape & size coupled with generally lower amounts of internal fracturing results in a structurally-sound jadeite.

Interestingly, this "commercial green" still finds its way into more luxury-tier or fully custom settings which may spare little expense in additional materials or workmanship.

The attached pictures include explanatory captions starting with examples of the material on its own (GuanYin, Yodas,) comparisons with some "equivalent" Burmese materials and different examples of it for sale on the market.

Wanted to share something cool and quite special to me. A Wudao (path to enlightenment) piece with Manjushri, Buddha, a wrathful deity, monks and blossoms on a background of Buddhist scripture. The material is a Guatemalan ice species jadeite with a green-to-lavender gradient. As in Burma, Guatemalan purples aren’t very common and most tend to have “dry” texture- lilac is what they’re often called on the market. It’s exceedingly rare to have strong lavender color occur within ice species jadeite. The color tones here have a Guatemalan feel but it lacks any of the white albite “snowflake” cotton inclusions commonly associated with material of this origin zone. The carving here could be replicated fairly easily but finding a piece of icy rough with these colors would be a painstaking and expensive task!