JADE

Jade provides much scope for confusion as there are two different stones  both known as jade. One is Nephrite jade, found in China,  New Zealand (where it is often known as 'Greenstone') and Canada, and is usually a deep opaque green often with black flecks, but can sometimes be white (known as mutton fat jade) It can be carved but is not as valuable as good quality jadeite, the other stone with the same name. The confusion may come from the fact that something was 'lost in translation' -  The following extract was taken from Wikipedia, and if you follow the link you can see how complicated the issue is; in fact I don't entirely agree with what is said about the distinctions between the two stones known as jade.

 In almost all dictionaries, the Chinese character yù (玉) is translated into English as "jade". However, this frequently leads to misunderstanding: Chinese, Koreans, and Westerners alike generally fail to appreciate that the cultural concept of jade is considerably broader in China and Korea than in the West. A more accurate translation for this character on its own would be "precious/ornamental rock". It is seldom if ever used on its own to denote "true" jade in Mandarin Chinese; for example, one would normally refer to ying yu (硬玉, "hard jade") for jadeite, or ruan yu (軟玉, "soft jade") for nephrite. The Chinese names for many ornamental non-jade rocks also incorporate the character yù, and it is widely understood by native speakers that such stones are not, in fact, true precious nephrite or jadeite. Even so, for commercial reasons, the names of such stones may well still be translated into English as "jade", and this practice continues to confuse the unwary.

Natural jadeite (mostly from Burma) is the only kind we have at It can occur in a range of colours -  white, lilac, brown, yellow, and the most valuable, a beautiful apple green. It is an excellent stone for carving, and often a large part of its value is in the quality of its carving.

There are many other stones passed off as jade, for example serpentine, bowenite, adventurine and soapstone. Jade with poor colour is often dyed. As apple green is by far the most valuable jadeite, that is the colur most used to dye jade or indeed other stones to make them look like the real thing. If it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't.

In the shop we have silver and jade:

bracelets -

Please click above to see them