How Can I Tell Good Jade?

Jade is a precious stone that's often imitated, but never successfully duplicated.

Jade is a precious gemstone that comes in green, peach, white and even orange shades. Valued as highly as silver and gold in the East, jade is a stone that's often faked or passed off as genuine, high quality stones. Recognizing genuine, high quality jade takes a bit of practice, but if you perform some simple tests it should be easy to spot it when you see it.

Things You'll Need

• Nail
• Cigarette lighter

Instructions

1. Hold the jade in your hand. Real jade will remain cool to the touch, and it will take time to warm up with your body heat. Pressing the jade against your face is recommended by some because the face is more sensitive to sensation.

2. Try and scratch the jade with a small pen knife or a nail. Jade is a very hard stone and while imitations in plastic or acrylic will scratch, genuine jade won't.

3. Heat up the end of a pin or nail with a cigarette lighter and press it against the jade. Jade has a high heat tolerance, and will absorb the temperature. Imitations will develop marred places, and will melt.

4. Run your fingers over the jade. Real jade is smooth in the grain, but it might have scratches, dips and other natural topology. Artificial materials tend to be smooth all over, and while this isn't an automatic test, always look closer if the jade in question is smooth all over when it's supposed to be natural stone that hasn't been buffed and treated.

5. Look at the color and grain of your jade. Real jade has color patterns and variations in it, and the grain of the jade also has variation when viewed up close with a magnifying glass or a jeweler's loupe. If your jade is all one, universal color and there's a single, universal grade then chances are good it isn't the real thing, or that it's only a veneer of jade over a different, base material.

References

• Gem Rock Auctions: How to Test Jade if it's Real
• Bead Z Mommy's Business: Jade