BELIEVE IT! BLUE JADE!

My blue jade gemstone is the color of the open sky on sub-zero degree winter days in Chicago. The gemstone is icy blue, beautifully and serenely colored.

OLMEC JADE FIGURINES

Amazingly, it was recently mined in the Western Hemisphere, in Guatemala and not in the Far East.

This gemstone was first mined nearly 3 millennia ago by people from the ancient Central American kingdom of Olmec:  Apparently they revered the stuff and made figurines and beads out of blue jade as well as other color varieties of the gemstone.

Here’s a link to the 2002 New York Times article in which I first read about blue jade.

This article is the stuff of an “Indiana Jones” saga.  Luckily, I acquired a blue jade ring because it rare to see it for sale anywhere. The ring intensely invokes serene and positive feelings.

GREEN JADE

Don’t get me wrong. I love green jade, it speaks power to me.  Whenever I need the feeling of a Wonder Woman cuff, I put on my green jade bangle. It’s a light tint of green, and not the expensive evergreen color that’s an exact match to the color of Chicago’s street signs.

But for a very provocative reaction, I put on my multi-color jade necklace strung with yellow, white, black, orange and green beads. I just bought it online last year for less than $40.  This necklace style was popular in the 1970s.   I could not afford the necklace in the 70s, when it was much higher priced than my recent $40 find at an online store.

JADE DYE TREATMENTS

For me, the primary price factor is “dyed vs. undyed”.  Most jade that I have seen for sale in stores and at gemstone shows is dyed, some with very high prices. I presume that most of the jade sold online is also dyed.  At this point, a trusted seller is my only recourse to find good quality gemstone material so I won’t pay too much for dyed jade.

If you prefer translucent, mostly uncolored jade, there is the very luxurious “glass” variety that occasionally comes up for auction in Hong Kong.

But no matter the color or treatment, jade jewelry just invokes intense feelings in me unlike most other gemstones.

Pat Thomas for Jewelrystash

Resources: “In Guatemala, a Rhode Island-size Jade Lode”. New York Times May 22, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/world/in-guatemala-a-rhode-island-size-jade-lode.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm