Vintage Jewelry

This sumptuous calibre cut green tourmaline and yellow gold Edwardian bar pin was made in the United States circa 1915.  Antique brooches and pins represent one of the best values in vintage jewelry today, giving far more bang-for-your-buck than similar quality rings, pendants or bracelets.

I recently visited a local antique store in search of a piece of nice vintage furniture to spruce up my house.  Much to my chagrin, I discovered that everyone in my part of fly-over country apparently took the advice I had laid out in an article I wrote in late 2019 titled “Is 2020 Finally the Year to Buy Antique Furniture?”

In retrospect, the answer was clearly yes.  2020 was the year to buy antique furniture.

Who knew?

By the time I got around to browsing the aisles of this particular antique shop, any decent piece of old furniture was long gone.

But there was something else I saw there that caught my eye.  In a display case filled with vintage costume jewelry and mediocre low karat gold Victorian pieces there was a hidden gem.  Nestled in the corner amongst the dreck was a gorgeous yellow gold Edwardian bar pin set with a row of bright green stones.  The very first thing I noticed upon handling the piece was how heavy it was given its small size.  Even though it only measured 40 mm (1.6 inches) in length, the antique pin weighed in at a hefty 4.16 grams.  When a piece of vintage jewelry has great heft for its size it is almost always a sure sign of quality.

Upon closer inspection I determined that the brooch was solid 14 karat gold set with 10 immaculate, square-cut green tourmalines.  The tourmalines totaled a substantial 1.9 carats and were all calibre cut – a style where square or rectangular stones are precisely faceted to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with no gaps in-between.  Calibre cutting first became popular in French jewelry around the year 1900 before rapidly spreading across the globe.  But calibre cutting was very labor and material intensive; yields on calibre cut gems from the original rough were invariably low.  As a result, calibre cut stones are usually only found in better pieces of antique jewelry (and are almost never found in modern jewelry).

The overall effect was stunning.

The rich yellow-gold hue of the millegrain setting beautifully highlighted the luscious deep-green calibre cut tourmalines.  And the goldwork itself was flawless – solidly hand-worked without a trace of porosity or messy solder.  You would be amazed at how many pieces of supposedly fine jewelry have nasty, sloppy goldwork – things like bulky prongs or rough finishes in hidden areas.

We can use this tidbit of knowledge to our advantage, though.  You can learn the true quality level of a piece of jewelry by turning it over and looking at its back under magnification.  Any deficiency in a piece’s goldwork will be instantly visible.

But this gold and tourmaline Edwardian pin was a true jewel all around – even when viewed from behind.

By my estimate, the brooch was made in America around 1915.  Its simple, but boldly linear design foreshadowed the rise of the Art Deco movement in the early 1920s.  The brooch would have been a fairly high end piece for its time, with a retail price of at least $10 when new – equivalent to a hefty U.S. gold eagle coin containing about half a troy ounce of pure gold (the U.S. was still on a gold standard in the 1910s).

This is ideally what antique jewelry is all about.  Here was a chunk of finely wrought precious metal dripping with luxurious gemstones – a feast for the eyes.

The tag on the piece asked $325.  This was a good start.  If the asking price is too high, negotiating a reasonable final price becomes all but impossible.  I asked the woman behind the counter if the price was negotiable (pro-tip: the prices in antique stores are almost always negotiable).  Because the store was a co-op (several dealers sharing a single physical location), the clerk had to call the item’s dealer to inquire.  The final price proffered by the dealer was $275 – a $50 discount.

I wavered.  I had been hoping the dealer would come down to $250.  I said I would think about it and walked out of the store.

After several weeks of deep thought, I stopped back at the antique shop and asked if the discounted $275 price still stood.  A short phone call to the dealer confirmed that it did and I walked out of the store the happy owner of an exquisite piece of fine antique jewelry.  In the end I decided that a $25 difference in price – the cost for two people to eat at a fast food restaurant these days – was ultimately immaterial.

But my story raises an interesting question.  Why are antique brooches so cheap?

In a vintage jewelry market where it has become progressively more difficult to find any high quality pieces for less than $700 or $800, why could I walk out of an antique shop with a superlative Edwardian pin for under $300 – less than the cost of a monthly car payment?

 

Photo Credit: Tim Evanson (Creative Commons 2.0 License)

 

Brooches and pins have had a tough time of it lately.  The market for antique brooches has been soft for more than two decades.  As a result, prices for these wonderful pieces of history have been depressed.

As simple as it may seem, the primary reason vintage and antique brooches are so inexpensive is that they are currently out of fashion.

A brooch is a piece of jewelry meant to be worn on a blouse, jacket or dress.  But since the early 1990s we have trended towards less and less formal women’s clothing.  Brooches look best on lapels, collars, straps and other relatively formal fashion trim.  The formless, undulating sweaters and T-shirts of the modern age simply don’t accommodate pins or brooches well!

This means that a glut of vintage and antique brooches has flooded the market while demand has remained subdued.  Consequently, prices for old pins are often much, much lower than equivalent pieces of antique jewelry in other forms – like rings or pendants.

Of course, I don’t expect this state of affairs to persist forever.  Clothing styles make long round-trips from more formal to less formal attire and then back again.  Granted, these fashion trends can take decades to fully unfold, so this isn’t a situation I expect to positively resolve within the next few months!

Another thing that antique brooches have going for them is that there are a limited number of general jewelry types in existence.  For example, we have rings, earrings, necklaces and pendants, bracelets and anklets and, finally, brooches and pins.  Every other type of jewelry gets tossed in a minor catch-all category (i.e. tiaras, hat pins, nose studs, etc.)

In the final analysis there are just 5 broad classes of jewelry.  This fact alone practically guarantees that brooches and pins will come back into style at some point in the future.

Indeed, the brooch has been with us continuously since ancient times.  The Celts, Greeks and Romans used cloak pins called fibula that were made out of bronze from a very early period – before 1000 BC.  These fibulae were the very first brooches.

Although purely utilitarian to start, the fibula soon evolved into a full-fledged jewelry piece that was indispensable to any high-class ancient woman.  Instead of bronze, more expensive examples were wrought from silver or gold.  By late antiquity, enamel and gemstones were often liberally applied to fibulae as well, completing their journey from utilitarian fashion accessory to pure luxury good.

During the early medieval period the safety pin like form of the ancient fibula gradually changed into the annular brooch – a bejeweled circle with a pin behind it so it could be fastened onto a cloak or shirt.  Once the annular brooch developed, every other shape of brooch imaginably wasn’t far behind – squares, cruciforms, discs and, of course, the familiar bar pin.

So the brooch has been with us for a long, long time.  It isn’t going anywhere, regardless of how hopelessly unfashionable it might seem today.

But the real reason I like antique brooches as an investment is because they are incredibly undervalued.  Dollar for dollar they are one of the least expensive forms of vintage jewelry (along with other fashion refugees like cufflinks).  So a hypothetical $1,000 spent on antique brooches will go further than if the same amount was spent on vintage earrings or bracelets, for example.

 

Edwardian & Art Deco Antique Brooches & Pins for Sale on eBay

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Perhaps my favorite way to exploit this mispricing is to look for antique brooches that contain natural (non-synthetic) colored gemstones.  It has become clear that the modern world is facing a looming colored gemstone shortage.  Yet imminent disaster has been avoided over the past couple of decades by an improbable series of events.

First, there have been a handful of major colored gem field discoveries since the 1990s.  The resulting mine output hasn’t been massive on an absolute scale, but it has been sufficient to keep the global markets supplied at the margins.

Second, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and the austerity policies adopted by most developed countries in its aftermath suppressed demand for jewelry and, by extension, colored gemstones during the 2010s.  However, these anti-middle class austerity policies are being abandoned due to a combination of COVID response (with its direct cash payments to citizens) and popular political support for higher wages for the average worker.

But before we can fully explore the economics of investing in antique brooches, I think it is important that we understand colored gems a bit better.

The colored gemstone market is both highly fragmented and relatively small.  It is estimated that more than $170 billion worth of gold is mined every year, compared to just $16 billion for rough diamonds and a piddling $3 billion for all rough colored gemstones combined (excluding jade).

Almost all colored gem mining is artisanal in scale.  Artisanal mining refers to small groups of individual miners that primarily use hand tools (or hand-held power tools) to extract gems.  Colored gemstone miners rarely enjoy the benefits of the massive mechanization seen in the diamond industry.  And it would hardly matter if they had access to all that expensive equipment anyway – most colored stone deposits are too small for large scale mining to make economic sense.

Due to God’s wonderfully dry sense of humor, almost all major colored gem deposits are located in geographically remote and politically unstable regions.  The biomes surrounding these mines are typically scorched deserts, burning savannas or primeval jungles.

Poor countries like Afghanistan, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Tanzania are some of the places renowned for their rich deposits of colored stones.  But these are destinations few tourists would willingly visit.  As you can imagine, gem mining is an extremely challenging industry with deadly landslides, cave-ins and flash floods being commonplace.  And that is before one takes into consideration the tangential dangers inherent in bribing corrupt government officials, dodging armed rebel groups and side-stepping bloodthirsty bandits.

Another problem is that gemstone deposits do not last forever.  Many famous mines have now been completely, or nearly completely, exhausted over the centuries.  For instance, the last jewels of the renowned Golconda diamond mines of India reached the world about 300 years ago.  The legendary Kashmiri blue sapphire mines in the snow-capped Himalayas fell silent a century ago.  The fantastical Mt. Mica tourmaline workings located in the backwoods of Maine, U.S.A. have all but ceased production.  And the once prolific Thai ruby mines that provided almost the entire world’s supply of the noble red gem from the 1960s to the 1990s are effectively played out today.

In other words, now is a great time to buy colored gems as an investment.  And antique jewelry – especially antique brooches – represents a near ideal vehicle to exploit that trend.

 

Retro & Mid-Century Vintage Brooches & Pins for Sale on eBay

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So here are a few pointers when looking to buy antique brooches and pins.

First, look for examples that are well endowed with diamonds, colored gemstones or a combination of the two.  Although I am not a huge fan of white diamonds as stand-alone investments, they are still quite desirable in period jewelry – especially when they are old cuts.  Another benefit of buying antique brooches set with colored stones is that you are likely to get either completely untreated or lightly treated specimens – a great boon in a world where modern gem treatments are becoming ever more invasive and difficult to detect.

I do have a word of caution, though.

Synthetic colored gems were commonly mounted in jewelry starting at the end of the Victorian period/beginning of the Edwardian period, circa 1900.  Because they were the latest technological innovation, these synthetics (usually calibre cut Verneuil flame-fusion rubies or sapphires) were often mounted in very fine, expensive jewelry.  It isn’t unusual to see synthetic gems sitting side-by-side with natural diamonds in high karat gold or platinum settings.  In fact, antique jewelry mounted with synthetics is collectible in its own right, although it will never be as valuable as similar jewelry set with fully natural stones.

In the end, it is up to you whether or not to accept vintage brooches and pins set with synthetic colored stones.

When hunting for gem-laden antique brooches, I feel it is also important to avoid examples mounted with stones that are too small.  One of the age-old tricks of the jeweler who is trying to keep costs down is to mount a piece with a myriad of very small stones.

I consider gems of 5 points (0.05 carats) or smaller to fall into this category.  These tiny gems cost very little, so a dazzling effect could be created for very little money.  Very small gemstones are not completely valueless, but they add very little to the intrinsic value of a piece.

As investors, we want to see larger gems mounted in our jewelry if at all possible.

Our ideal antique brooch would have a central colored stone weighing in at over 1 carat, surrounded by other smaller gems greater than 5 points each in size.  But I have found this condition to be almost impossible to meet at a reasonable price point these days.

Therefore, I have become more opportunistic when hunting for antique brooches.  I’m willing to entertain specimens that have no large central stone at all, but are instead set with many smaller stones that are greater than 10 points each.  The yellow gold and green tourmaline Edwardian brooch I describe at the beginning of this article is just such a piece.

I’ve also become more flexible about the colored gemstones I’m willing to buy in antique jewelry.

I like almost all colored gems from an investment perspective.  The big three – rubies, sapphires and emeralds – are all classics.  But it is very difficult to find antique jewelry set with larger sized specimens for a fair price.  Synthetics are also a potential pitfall here.

Stepping down a tier, we come to aquamarine, beryl, spinel, tourmaline, topaz, opal and jade.  These are all solid choices that are generally more readily available than the big three.  These are the gem-laden antique brooches that I favor most at the moment.  They provide the best combination of large gemstones, reasonable availability and low price.

Pearl brooches are another interesting choice, but you want to stick to natural pearls if at all possible.  These are generally found in Victorian, Art Nouveau and Edwardian era pins – all created before circa 1915.  This is due to the fact that cultured pearls first became commercially available in the mid-1910s (for baroque shapes) and around 1920 (for fully round shapes).  Pearls set in jewelry from before this time will be natural.

Half pearls (also called split pearls) and tiny seed pearls are the least valuable types.  They are often found in Victorian brooches as accent stones.  Baroque pearls, which range from off-round to fantastically shaped, are greater in rarity and value.  But fully round pearls, especially fully round pearls that are matched for size and color, are the most valuable of all pearls.

Sometimes you will come across antique brooches mounted with ultra-rare gems like color-change alexandrite, green demantoid garnet or canary yellow diamonds.  These are all highly desirable, but imitations abound.  So I advise caution here.

Vintage or antique brooches set with (non-fancy) red garnets, zircons, peridot, citrine, amethyst and other quartzes round out our colored gemstone possibilities.  These types of stones were generally mounted in less valuable jewelry, although there are certainly exceptions to this rule.  I personally avoid jewelry set with these types of stones unless they are truly exceptional, one-of-a-kind works.  As a side note, garnets and peridot are up and coming in today’s gem market due to the fact that they are never treated.

 

Victorian Antique Brooches & Pins for Sale on eBay

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Of course, gems aren’t the only thing to consider when investing in antique jewelry.  You also want to look for antique brooches and pins that are good examples of their stylistic period.  You want your 1920s Art Deco pins looking sleek and angular and your 1940s Retro brooches looking big and bold.  Likewise, your 1880s Victorian brooches should be ornate and majestic while your 1900s Art Nouveau pins should exude whimsy and naturalism.

Choosing vintage jewelry with fine period style is so important that I’m often willing to loosen my gemstone requirements if I happen to find an otherwise perfect piece.

I won’t talk at length about the different styles of antique brooches or pins you may encounter when searching antique stores or online listings.  Instead I will list them in chronological order, followed by a brief description.  If you want more information, this excellent article at The Loupe covers vintage jewelry styles in greater detail:

 

• Victorian (1830 to 1900) – Victorian jewelry was ornate, heavy and formal, reflecting the tremendous cultural influence of the grand British matriarch herself. Bright-cut engraved or granulated yellow gold was often combined with rubies, sapphires and diamonds to great effect.  But lower value stones such as amethyst, citrine and garnets were just as popular.
• Art Nouveau (1890 to 1910) – At the close of the 19th century, jewelers became obsessed with the beauty of the natural world. Female forms with long, flowing hair, birds, flowers and vines were all prominent motifs of this style.  Yellow gold and enamel were favored mediums, often set with diamonds, peridot or opals.
• Arts & Crafts (1890 to 1910) – In a rejection of the increasingly industrial nature of jewelry fabrication, Arts & Crafts jewelry was all artisan handmade. The forms incorporated into this style of jewelry could vary considerably; medieval revival, simple geometric shapes and naturalistic motifs were all experimented with at one point or another.  It was common for sterling silver, enamel and lower value gems to be used with an emphasis on the rustic, handmade nature of the finished piece.
• Edwardian (1900 to 1915) – Also known in France as La Bell Époque (The Good Times), Edwardian style combined the best elements of Art Nouveau and Victorian jewelry to create colorful, dainty and somewhat fanciful pieces that still resonate with us today. Edwardian jewelry often featured expensive materials like diamonds, natural pearls, sapphires and other high value gems mounted in platinum or karat gold settings.
• Art Deco (1920 to 1940) – With its precise, rectilinear forms, Art Deco took the world by storm in the 1920s. Sleek platinum or white gold settings dripped with calibre cut emeralds, sapphires, rubies and diamonds.  The dazzling “white look” was in (yellow gold was rarely seen), sometimes accented by colored stones, jet black onyx or carved Chinese jade plaques.  High value materials were de rigueur.
• Retro (1935 to 1950) – A desire to escape the dreary, harsh world of the Great Depression sparked the advent of Retro jewelry. Retro design was characterized by its big, bold, often asymmetrical look.  Scrollwork, ribbons and pave settings were common, often rendered in multi-colored (green, pink, white or yellow) gold.  Due to the interruption of gem supplies from Southeast Asia during World War II, citrines, aquamarine, amethysts and other less expensive gems were used just as often as precious rubies, sapphires and diamonds.
• Mid-Century (1950 to 1970) – Mid-Century jewelry reflected the revived traditionalism and newfound prosperity of the post-World War II era. Playful animal motifs, stylized floral sprays and simple geometric designs were all commonly employed in Mid-Century jewelry.  Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies were favorite gems during this era.  But slightly less expensive stones like aquamarine, pearls, coral and jade were also popular.
• Modernist (1960 to 1980) – The 1960s brought a renaissance in artist-driven jewelry design. Avant-garde jewelers experimented with abstract designs dominated by organic or hyper-angular forms, extreme textures and unusual gemstone combinations. Almost anything goes with Modernist jewelry; it isn’t unusual to see high value gems like diamonds or rubies sit side-by-side with low-value amber or moonstone.

 

As with any antique jewelry, I would only recommend picking up pins and brooches that are crafted in 14 karat gold or higher purity or platinum.  Palladium – a sister metal to platinum – is also acceptable.  However, palladium was only used in vintage jewelry for a short time during the 1940s as a platinum substitute when World War II caused the latter metal to be declared strategically important.

On a related note, good quality metalwork is too often overlooked in vintage jewelry.  You want clean, competent goldwork (or platinum-work).  Excess solder, porous castings, roughly finished surfaces and bulbous prongs are all to be avoided.  They are not only unattractive, but also indicative of poor workmanship.

Antique brooches are one of the greatest bargains in the world of vintage jewelry today.  Good examples combine the best elements of high intrinsic value, impeccable style and reasonable price in a way that no other type of vintage jewelry can rival at the moment.  Savvy investors interested in tangible assets would be wise to consider buying antique brooches and pins now, while they are still cheap.

 

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage gems & jewelry articles here.

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Read in-depth Antique Sage vintage jewelry investment guides here.

Two pieces of Guatemalan rough jadeite jade serve as a backdrop for a 1940s vintage sterling silver pin set with half pearls and a small, vivid-green carved Burmese jadeite rosette.  The blue-green jadeite disc is a rare color known as “Olmec Blue” because of its popularity in the ancient Meso-American Olmec culture.

Jade is one of the best kept investment secrets of the modern age.  Although prices for the underappreciated gem have skyrocketed over the past 20 years, most people have been completely unaware of its investment prowess.  These frenetic price increases have been driven primarily by the rise of China as an economic superpower.  Jade is deeply treasured in Chinese culture, having been revered in the Middle Kingdom for thousands of years.

“Gold is valuable, but jade is priceless.” – an old Chinese proverb

But after centuries of ignoring jade, the West is finally beginning to wake up to the true rarity and value of this superlative gemstone.

This trend first began in 1997 when a breathtaking necklace composed of 27 perfectly matched Imperial jadeite jade beads – dubbed “Doubly Fortunate” – sold at Christie’s auction house for a jaw-dropping $9.39 million U.S. dollars.  Since that time, a steady stream of multi-million dollar, record-breaking auctions have firmly established jade as a bona fide high-end gemstone in the eyes of a global audience.

In 2008, the Beijing Olympics were held in China.  With the Olympics granting the country a global venue for the first time in the modern era, China took the opportunity to advertise its most prized material: jade.  Every official 2008 Olympic medal combined a traditional Chinese jade bi, or holed disc, with the time-honored gold, silver or bronze as appropriate.

Photo Credit: GIA

Try as it might, the Western world can simply no longer overlook the aesthetic and cultural significance of jade.

There are two gemologically distinct forms of jade: nephrite and jadeite.  I won’t cover the differences between nephrite and jadeite jade here.  Suffice it to say that they have very similar physical properties and are both considered true jades from a gemological, monetary and cultural standpoint.  Jadeite jade is the scarcer of the two varieties, but any high quality jade – regardless of whether it is nephrite or jadeite – is quite desirable and will fetch strong prices.

Judging Jade Quality

There are three major characteristics to look for when investing in jade: translucency, texture and attractive coloration.

Translucency is the ease with which light can pass through an object.  With jade, the more translucent the stone, the more valuable it is.  The most expensive jades are highly translucent, which gives them a diffuse, velvety appearance as they reflect light back to the viewer from deep within the stone.  Opaque jades, on the other hand, will appear flat and one-dimensional in comparison.

The texture of a jade is also quite important in determining its value.  This can vary from a coarse texture, where individual crystals or fibers are readily visible, to a very fine texture, where effectively no internal structures are evident.  A finely textured jade is much more desirable than a coarsely textured one.  This is partly because the finer a jade’s texture, the greater its translucency.

Color is the final factor in assessing a piece of jade.  Bright, pure and vibrant colors (typically greens, whites, blues and lavenders) are the most valuable.  In addition, the color will ideally be evenly distributed throughout the stone, with little variation or mottling.  Less desirable colors like browns, grays or blacks (unless pure black) will drag down the value of a piece.

I use these criteria to break jade down into three major quality categories: decorative, carving and jewelry.

Decorative Quality Jade

The lowest tier is decorative quality jade.  This jade is invariably coarsely textured and completely opaque, with no translucency whatsoever.  In addition, its color is often dull, splotchy or otherwise imperfect.  It is quite common for decorative quality jade to contain healed fractures or non-jade mineral intrusions.

25 or 30 years ago, this type of low quality jade was simply abandoned at the mine site because it had no commercial value.  But starting in the 1990s, there was a concerted effort to employ it in high-volume decorative uses (hence the name).  Today, this kind of jade is used in premium floor and backsplash tiles, sink vanities and even kitchen countertops.  It might also be used for low quality statues, bookends or other household decor.

Carving Quality Jade

The next tier up in quality is carving jade.  This mid-range quality jade varies from being completely opaque to slightly translucent.  Likewise, its texture can range from coarse to medium.  The color palette of carving quality jades is generally much more evenly distributed and attractive compared to decorative jades.  However, it will usually lack the wow factor characteristic of the highest quality jades.  Carving quality jade might have some healed fractures, but non-jade mineral intrusions will usually be minimal.

As the name implies, carving quality jade is most frequently used for carved statues, objets d’art, and other fairly high-end décor.  It is also sometimes used in jewelry, but this will normally be lower-end to mid-range jewelry.  When working with jade of this quality, a skilled carver can hide healed fractures and areas of poor color within a finished piece’s overall design, thus maximizing the value of the rough.

Jewelry Quality Jade

The highest quality tier for jade is what I call jewelry quality.  This jade will possess medium, fine or very fine texture.  The finer texture of jewelry quality jade contributes to its greater translucency, which is a very desirable attribute.  Jewelry quality jade can vary from being slightly translucent to extremely translucent, with large increases in value for relatively small increases in translucency.

The colors found in this quality of jade are always attractive; it is just a question of how attractive.  Some examples of the most desirable jade colors are Imperial green jadeite, which can look like the finest emerald, and mutton fat nephrite, which has a lustrous, creamy-white tone similar to porcelain.  Color distribution is typically good to excellent, with little mottling.

I should note that in some instances strong color contrasts are desirable.  For example, moss-in-snow jade has grass green areas randomly sprinkled against a white background.

Jewelry quality jade is extremely rare and therefore used exclusively for high-end jewelry or expensive objets d’art.  Every single part of the jade rough is used in order to minimize waste.  Cabochons, bangle bracelets and carved pendants are typical products.  Bangles made from jewelry quality jade are particularly desirable, as it can be quite difficult to find rough material large enough to fashion into a single-piece bracelet.  Jewelry quality jade is quite expensive and even the lower-end of this quality spectrum is coveted.

I want to remind readers that these are my personal jade quality rankings, and are not industry standard.  In addition, there are no clear distinctions between the quality categories.  High end decorative quality jades blend seamlessly into low end carving quality jades.  Likewise, the best carving quality jades merge into the bottom-rung of the jewelry quality jades.

 

Untreated Nephrite & Jadeite Jade Bangles for Sale on Etsy

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A Brief History of Jade Connoisseurship

Jade’s modern history begins in 1784, when, according to legend, jadeite jade was first imported into China from Burma (now Myanmar).  Until this time all the jade available in China was native nephrite material.  Nephrite jade had been central to Chinese culture for thousands of years by that time, having served both ceremonial and artistic functions.

Although experienced Chinese jade dealers could tell the new jadeite stone was different from their traditional nephrite jade (by touch of all things!), they still accepted jadeite as a legitimate substitute because of its nearly identical physical properties to nephrite and its bright, saturated colors.

Today, both nephrite and jadeite (and indeed all green hardstones) are known in China by a single word: “yu”.  This symbolizes just how intertwined the two stones are in modern Chinese thought.

As the 19th century progressed, the Chinese gradually began to esteem jadeite jade more and more compared to nephrite.  It is believed that the Dowager Empress Cixi, who secretly ruled as the power behind the Imperial throne from 1861 until 1908, was instrumental in this cultural change.  She had a huge fetish for Imperial jadeite jade and amassed a massive collection of fine quality pieces.  By the time Cixi’s shadow reign ended in the early 20th century, jadeite jade (particularly the highly-translucent Imperial green variety) was firmly embedded in Chinese culture as a first among equals.

Despite the Chinese people’s undying love for jade, for many centuries the Western world didn’t much care for the unfamiliar green stone.  Europe had no high quality jade deposits available in close geographic proximity and therefore didn’t develop a jade tradition beyond the Neolithic era.

When the Spanish conquistadors conquered South and Central America in the 16th century, they were looking specifically for gold and silver.  Jade, which was highly valued by the pre-Columbian Meso-American civilizations, didn’t interest them in the least.  This was most likely because the conquistadors had never seen jade before and had no idea what it was.

This difference in the attitudes between the jade-loving cultures of Central America and the jade-indifferent Europeans is best illustrated by an apocryphal story about the conquistador Hernán Cortés and the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II (also known as Montezuma):

“Cortés and Montezuma were accustomed to play each day a native game which in many ways resembles chess… It was their further custom at the close of each day’s game to present each other with some gift. At the close of one day’s game the Aztec monarch presented Cortés with several large discs of gold and silver handsomely worked. Cortés was greatly pleased and so expressed himself. Montezuma smiled and said: ‘The gift tomorrow shall be such that today’s gift will seem in value and preciousness, when compared with it, as no more than a single stone tile on the roadway…’ The royal treasurer of Montezuma brought in on a golden salver the royal gift, four small carved jade beads. The bitter disappointment of Cortés was so great that he could scarcely conceal it.”

When jade finally broke onto the European stage, it did so from a completely unexpected source: Russia.  Large deposits of fine green nephrite were discovered in Siberia’s Sayan Mountains near the Lake Baikal region in the 1820s.  Although word of the new find took a few decades to spread, by the late 19th century the famous Russian luxury house of Faberge was creating unmatched masterpieces in Siberian nephrite jade.

The adoption of jade in Russia was undoubtedly aided by the fact that red and green were the official colors of the Romanov Czars.  So any gem found in the Motherland with one or both of these colors quickly piqued the interest of Russian nobility.  Green demantoid garnet, green nephrite jade and the ultra-rare, red-green color-change gemstone Alexandrite were the primary beneficiaries of this trend.  All three gems skyrocketed in popularity in pre-Revolution Czarist Russia.

By the 1880s and 1890s, Western European jewelers were beginning to experiment with jade on a large scale.  This was due to a cultural pincer move, with European interest in Orientalist art and antiquities driving curiosity on one side and Russian Czarist patronage advancing it from the other side.  Incidentally, this is also the time when many wealthy Europeans began avidly collecting old Chinese and Mughal Indian jade carvings.

But jade didn’t really hit the big time in the West until just after World War I.  When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States was initially neutral.  However, the massive conflict cut wealthy U.S. tourists off from their normal European playgrounds.  Many of these U.S. tourists chose to vacation in the Far East instead, with China often near the top of the destination list.

Jade was a natural part of this cultural exchange.  Many wealthy families returned to the U.S. with jade carvings or jewelry, both antique and modern.  Chinese culture – with jade front and center – was viewed in the West as exotic, seductive and perhaps slightly dangerous.  This U.S. cultural obsession with China bloomed during the 1920s, when all things Chinese – from stir fry to jade carvings – became ultra-fashionable.

As a result, the Art Deco period of the 1920s and 1930s was a golden age for jade jewelry in the West.  Renowned luxury houses such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Tiffany & Co. created magnificent jade jewelry during this period.  Carved jade plaques, some imported directly from China, were often set in platinum or gold and then surrounded by sparkling diamonds, black onyx or rich enamels.

Although the mania for Chinese fashion in the U.S. gradually diminished during the 1930s, jade remained a staple of the jewelry world in the West.  This was particularly the case on the U.S. West Coast, where large numbers of Chinese immigrants and their descendants lived.

Two of the most celebrated jade-centric jewelers in America during the mid 20th century were Ming’s of Hawaii and Gump’s of San Francisco.  Ming’s jewelers created Hawaiian and Asian-themed jewelry that was liberally sprinkled with pearls, ivory and jade.  They opened in 1941 and at one time had satellite stores in San Francisco, Houston, New York, Miami and other major American cities.  The last two Ming’s stores, located in Honolulu and Hilo, closed in early 1999.

Gump’s was a small San Francisco luxury house founded in 1861 that sold everything from high end jewelry to Chinese antiques to fine furniture.  But they were most famous for their high quality jade jewelry.  One of the firm’s early 20th century owners, A.L. Gump, was acclaimed as the blind jade dealer – a gifted savant who could determine the genuineness and quality of jade merely by using his sense of touch.  Gump’s declared bankruptcy in August 2018 due to its excessive debts and was subsequently forced into liquidation.

To the best of my knowledge, neither Ming’s nor Gump’s ever handled treated jades – an important consideration for anyone looking to invest in vintage jade jewelry.

 

Vintage Ming’s & Gump’s Jade Jewelry for Sale on eBay

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Jade Treatments

And this brings us to our next topic: jade treatments.  High quality jade is extremely rare; therefore,  enterprising but shady gem dealers have developed artificial treatments that enhance the color and minimize the defects of otherwise mediocre specimens.  These different treatment levels are labeled Grade A jade, Grade B jade and Grade C jade.

Grade A jade is completely untreated, except for the possible application of a traditional wax polish to a finished stone’s surface.  This wax can easily be removed, so it doesn’t permanently alter the jade in any meaningful way.

Grade B jade has been cooked in an acid bath for days or weeks in order to bleach out any impurities in the stone, improving its color and translucency.  It is then injected with polymer resins via a high speed centrifuge.  The resulting B jade is absolutely indistinguishable from high grade untreated A jade to the naked eye.  Only a gemological laboratory with infrared spectroscopy equipment can verify if a jade has been subjected to this treatment process.

Grade B jade is substantially chemically altered by its extended acid immersion and should no longer be considered jade in the strictest sense.  In addition, the polymer will degrade over time, leading to brittleness and discoloration.  B jade might look like A jade, but is only worth 5% to 10% of the value of a similar quality untreated piece.

Grade C jade has been dyed to improve its color.  However, this treatment is unstable and the beautiful colors will fade dramatically over time.  Grade C jade can be very difficult to separate from A jade, even for those with substantial gemological experience.  A UV light or Chelsea color filter may help in determining if a jade has been dyed.

Sometimes very poor quality jade is subjected to both B and C treatments.  This jade is the worst of the worst.  It isn’t even suitable for cheap fashion jewelry, regardless of how low the price might be.

I should also note that the treatments mentioned above are typically applied to jadeite jade, although they are occasionally used on nephrites as well.

I’m going to make things very simple here.  If you are a jade investor, connoisseur, or even just looking to buy a high quality piece of jade jewelry, then you need to stay far, far away from both Grade B and C jades.  Only completely natural, untreated Grade A jade is acceptable.  But you can’t necessarily trust a seller to disclose these treatments, even though it is unethical not to do so.  This has significant implications for jade investors, which I will get into later.

Photo Credit: MAYS

Jadeite Jade Sources:

Burma – The Mogok region of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is the world’s primary source of high quality jadeite jade.  Whites, greens and lavenders are the most commonly encountered colors from this region, with vivid emerald-green Imperial jadeite being the most desirable.  Unfortunately, many lower quality Burmese jades are artificially enhanced in order to imitate higher quality, more expensive jades.  This makes purchasing Burmese jade a minefield for jade investors.

Russia – The polar Urals are a minor source of whitish to greenish jadeite jade.  The very best material can approach the saturated color of Burmese Imperial jadeite.  However, the extreme remoteness of the mine location (it resides above the Arctic Circle), coupled with the paucity of good quality material, makes mining here relatively uneconomic.  Whatever fine Russian material does reach the market is almost certainly rebranded as Burmese jadeite in order to increase its appeal to buyers.

Guatemala – The Motagua River valley in Central America was the sole source of the jades used by the pre-Columbian Olmec, Mayan and Aztec civilizations.  After they were conquered by the Spaniards, the secret of their jade mines was lost for hundreds of years.  It was only in the mid 1970s that an amateur archeologist named Mary Lou Ridinger rediscovered the ancient workings.

Guatemalan jadeite jades come in a wider range of colors than that of any other jadeite location.  These include black, white, yellow-orange, blue, lavender and every shade of green imaginable.  However, most Guatemalan jade is opaque or only slightly translucent.  As a result, it is very unusual for Guatemalan jade to approach the very finest Burmese Imperial jadeite in terms of quality.  Even so, high quality Guatemalan jadeite does exist and is quite desirable.

Nephrite Jade Sources:

Siberia – Bright apple-green nephrite from Siberian Russia has been a staple of the jade trade since the mid 19th century.  The Eastern Sayan Mountains near Lake Baikal is the source of most of this material.  A lot of Siberian jade is peppered with tiny black dots of chromite (FeCR₂O₄), which can help in positively identifying the source of unattributed pieces.

Whites (often modified with brown) and light-to-medium greens are the most commonly encountered colors.  Siberian nephrite is generally characterized by even color and good translucency, which can make it extremely desirable and expensive.  It is fairly rare to find Siberian jade in the West these days because almost all of the good quality material goes straight to China, where it is highly prized.

British Columbia – The mountainous Canadian Pacific coast is the world’s nephrite jade powerhouse.  It is currently the largest and most reliable producer of good quality nephrite jade, eclipsing other traditional nephrite producers such as China and Siberia.  This has transformed the region into a vital supplier to the Chinese market over the past 25 years.

British Columbian nephrite generally varies in color from a light, yellowish-green to a dark, spinach green.  Translucency is usually mediocre, but can vary considerably.  The very finest Canadian nephrite jade, known as Polar jade, is a bright green color with excellent translucency.  Nephrite of this quality is quite expensive and rare.

China – The rugged Western Chinese province of Xinjiang is the traditional source of China’s high quality nephrite jade.  These jades are often referred to as Hotan, Hetian or Kunlun jade in the industry.  Chinese nephrite jades generally originate in the Kunlun or Altai Mountains, but are washed into secondary deposits in the adjacent river valleys where prospectors scour the waterways for them.

The finest of these is the so-called “mutton fat” white jade, but browns and greens are also quite common.  Having been exploited continuously for thousands of years, these native Chinese nephrite deposits are very close to being worked-out.  Chinese jades can appear almost identical to some Siberian jades, undoubtedly because the two regions host different ends of the same geological features.

Wyoming – Nephrite jade was first commercially mined in Wyoming during the original American “Green Gold Rush” of the 1930s.  However, mining tapered-off in the 1960s when superior quality material was discovered in British Columbia.  Unlike the alluvial deposits found in most other areas, secondary deposits of Wyoming nephrite generally occur as wind-scoured “slicks”.

A lot of Wyoming jade tends towards darker olive and sage tones that are rather opaque, limiting the value of most material.  But the very best Wyoming material is a bright apple green that can rival the highest quality British Columbian nephrite.  However, the most famous Wyoming nephrite is undoubtedly Edwards black jade, which is widely regarded to be the finest black jade in the world.

California – Many jade hunters gravitate towards the California coast at Big Sur, near the famous Pacific Coast Highway 1.  This is because phenomenal nephrite ocean jades can be found in the area by beachcombers and divers.  Ocean jades are boulders or nodules that have been worn smooth by millennia of constant wave action.  As a result, ocean jades are almost always very tough, compact material.

Big Sur jades can vary in color from black to blue to greens of all hues.  Most California jade tends toward the opaque end of the spectrum and factures are common.  But occasionally good quality translucent material is found.  Jade from California only comes to the market in low volumes and isn’t currently very commercially important.

New Zealand – Nephrite jade and other similar greenstones have been exploited by the native New Zealand Maori culture for many centuries.  Most of the jade harvested here is alluvial, having been washed down from the towering Southern Alps mountain range on the South Island.

New Zealand jade is often of medium tone with only slight to moderate translucency.  It is generally not considered commercially important, no doubt because the export of rough jade from New Zealand has been effectively banned since 1947.

 

Untreated Rough Siberian Nephrite Jade for Sale on Etsy

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Identifying Jade

Jade has a variety of impersonators that populate the low-end jewelry market.  These include look-alikes such as chrysoprase, serpentine, aventurine quartz, hydrogrossular garnet and maw-sit-sit, just to name a few.  It can be very difficult to tell these imitation stones apart from real jade just by appearance alone.  However, there are a few tricks that savvy jade investors can use to give themselves an advantage.

The first is how the stone feels.  Unlike more conventional gemstones that rely solely on their good looks, jade is a very tactile stone that is meant to be touched.

The first thing you will notice about true jade is its substantial weight; both nephrite (2.9 to 3.2 g/cm³) and jadeite (3.2 to 3.45 g/cm³) have relatively high densities compared to most jade imitations.  For example, a piece of real jade will tend to feel heavier in the hand than a similar sized piece of aventurine or chrysoprase, which only sport densities of around 2.6 to 2.7 g/cm³.

The next thing you will immediately notice about a piece of true jade is the fact that it feels very slightly greasy or waxy to the touch (even though it is perfectly clean).  This characteristic is more noticeable with nephrites than jadeites, but both varieties share it to some degree.  This was one of the key ways that ancient peoples could distinguish true jades from other similarly colored gems.

This greasy or waxy texture is also reflected in the gem’s luster, often conferring a soft, diffused or dreamy look to jade.  This is one of the attributes that can trick a casual observer into believing that jade is very soft when it is actually harder than steel.  Of course, real jade can also have a vitreous luster, which is more glass-like.  Once again, nephrites will tend more towards a subtly greasy or waxy luster while jadeites will more often have a vitreous appearance.

Jade also possesses extremely high thermal conductivity.  If you take a piece of jade and place it against a sensitive part of your face such as your lips or cheeks, you will immediately notice how persistently cold the stone feels.  Imitation jades will often warm up quickly when subjected to the same test.

The last quick trick for spotting true jade is its internal crystalline structure.  Translucent jadeites will most often have a granular, sugar-like texture when viewed under a 10x jeweler’s loupe.  Nephrites will usually have a felt-like or inter-woven fibrous appearance.  There can be crossover here though, so some jadeites can have a fibrous structure while it is possible for nephrites to be granular.

In addition, if the texture of a jade is extremely fine (which is common in very high quality specimens) it might not be possible to discern any internal structure.  Also be aware that in certain circumstances the crypto-crystalline members of the quartz family (primarily chrysoprase and aventurine) might also appear slightly granular under high magnification.

Keep in mind that these identification tricks are not foolproof.  They require experience to use effectively and each one has its individual strengths and weaknesses.  Nonetheless, they can help give you an edge in determining real jade from its many imitations.

 

Vintage Jade Jewelry for Sale on eBay

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Investing in Jade

So now we arrive at the crux of this article.  What are the best jades to buy from an investment perspective and how do you find them?

First, I think it is imperative that you avoid Burmese jadeites or Chinese nephrites.  I don’t advise this because these jades are “bad” in any way.  To the contrary, they can be some of the most beautiful jades on the planet.  However, Chinese demand has driven the prices for jade from these specific sources through the roof.  This insatiable demand has also driven unscrupulous jade dealers to artificially treat these jades in an attempt to provide more gem-quality supply to the market.

So when I encounter jades from Burma or China, my baseline assumption is that they have all been subjected to treatments, which renders them uninvestable.  Of course, if a beautiful Burmese Imperial jadeite or Chinese mutton-fat nephrite is presented by a reputable dealer with a certification stating no-treatment from a respected Western gem laboratory such as GIA, IGI, AGL or Gubelin, then I very well might make an exception.  But such gems would be quite rare and very expensive.

Instead, I prefer to exploit some intriguing mispricings that are currently present in the global jade market.

The biggest of these applies to North American jades – Guatemalan jadeite, British Columbian nephrite, and California/Wyoming nephrite.  Because Chinese buyers aren’t as familiar with these types of jades, the insatiable overseas demand for their “brand” hasn’t developed yet.  This cultural foible represents an interesting arbitrage opportunity to savvy jade investors.

British Columbian jade is already being exported in quantity to China, but good-quality material that is close enough in appearance to Chinese nephrite is often rebranded upon its arrival to enhance its perceived value.  To the best of my knowledge, relatively little Guatemalan jadeite or U.S. nephrite is currently exported to China.

Another huge bonus for North American jades is that they are almost always untreated.  This means it is possible to confidently buy these jades without relying on expensive and difficult-to-obtain gem lab certifications.  I suspect the no-treatment rule for North American jades may change in a couple decades once they’ve become more popular, but for now it is a gem investor’s paradise.

Finally, I think that as the traditional sources of high quality Asian jades – primarily Burma and China – progressively exhaust their centuries-old mines, the global jade market will have no choice but to turn to North American material to fill the gap.  This will lead to persistently rising prices for North American jade over time.

I don’t want to ignore Siberian jades in my investment analysis.  Not only can they be stunningly beautiful and highly desirable stones, but they are also treated far less frequently than Burmese or Chinese jades.  The only problem is that almost all the good quality Siberian material goes straight across the border from Russia into China these days.  Jade investors and connoisseurs in Europe or the United States hardly ever see fine Siberian jade anymore.

One exception to this rule is when an old U.S. or European estate or gem collection is liquidated.  Another is when an established Western gem dealer has old, stale inventory.  In those instances, it might be possible to find very high quality Siberian jades for good prices.  But these are fairly rare occurrences.

Rough Jade

The first kind of jade that I recommend for investment purposes is rough jade.  This consists of water-worn nodules or roughly-cut blocks of raw jade that haven’t been turned into a finished product yet.  One of the reasons I favor rough jade is because the possibility of treatment is even more remote than when dealing with finished jade jewelry or carvings.

You do have to exercise caution with jade nodules because it isn’t always possible to determine the overall quality of the jade inside.  On the other hand, a jade block or slab that has been cut on multiple sides allows a direct view into the stone, thus letting investors know exactly what they’re buying.

Pricing for North American rough jade is often very attractive.  Unfortunately, it is also the most illiquid form of jade, being potentially difficult to resell on short notice for a fair price.  I suspect this illiquidity will diminish as jade’s reputation continues to improve in the West.

Pricing can start as low as $50 to $100 a kilo for good carving quality rough, but escalates quickly for gem quality material.  The finest North American rough can easily run $1,000 a kilo, if not more.

Jade Bangle Bracelets

Bangle bracelets are the most commonly encountered form of jade jewelry.  In fact, they are something close to a cultural phenomenon in China – every woman of means owns at least one.  It isn’t unusual to walk into a mid-range jewelry store in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Beijing and see jade bangles selling for $10,000, $20,000 or even $50,000 a piece.  The Chinese value them almost as a form of portable money – a sort of gold bullion for the wrist.

One of the reasons jade bangles are so highly valued is because only large pieces of high quality jade can be used in their creation.  There can be absolutely no cracks, fissures or other irregularities present in the rough.  And on average only three bangle bracelets can be obtained from an optimally-shaped one kilogram slab of rough material.  As a result, high quality jade bangles are probably the most value-dense, liquid form of jade in existence, making them very attractive to investors.

Keep in mind that jade bangle bracelets can be carved with decorations.  In most instances this is done to hide uneven coloring, healed fractures or other undesirable traits.  You generally want a jade bangle with a smooth surface.

Reasonable quality North American jade bangles starts at around $300 to $400.  Anything below that price is typically junk.  Really fine Guatemalan jadeite or Wyoming/California nephrite bangle bracelets can often be found in the $800 to $2,000 range.  On rare occasions it is possible to find a nice Siberian jade bangle for a few thousand dollars.

Antique & Vintage Jade Jewelry

Photo Credit: K47DDC

This Art Deco platinum, gold and diamond brooch from the 1920s is set with a high-end jadeite jade.  This impressive piece of antique jade jewelry sold on eBay in June 2019 for only $1,000 – a tremendous bargain considering that the jade it contains is only one step below the legendary Imperial jadeite in terms of quality.

Polymer-impregnated Grade B jade was first developed in the 1980s.  This means that any jade mounted in older, pre-1980s jewelry can’t have been subjected to this treatment.  Therefore, vintage and antique jewelry represents one of the only safe (and potentially inexpensive) sources of high quality Burmese jadeite or Chinese nephrite in the marketplace today.  This is the only situation where I feel it is acceptable to buy Burmese and Chinese jades – in part because almost all antique jade jewelry you encounter will be mounted with stones from these regions.

I recommend that jade investors only consider purchasing vintage jewelry that dates from the 1960s or earlier.  Why not green-light 1970s jewelry?  For one, dating jewelry is an art, not a science.

It is possible that the vintage piece you believe to be from the mid 1960s is actually from the mid 1970s.  In that instance, you are still safe from polymer-impregnated jades.  But if the piece you think is from the 1970s actually turns out to be from the 1980s, you may have just made a very expensive mistake.  Sticking to 1960s vintage jewelry and earlier provides a margin of safety that is invaluable to serious jade investors.

There are two additional caveats for those looking to invest in antique jade jewelry.

First, jades have been dyed since the 1950s, so there is the possibility that jade mounted in some older jewelry might have been dyed.  However, these pre-modern dyes were almost always organic dyes that tended to fade very quickly.  In effect, any organic-dyed jade that has seasoned for half a century or more will have faded back to its natural color.  In other words, regardless of whether a piece was dyed or not in the distant past, what you see is what you get today.

Secondly, it is possible that an antique piece of jade jewelry has had its stones replaced at some point within the recent past.  And any modern replacement stones could conceivably have been treated.  This would have happened most often to damaged jewelry, so be wary of old jade jewelry showing obvious signs of repair.  However, replaced stones are exceptionally rare in my experience.

Pricing for investment grade vintage jade jewelry will normally start around $300.  It’s tough to find anything truly worthwhile below this price point, although you can sometimes get lucky.  Some very compelling antique jade jewelry can be found in the $1,000 to $2,500 range.  And truly spectacular vintage pieces are available for those willing to spend $3,000 or more.

Jade is one of the best kept hard-asset investment secrets of the modern age.  But I believe my jade investor’s buying guide will give you the knowledge and tools you need to successfully profit from this exceptional gemstone.

 

Read more in-depth Antique Sage bullion & gemstone investment guides here.

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Read more in-depth Antique Sage vintage jewelry investment guides here.