Buying Your First Yashab: Jadeite, Nephrite and the Stones Sold as Jade

Jade, or yashab, is a harder first buy than most stones. It isn't that jade is hard to find. It is that the one word covers two different minerals, plus a long list of stones that only look like it. Once you have the vocabulary sorted, everything else gets much simpler.

One name, two minerals

• Nephrite is made of interwoven fibres, which makes it remarkably tough. It usually comes in deep spinach green, olive or creamy white, with a soft, slightly oily shine. Most of the yashab traditionally worn in Pakistan and Central Asia is nephrite.
• Jadeite has a grainy rather than fibrous structure. It can show brighter greens, lavender and other colours, and it has a slightly glassier lustre. The best translucent, emerald-green jadeite ranks among the most valuable gem materials anywhere.

Both are real jade, but they sell at very different prices, so any listing should tell you which one you are looking at.

The "Pakistani jade" mix-up

Green serpentine and some dyed or green quartzite often get sold as "new jade" or even "Pakistani jade". They can be lovely stones, but they are not jade. Serpentine is softer, and a steel blade will scratch it, while true jade holds up. Aventurine quartz has tiny glittering specks in it, which jade does not.

A, B and C

These trade grades are used mainly for jadeite:

• Type A: natural and untreated, apart from a surface wax.
• Type B: bleached with acid, then filled with polymer resin to make it look clearer. Over time it can turn brittle and cloudy.
• Type C: dyed to add or deepen the colour. Under magnification you can often see dye gathered in the cracks.

Only a laboratory can confirm Type A for certain, and you are welcome to have any stone you buy from us tested independently.

Judging quality

1. Colour: even, rich and easy on the eye. Patchy or muddy colour pulls the value down.
2. Translucency: light should seem to glow inside the stone. The more translucent, the better the jade.
3. Texture: a fine, smooth grain takes a soft, glowing polish. Coarse grain looks grainy and flat.

Hard versus tough

On the Mohs scale jade is only 6 to 7, which is middling. But nephrite especially is famously tough, meaning it resists breaking far better than its hardness suggests. It is perfectly fine in pendants, bangles and rings worn with a little care. Keep it apart from harder stones so it doesn't pick up scratches.

Yashab in Chinese tradition

In Chinese tradition jade is tied to prosperity and long life rather than to a planet, and people wear it for harmony, calm and steady good fortune. These are beliefs, not guaranteed results; for astrological stones see our rashi guide.

Buying yashab from Authentic Gems

Every stone in our jade collection is checked and photographed on its own, and we state any treatment we know of. You might also like moonstone or sunstone. The Urdu names are on our names page. We deliver with Cash on Delivery, usually within 1–2 working days in Karachi, and to Lahore and the rest of Pakistan.