There are many factors that affect the quality of jadeite, including color, texture (structure), transparency (water head), cracks, impurities and processing technology, which are the main basis for economic evaluation of jadeite. The following are briefly introduced respectively.
(1) color: the color of jadeite is ever-changing, and the hue is also different (color photos 35 and 36), but the white one is the most, and the green one is the most expensive. As the saying goes, "There are ten thousand kilograms of jadeite at home, but it is expensive on the green side". According to the traditional custom, the color requirements of jadeite can be summed up as "positive, positive, strong and harmonious". Positive: that is, the color is bright green and pure, and there can be no blue feeling in green. Yang: That is, bright and bright colors are required. Dense: refers to the saturation of color, and the stronger the emerald green, the better. Harmony: refers to the uniformity of the same color of the whole jade, and high-quality jade requires the same color to be rich and uniform.
generally speaking, according to the standards of positive, positive, strong and harmonious, the advanced turquoise can be divided into four grades, and their similarities are that they have no blue, but only yellow. They are:
(1) Emerald, which is deep positive green without any yellow;
(2) green, positive green with medium depth, without any yellow;
(3) Apple green, bright green like a green apple, slightly yellow;
(4) seedling green, with obvious yellow light green, also known as yellow-yang green, has a lively feeling or shows vitality.
In addition to the above-mentioned high-grade greens, there are other greens, such as dark green, oil green, blue green, water green, melon skin green, etc., all of which belong to poor greens. Emerald with this kind of green has a much lower price than that of high-grade greens.
In addition to green, red and purple jadeites are also popular. Red is the best, while purple is the most expensive, but these colors are rare, and most of them are shallow and shallow.
(2) texture: the texture of jadeite is also called "dizi", "dizhang" or "bottom", and it is called structure in minerals. It is mainly related to the particle size, shape and arrangement of jadeite minerals. As we know, jadeite is the main component of jadeite, and jadeite is cleavage-developed. When its particles are large, when observed with naked eyes or magnifying glasses, you will see flaky flashes with different sizes when the light reflects from the cleavage surface, and vaguely show many tiny mineral particles in jadeite, commonly known as "emerald", which are also called "fly wings" and "ofloxacin" in the jewelry industry. Because other green jade has no emerald, emerald has become an important symbol to identify jadeite. But really good jadeite requires the finer the particles of the constituent minerals, the better. The constituent minerals are too small to see the emerald. The smaller the mineral particles are, the more transparent the jadeite is and the better the bottom is. In order to describe the texture of jadeite, dozens of names can be used, such as glass land, water land, egg white land, porridge land, taro land, fine white land, dry land, white land, fragrant ash land and shit land, etc., and they vary according to regions and habits. The best quality is the glass floor, which is composed of very fine minerals, and the jadeite is as bright as glass. Followed by water, which means that jade is as transparent as water; Once again, the egg white land means that it is like raw egg white. Although it is basically transparent, it is slightly turbid, but it is a rare product in the market. Porridge land refers to its coarse particles, which can also be seen with naked eyes, and its transparency is average. This kind of texture is very common in the jade market, especially in the pendant and jade crafts market.
(3) water head: transparency. It depends on the content of other minerals in jadeite, the grain size, shape and arrangement of various minerals. The better the transparency, the more sufficient the water head. The head of jadeite can generally be estimated by the naked eye, which is called "a little water" in the jewelry industry. The first water separation means that the jadeite with a thickness of 3mm is translucent, and the second water separation means that the jadeite with a thickness of 6mm is translucent. Emerald with two waters can be considered as the best quality in the world.
(4) Cleanliness: Like other precious stones, cleanliness is a major factor in the evaluation of jadeite. There are mainly two kinds of defects in jadeite: white and black. The white ones are mainly granular and massive, generally called "stone talk" and "blisters". They are mainly albite minerals or aggregates, and jadeite with obvious stone flowers is of low quality.
Black defects are mainly some minerals or aggregates, mainly amphibole and magnetite, and black defects also have a great influence on the value of jadeite.
(5) Cracks: commonly known as streaks, streaks also have great influence on the quality of jadeite. There are two kinds of cracks, one is cracks caused by external impact; The other is intergranular crack, the former has a greater influence on the quality, but the jadeite with intergranular crack is also poor in quality.
(6) process quality: high-quality jadeite can be made into valuable jewelry, and its specific quality depends on the thickness, proportion, roundness and polishing degree in addition to the above factors. For ordinary jade carvings, it is more necessary to consider the level of craftsmanship and high-quality jade handicrafts. The craftsmanship should be based on materials, exquisite patterns, smooth lines and good use of clever colors (color photos 37 and 38).
It is worth pointing out that the evaluation of jadeite is a rather complicated problem: the color, water and texture of the above elements are often a comprehensive element, commonly known as species. There are many schemes for species division, and the common ones are:
(1) Laokeng species: this is the best species, and its color meets the requirements of sunny, positive, dense and harmonious, rich, even and bright; Fine texture; Good water head (color photos 39, 4). If it is a glass ground, with strong, sunny, positive and harmonious colors, the jadeite will be better in color and texture, bright and eye-catching, and the second variety is called Laokeng glass seed. This is the best jade, which is very rare. It can be said that it can be met but not sought, and the price is very expensive. The raw materials generally need 1 million to 3 million yuan/company.
(2) There is a kind of colorless: it refers to fine texture, full head, but few colors, light color or colorless. If this kind of jadeite is large, it is usually made into bracelets. Bracelets are clear and transparent, and the water is clear. Wearing them on your hands gives you a feeling of being pure and clean. If you like them, they are deeply loved by the majority of ladies and the price is higher.
(3) hibiscus species: just like hibiscus flowers, the fragrance is light and long. Generally speaking, the color of hibiscus is light green. With naked eyes, its color is pure but not evil, without yellow tone, translucent or slightly transparent, and the jade is delicate. Under a magnifying glass of 1 times, it feels particles, but no boundary can be found, and its quality is equivalent to egg white ground. Overall, it is somewhat similar to Xiuyu (color photo 41).
Hibiscus species have a large yield, which belongs to middle and high grade. Although the grade is not very high, there are dark green veins on the hibiscus species, which are called "hibiscus species with green roots". This is a very expensive high-grade product. At an auction in Hong Kong in the 198s, a bracelet made of this jadeite species sold for 2 million Hong Kong dollars.
(4) Gan Qing species: This kind of jade material is coarse in jade, with short columnar mineral particle shape, fully crystalline semi-circular granular structure under the microscope, pure in green color, but poor in transparency, so it is easy to see in the market, and belongs to the intermediate product.
(5) bean species: jadeite "has nine beans in ten", which fully shows that it is common. Its ten components are coarse in mineral particles, easily visible to the naked eye, and the water head is poor. Those with green color are called "bean green" and those with green color are called "bean green". This species, with great yield and poor quality, is a low-grade product.
(6) gold seed: this kind of gold seed is good in color, fresh in green, and the green is arranged in parallel in a filiform manner, and the jade is moist and tender, with only a few fibrous minerals visible to the naked eye and sufficient water head. According to the growth direction of green silk road stripes, it is further divided into: smooth silk, disorderly clump, silk slice and ink silk. This kind of jadeite belongs to middle and high-grade products except MoSi Cui, and the price is also higher.
(7) Bai Diqing: Visually, its bottom is as white as snow, and its green color is bright and durable. The green color is generally irregular and appears in patches or lumps. Under a magnifying glass of 1 times, its texture is delicate, often in fibrous structure, and most of them have poor water head. This kind is mainly suitable for grinding bracelets, carvings and listing, and belongs to middle and low-grade products.
(8) Flower-green species: it is a kind of jadeite jade widely distributed in Myanmar, showing that the green color is veined, densely distributed or sparsely distributed, and the color can be dark or light. The background color can be light green or colorless, and the texture can be coarse or fine. According to the texture, it can be further subdivided, such as bean flower cyanine, horse tooth cyanine, oil bottom cyanine and so on. This kind of jadeite is very common in the market, and it is mostly used as a small pendant, belonging to middle and low-grade products.
(9) Oil-green species: Visually, the green color is dark and impure, mixed with gray or blue tones, giving people a very dull feeling. The water head of oil green species is generally good, the jade is fine and glassy, but the surface light seems oily, and the fibrous crystalline structure can be seen under a magnifying glass. The color can be from light to dark, if the color is dark, it is called "melon skin is oily green"; If the color is light, it is called "fresh oil green". Youqing is easy to see in the market, and it is also a middle and low-grade product. Generally, the ring surface is about tens to hundreds of yuan each.
(1) Horse tooth species: coarse texture, white granular mineral inclusions in jade, poor transparency, as the saying goes; "Insufficient moisture or short water head". It looks a bit like porcelain to the naked eye. Under the magnifying glass of 1 times, you can clearly see that there is a thin white stripe in the green. Although the horse tooth species is dark green, it is not uniform enough and its distribution is irregular. Horse tooth species rarely do ring face, but mostly do listing, ring and so on, which is more common in the market and lower in price.
(11) Fei: it is a red and yellow variety in jadeite (color photos 42 and 43). This color was once thought to be caused by the jade being soaked in human blood after being buried with him. This is a complete misunderstanding. In fact, this is only the secondary color of jadeite, that is, the color of jadeite original stone impregnated with iron minerals under weathering. Bright red Fei is rare, but it is hard to find, and the price is very high. For example, an excellent bright red Fei carving was auctioned at Sotheby's auction, and the price was as high as HK$ 3.8 million. Yellow jade is more common, with a large output, which is not very popular with people. The price is extremely low, and it can be bought from a few yuan to dozens of yuan.
(12) Spring refers to the purple variety in jadeite. Purple is generally lighter, like the color of violet flowers, also known as violet (color photos 44 and 45). According to the different shades of purple, it can be further divided into pink purple and purple with pink; Eggplant purple jujube purple with eggplant-like crimson; Blue purple jujube purple with blue. This kind of jadeite is generally carved at an average price. If it is dark purple, delicate in texture and good in water head, it is a very hard-to-find high-grade product, and the finished product is worth tens of thousands to more than 1 thousand.
(13) Blue flower species: the color is green and blue, which is actually the appearance of tremolite and actinolite: this kind of color is not straight, the water head is poor, the texture is average, and there is a lot of dirty black inside, which is a low-grade jade material.
(14) Dirty species: inferior species in jadeite, including taro land, shit land and fragrant ash land. Visually, it is opaque, coarse in texture and large in mineral particles. Under the magnifying glass of 1 times, there are many impurities inside, with stone flowers and stone brains, and the color is extremely incorrect, mixed with yellow, brown and gray. The market is common and belongs to a very low grade.