You have a flat green stone that cost eleven pounds and was described as jade. Someone else has a flat green stone that cost four hundred and was also described as jade. Both descriptions may be entirely legal, and the two objects may not share a mineral between them.
That’s not primarily a story about fraud. It’s a story about a word that covers two unrelated mineral species, a trade that has generated dozens of legitimate-sounding names for a third, and a set of treatments — dyeing, waxing, polymer impregnation — that are standard practice and usually undisclosed at the point where you’re looking at a photograph on a marketplace.
This site is about the object in your hand: what it’s made of, how you’d tell, and what you can’t tell without a laboratory. Nephrite and jadeite and why both are jade. Serpentine and the trade names built around it. How dyed stone is produced and what dye leaves behind. Hardness against toughness, and why the hardest tools are often the ones that snap. What bian stone actually refers to. And an honest account of home testing — which is to say, what the scratch test and the water test really establish, which is less than the internet suggests.
Nothing here recommends a purchase. You already own it; the question is what it is.
Latest posts
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Nephrite, jadeite, and what jade means
Jade is two unrelated minerals with different compositions and hardnesses — plus a long list of trade names for things that are neither.
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How imitation stone is made
Dyeing, waxing, polymer impregnation, reconstitution, glass and resin — each is a different process, and each leaves a different trace behind.
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Hardness, toughness, and why tools break
Hardness resists scratching. Toughness resists fracturing. They're different properties, and the harder stone is often the one that snaps.
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What bian stone is
Bian stone is a category name, not a mineral species. Understanding what it does and doesn't specify explains why the label tells you so little.
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Testing a stone at home
The scratch test, the water test, the loupe and the kitchen scale — what each one actually establishes, and the much longer list of what none of them can.