JADEITE - Canadian Institute of Gemmology

version the core of the boulder is sawn or drilled out and then a green-colored filling and reflector
are inserted. The hole is covered with a mixture of epoxy and grindings from the boulder surface.
Sometimes only the window of the stone is treated. This can entail breaking off a chip from the
boulder, staining it green, and then replaced it with epoxy so that when a window is cut on the stone
it shows the faked green color. A somewhat easier method is simply to stain the window area green.
9. Synthetic Jadeite
The American company Mason-Kay Fine Jade Jewelry states that synthetics of jadeite "are not a
problem" (www.masonkay.com/jadesimulants, page 1). Read (1999: 189) reports that the General
Electric company in the United States produced various colors of synthetic jadeite in 1984, but that
"these synthetic jadeites were said to be the product of an experimental study, and the company has
no plans for commercial production." The starting material for this synthetic jadeite "included
crushed glass as well as alumina and sodium carbonate, and was processed in a high-pressure
apparatus at a temperature of about 1400 o C" (Read 1999: 189).
10. Simulants
There are a number of stones that look similar to jadeite and that can be confused with it. In some
cases such stones are used as a substitute, often with the intent to defraud. In its web-page, the
Mason-Kay Fine Jade Jewelry company remarks: "Jade is probably the most mis-identified of all
important gemstones. There are many minerals that have a passing resemblance to jadeite and
nephrite, and they are often misrepresented as jade. The high value of jade has made it a favorite
target" (www.masonkay.com/jadesimulants, pg. 1). The Department of Geology at the University of
Texas-Austin web site comments:
The name jade has been, and continues to be, applied to a variety of materials that
superficially or closely resemble jade but are not composed of either jadeite or nephrite.
F.T.C. regulations in this country [the United States] deem such usage unlawful, yet the
practice persists, either through ignorance or otherwise. Some of the problem can
undoubtedly be traced to cultural and historical differences in word usage. In China, for
example, the word jade has traditionally been applied not only to nephrite and jadeite jade,
but to green serpentine and soapstone (talc) whose appearance closely resemble true jade.
In his discussion of jade materials produced in Precolumbian Mesoamerica, Lange (1993a: 1)
distinguishes between what he calls "cultural jade" and "social jade": "social jade characterizes
those nonjade materials (quartz and serpentine among others) that were also fashioned into
pendants and other forms similar to artifacts made from true jade." Many of these stones can be
told apart from jadeite through careful observation and all potentially can be separated from jadeite
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