Post #401974 by Paipo on Mon, Aug 18, 2008 1:26 PM

On 2008-08-18 04:19, kiwishaman wrote:

I have noted there is someone here in NZ selling siberian jade on trademe (our version of ebay), and there are lots of people selling off NZ jade at extrememly high prices - offcuts etc.

Steer clear of that seller with the Siberian - they are responsible for nearly all of the counterfeit bone carvings (ie copied from others' work) in NZ. Unfortunately tm doesn't give a toss as long as they are making money from it, and it would probably take a major court action as happened with ebay to do anything about it.
As for selling NZ jade at extremely high prices - guilty as charged! The fact is it's very hard to get any decent stone anywhere in NZ now, as it simply isn't being extracted like it once was and the price just reflects where the market is at. Small clean waterpolished specimens are very keenly sought after and I get prices I would've thought were crazy 5 years ago, and then those pieces are often onsold again by the person buying from me! You do get gnarly old pieces of unusable crud listed for $100/kg from time to time, but much of what I see sells for what it's worth.

Interesting that jade guide was posted -I found this one on a jade-related blog the other day:
Identifying fake jades
Not perfect and lacking some info, but a pretty good rundown of all the trade names that are out there...