Fakes Send Sales of Jade Plunging : Gem Merchants Fight Back With High-Tech Detection Methods
The international jade trade is reeling from a proliferation of doctored stones that have appeared on the market since 1990, hurting sales and eroding confidence in the translucent green gem prized throughout Asia.
Some jade traders estimate that inferior stones, which are treated with chemicals to enhance their deep green color, now account for more than half the gems circulating in Hong Kong, the world’s biggest jade market. In recent months, treated jade has been found in the Los Angeles area, particularly in the San Gabriel Valley, where large numbers of Asians live.
Concerned that consumers--unsure of the quality of gems--will shy away from the expensive stone, merchants on both sides of the Pacific are fighting back with high-tech detection methods and a campaign to educate the public. They say it’s impossible to know how many people have purchased inferior stones since many are unaware that the stones are treated or are too embarrassed to admit they were victimized.
However, the trade publication Jewelry News Asia estimates that about $129 million in treated jade is sold annually around the world.
The Hong Kong Jade and Stone Manufacturers Assn. recently spent $200,000 for lab equipment to detect treated jade and took out ads in Hong Kong’s daily press to explain the difference between high-quality stones, called A grade jade, and stones infused with plastic, known as B jade.
“It’s really a problem,” concedes Winny Chan, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong trade association. “If customers are confused and have no confidence in the product, it hurts the whole jade industry.”
The jade trade generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year, mainly in Asia, where the stone has been revered throughout history for bringing good fortune. Jade has been worked into ritual objects and ornaments in China for almost 7,000 years. It was placed in the earth at planting time to bring good harvest and was buried with the dead to prevent the decomposition of bodies and assure passage to heaven.
For consumers, the stakes are high in distinguishing naturally high-quality jade from treated stones: A pair of Imperial jade earrings recently fetched $750,000 at auction, according to Sotheby’s. Similar earrings made of impregnated jade are worth only $2,000.
Plastic-infused jade first surfaced in 1989 in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Southern California jewelers say they don’t believe treated stones have yet been widely distributed in this market.
In the fashionable San Gabriel Valley Square Shopping Center in San Gabriel, jade merchant Hing Wa Lee passes out warning flyers in Chinese to customers and window shoppers who stop to gaze at the opulent stones displayed in his jewelry store windows.
“The pitfalls of buying ‘fake’ jade,” reads the flyer, which goes on to describe how treated jade will lose its translucence and grow brittle and worthless within several years.
Lee’s flyer urges customers to shop only at reputable dealers with established locations and to ask for a certificate of authenticity from the Gemological Institute of America, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Monica, if they doubt the stone’s purity.
“Fortunately, we’re catching this when it’s new here, and we can warn people so that it doesn’t flood the U.S. market,” says David Lee, Hing Wa Lee’s son and partner. The family has been in the jade business for three generations. It owns a Hong Kong factory for cutting and processing jade and a wholesale jade business in Downtown Los Angeles, in addition to its San Gabriel retail store.
Dealers and gem experts in other areas of Southern California say they have heard no complaints about impregnated jade. “We have not had one call on this,” says a spokesman for the California Jewelry Assn.
But the jade industry has reason to be nervous. Sales shrank 50% in Japan in 1991 after reports that labs initially failed to detect treated stones, according to the journal Gems and Gemology.
The Hong Kong Jade & Stone Assn. says treated jade “has seriously affected the local jadeite industry and damaged Hong Kong’s reputation as an international center for quality jadeite.” Sales in that country fell almost 50% between 1990 and 1993, plunging from $30.5 million worth of jade exports in 1990 to $19.1 million in 1992, according to Jewelry News Asia. The market has only rebounded in the last year.
To adulterate stones, chemists bleach out mineral impurities from low-quality, or B jade, then inject the stone with a plastic polymer resin to heighten its color, according to the GIA. Because the tampering is invisible to the naked eye, the only reliable test is to put the stone through infrared spectroscopy, a process requiring a machine that costs up to $100,000, plus technicians to obtain accurate readings and analyze the results.
GIA officials recommend that anyone buying a significant piece of jade have it tested first, which costs about $300. GIA also suggests reading the test certificate closely to ensure the piece being purchased is the same described on the paperwork.
The organization says it authenticates many of the jade pieces that are sold at international auction. Sotheby’s and Christie’s say their jade, which is usually high-quality estate jewelry from family or well-known historical collections, are not as affected as commercial jade.
To ensure the quality of his jade, Lee says he buys directly from suppliers in the Far East and knows the origin of all his jadeite. But since not every dealer has this option, some jade merchants may be unaware they are buying and passing on impregnated jade.
“The jewelers in good faith sometimes don’t know what they have,” says Emmanuel Fritsch, director of research for the GIA.
Doctored Stones
A proliferation of jade stones treated with chemicals that make them look like high quality gems has hurt the Hong Kong jade market, one of the world’s largest. The export market recovered last year, in part, because of better detection methods. Jade exports, in millions of dollars:
1993: $27.8
Source: Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department