There are only two kinds to be exact: amphibole and pyroxene! Hornblende, also called nephrite, has a Mohs hardness of 6-6.5 degrees and a specific gravity of 2.55-2.65. The color of nephrite is close to the aesthetic feeling of oil, and the pure color is white, commonly known as suet jade, which is very delicate and moist, with extremely high economic value and very precious. The typical representative is Hetian jade in Xinjiang. Pyrite, also known as jadeite, has a hardness of 6.75-7 Mohs and a specific gravity of 3.2-3.3. Jade is hard in texture, high in density, glassy in luster and crystal clear. The best jadeite is emerald green, so it is called jadeite in China. In fact, the jadeite in ancient China was mostly amphibole-nephrite, because18th century later, jadeite was widely used by jade craftsmen in China. The jade mentioned by China's culturology has a wide connotation. The ancients said: the beauty of jade requires five virtues! Where there is a tough texture; Glittering luster; Gorgeous colors; Dense and transparent tissue; The beautiful stone Shu's voice is considered jade. It includes not only real jade (amphibole and pyroxene), but also colored gemstones such as serpentine, turquoise, malachite, agate, crystal, amber and ruby. Supplement: Jade Price The jade price mentioned here does not let you judge a specific jade price, but refers to the average price of jade in the overall operation, so as to roughly understand the price trend of jade in different sales links and provide price reference for your own purchase. To understand the price of jade, we must first know several links in the sales channel of jade: First, the most primitive ore price is generally calculated in kilograms, especially the high-quality jade emperor Wang Yu or Hetian jade seeds, and the first-class white is calculated in carats or grams. The price calculation in this step is generally not much different. The same batch of jadeites, in terms of color, must have the same price, so you can have a rough standard pricing. When purchasing goods, generally speaking, the pile shall prevail. Take this pile, how much is it, take it if you like. When I go back, I will classify them in detail, separate the good from the bad, and divide them into different grades of carving materials. At this time, the price of each stone is different from the original average price. After entering the jade factory, rough cutting is needed to get the original stone that can be carved, and then sculptors or artists of different levels can carve it creatively, which greatly increases the price of the same kind of jade. For example, a small pendant, a good sculptor usually costs about 300 yuan, and a sculptor also costs about 100 yuan. To make matters worse, sculptors will float up and down in 50 yuan. In addition, there are some very rough sculptors whose prices can be ignored. If the sculptor is poor, even if the jade is scrapped, it is not worth the original jade money-there will be no more buyers! The next step is polishing. There are two methods, one is machine polishing, and the other is hand polishing. Machine polishing is used to polish a large number of small simple jade articles, such as jade beads and earrings. Polishing is cheap, usually a few cents, and the construction period is about one week. But high-grade jade must be polished by hand, because machine brushing is too complicated in many places. This depends on the specific situation of each jade piece, ranging from several yuan (finger-sized jade carving should be above 5 yuan) to several thousand yuan or even ten thousand yuan. Because different jade materials have different hardness, the difficulty of polishing is also different. In addition, different sculptors have different degrees of complexity and different degrees of difficulty in polishing jade pieces. Rubbing a cabbage with a hardness of about 6.5 and a thickness of about 30 cm may cost thousands of dollars and the construction period will be more than one week. Therefore, afghanistan white jade cabbage is simply polished, and in order to cooperate with the machine for polishing, afghanistan white jade cabbage is as simple as possible, because the polishing cost is much more expensive than jade itself, which is not cost-effective. Of course, if it is jade, it will be more expensive to polish and the construction period will be longer. You should know that a pair of workers' hands are repeatedly polished with a series of oilstones with different labels, including every detail of carving, until finally polished with cloth. For jadeite with great hardness, this is definitely not an easy task. Sometimes the polishing cost and cycle of a fine jade even exceed the price and construction period of the carving itself, and it takes several months, especially the polishing of the whole carving part, which may cause damage to the jade! At this point, the ex-factory price of jadeite is basically determined. If the price of a jade material is 100 yuan (very common Kunlun material or blue and white material grade, the size is an ordinary hand piece), the hand-carved jade is 200 yuan (regardless of creative design and pretty color, it is an ordinary traditional pattern, ordinary jade work), and the rubbings are 100 yuan, then the price of this jade carving is. If you are an ordinary apprentice (many of them are teenagers or children around the age of 20), the price will be cheaper. If you are a senior sculptor, your works have smooth lines, exquisite knife skills and vivid shapes. Only the sculptor is several times taller, but such jade pieces are also very popular and can make many customers unforgettable. Even if the price is higher, it can be sold quickly. In order to accurately judge the average ex-factory price of a jade article, it is best to consult the latest prices of different jade raw materials frequently. Note that this market changes rapidly, sometimes the prices of some popular jade materials are different within a few days, and then you can roughly calculate it yourself. After jade enters the wholesale market, there are still a large number of jade pieces sold by the pile. The jade boss will pack similar materials with the sculptor's jade pieces and tell the retailer: Take away all such piles. According to the price of each piece, if you choose separately (generally not allowed, unless you are familiar with the boss, it is difficult to choose the remaining jade pieces, even if the price is lower), then the price will be much higher. For example, the average price of a single piece in 300 yuan originally, if a few pieces are singled out, the rest are all gone, which is probably 500 yuan per piece. Originally, even if it is a pile of pebbles that don't cost money, if you want to choose round, big and patterned pebbles from it, it will be valuable, let alone jade! General retailers will also be divided into two types, one is all-inclusive, regardless of good or bad, and the purchase cost is low, but they can also sell by adopting different publicity methods and price strategies in sales. The other is to choose only high-quality goods, preferring to purchase at a much higher price, generally jade players, because inferior goods and even ordinary goods are not worth mentioning in the eyes of these people. After the retailer buys the goods, the selling price will include its own marketing cost and profit. Among them, the marketing cost of each retailer is different. For example, in a medium-sized jewelry store in a medium-sized city, the monthly rent may be tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, plus employee salaries, advertising expenses, and various industrial and commercial tax management expenses ... The monthly working capital cost will be hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands, not counting the counter and storefront decoration, plus reasonable industry average profit. If retailers demand to sell 300 pieces of jade every month (an average of one day 10, which is very good in medium-sized cities), if each piece of jade is shared equally, the sales cost will increase by several thousand yuan. For example, if you buy jadeite in 500 yuan, you may only be able to break even if you sell 1500 yuan in the retail mall. If it is lower than this price, you will definitely lose money! Generally speaking, because of the difference between off-season and peak season, it may sometimes be closed in a few days, so the price of jade in 500 yuan will be more than 3,000 yuan in shopping malls, and sometimes it will take ten times to reach 5,000 to 6,000 yuan to maintain business. Of course, these shopping malls will also buy some low-grade goods, such as tens of dollars, selling for about 300-500 yuan, to cope with a large number of low-grade users and maintain some basics. Therefore, in many cases, the price difference of the same grade of goods obtained in different sales channels is ten times or even dozens of times, which also causes the phenomenon of "golden jade has price". If you like to cut jade yourself and do a good job, you might as well buy some rough stones and carve them yourself. Then, you can spend 1, 000 yuan to buy a white jade brand and carve it yourself, which is the same as the work of 20 thousand retailers. As can be seen from the sales process of the above jade articles, the final price of a jade article includes the most basic items such as material cost, salary, polishing and sales expenses. Among them, the cost of materials accounts for the smallest proportion, and the salary basically determines the grade of jade articles in the future, while the cost and profit of each retailer are the biggest influencing factors. At this time, pay attention to choosing good carvers and beautiful ideas to minimize material factors. For high-grade precious jade species, it is material money that determines everything. A piece of Yuhuan noodles with strong sun-dried green water, a true white seed material with gold-plated sheep fat in Hotan, not to mention cutting, is worth tens of thousands. Compared with this value, the others are nothing. For ordinary people, this kind of jade doesn't even need to think about it, so these are also called "royal jade", which can only be enjoyed by powerful businessmen and fever-level players from all over the world. As an ordinary jade player, we have to choose the jade works that win by work within the limited financial resources, so that they can get out of the grade limit of raw materials as much as possible, improve the value-added space, purchase goods from the upper-level sales channels as much as possible, reduce the consumption cost and spend thousands of dollars for themselves. If you are lucky, you can find a unique jade among ordinary jade articles, which is also equivalent to the level of "imperial jade": even if others have money, it is difficult to buy it, and they can only stare at the unique carver and pretty face in your hand. For example, a piece of jade and a piece of jade, from the material point of view, the price of jade is generally much lower than that of jade, but if the carver on jade is far better than that on jade, then you should not hesitate to accept "low-grade" jade and give up "high-grade" jade, because money is hopeless at this time. In the actual transaction, the "low-grade" jade also has carving techniques worth millions, while the "high-grade" white jade, sapphire and jade also have worthless carvings, which are not for anyone! In fact, from the perspective of appreciation, the quality of jade has reached its peak, but at the same time it has lost its colorful personality and become monotonous. Long Changyu is often like a thick piece of green glass. Similarly, hanging a piece of the best seed with skin on your chest is similar to an ordinary pebble in the eyes of ordinary people. On many occasions, it seems incredible, but it is not as good as a piece of jade with just the right creative color. Because only jade carving can inherit more folk culture and carry more auspicious meanings, and it will be better accepted by the public, which is what people often say, "jade must be cut to make a tool." Therefore, collecting some jade carvings with unique colors is not expensive, but the visual effect is far stronger than simply comparing jade, which shows the good temperament and personality of the owner. Of course, if you lack knowledge about jade and can't read the information, it is safer to go directly to the jewelry store to buy jade with a certificate. Although expensive, it won't be cheated. What's more, in the long run, today's jade is more expensive, which is cheaper than later generations, because later generations' jade will be more expensive. So, why do jade articles increase in value rapidly? Of course, the most fundamental reason is limited resources and fast consumption. In addition to people's increasingly strong market demand, another important reason is the imperfection of the national management system. Where there are jade deposits, they are indiscriminately mined and dug by local farmers. Moreover, because most of these places have inconvenient transportation and poor natural conditions, a large number of high-quality jade materials are completely fried by hand and crushed into pieces for handling. And as ordinary farmers, it is impossible to have a long-term awareness of market planning. Whoever gets the stone in his hand wants to do this. This has caused the rapid depletion of jade raw materials. Even the xiuyan jade mine with huge reserves has almost disappeared in recent years. Nanyang Du Yu has closed mountains and fields for seeds, with an annual output of several hundred kilograms. For every farmer who picks jade, it is very good to find seeds the size of melon seeds in a week. Save five or six and you can go to the market to "wholesale". Therefore, the really high-quality hetian jade white seed material is almost used up, and now the high-quality hetian jade is basically not produced in hetian. If you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy a piece of Hetian jade white seed material, it may only be "equivalent" to Hetian jade seed material. Compared with the rapid depletion of raw materials, the jade market has seriously damaged the jade materials that have been mined. Many farmers who can't cut jade at all and don't understand jade simply process the jade materials they bought at low prices in pursuit of short-term benefits, and even sell tea sets, mahjong and fitness balls that are only available in low-grade materials at low prices, which has aggravated the rapid extinction of jade species and jade quality. Under such circumstances, if you encounter jade articles with good varieties and good carvings, you can accept them as long as they are affordable, because no matter how expensive they are now, they will definitely be cheaper than the price in the future. In other words, good jade pieces will have great value-added potential, and the quality of jade will only get worse and worse in the future, but the price will become more and more expensive. In the 1990 s, you can meet several hundred yuan of glass-dense green jade flowers in Yan' an Road Jewelry Store in Hangzhou. 1997 In Zhengzhou Jingsan Road Jewelry Market, you can see a thousand yuan glass green ring face. Now it's tens of thousands or even tens of thousands. Now don't say that the glass is dense green, that is, jade carvings with a little color on a rough white background are worth thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. In the industry, even a light green flower will add hundreds of dollars, but it is true. However, note that the appreciation of jadeite mentioned here is only an average market trend. It doesn't mean that if you buy a piece of jade casually, you will definitely make a lot of money in a few years, because when you want to cash out, unless your jade is very distinctive and you meet someone you like very much who is predestined and rich, it will be a general appreciation. Therefore, we'd better start with cultural taste, calm down and have fun. When it comes to changing money, jade is not as fast as gold: it is also because "gold is valuable, jade is priceless", gold can be compared, and it can be spent everywhere, but jade is not. What is valuable is valuable, and what is worthless is worthless. People don't like it, it's just stones!