Actually a booklet but filled with information equal to many books on the subject. Even though The Handbook dates to 1966, most of the material remains relevant today. A great deal of attention is paid to pseudojades, the stones commonly misidentified as jade. Just as an example, you will frequently see listings for jewelry made with “Mexican jade.” Hemrich points out that this could well be adventurine, serpentine, obsidian, travertine (calcite onyx) or soapstone. From my own observation of the market I’d say onyx is a frequent culprit.
The author makes an interesting comment that I will have to research further as it seems contrary to what is found in the marketplace. He says United States law requires that dyed jade be labelled and sold as such. Unfortunately he does not give a citation.
Hemrich does a thorough job on jade locations in the US and worldwide, and provides insight into carving techniques of times past. His information on cutting and polishing is of course dated.
This little 80-page booklet contains a wealth of insights. Typically, collectors who can afford to do so are advised to avoid stones with obvious inclusions; they are common in the marketplace. Of course the more perfect the stone the higher the price, routinely going into the thousands. However, Hemrich notes that certain formations of dendrites or quartz crystals can make a stone more valuable than it might be otherwise.
I’d recently seen it stated positively that there is no such thing as synthetic jade, an assertion I found doubtful, particularly since I had recently bought an alleged synthetic jade cabochon from Thailand. So, I was pleased to see Hemrich’s note: “Dr. George E. Kennedy, a geophysicist of the University of California, produced jade synthetically several years ago … (However) It is highly probably that synthetic jade will remain a laboratory curiosity for the foreseeable future.” So things stood in 1966.
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