The jade material is only worth a few hundred yuan, but the carving fee is one or two thousand yuan. Is it worth carving?

In daily carving creation, we often encounter this question raised by jade friends: a piece of jade material worth only a few hundred yuan, and the carving cost is one or two thousand yuan, is it worth carving?

Here I will briefly analyze the four factors that affect the price of jade, namely, type, water, color (natural ingredients) and workmanship, and their proportion in the price of jade finished products. In high-end jadeite, the quality and color dominate the price of the finished jadeite, while the carving is a secondary factor; but in mid- and low-end jadeite, the carving dominates the price of the finished jadeite because the natural quality of jadeite is not high.

Therefore, among our jade merchants, it is common to see that materials worth a few hundred yuan cost one or two thousand yuan to carve. Therefore, when you have ordinary jade material in your hand, you really don’t need to worry too much about “the labor is more expensive than the material”, “the quality is not worth the labor”, etc. Because if the jade material is not carved, it will always be just a piece of stone.

Otherwise, you can take a look at the process of making an antique plaque shared today. After reading it, will you still think that "the workmanship is more expensive than the materials" and it is not worth it?

A very common colorless jadeite piece, with average water quality and some cotton in it, but it is old in quality and has a high chance of shining. Materials like this only cost a few hundred yuan in the raw material market.

A neat card shape was chosen based on the defects of the material. For colorless material with average water quality like this, ordinary card shapes such as landscapes, figures, dragons and animals are not suitable because they have no characteristics and the finished products will be very dull.

When the jade carver was cutting and shaping the piece, he already had the subject matter in mind, which was to make an antique pendant.

Antique pendants emphasize lines and symmetry, so the flower head is usually designed first.

Then design the card body pattern symmetrically.

The pattern is the same as the flower head, and the overall proportion requires the lines to be symmetrical and left-right.

Because jade contains cotton, combining openwork and hollow carving to remove the cotton can not only improve the perfection of the finished product, but also make the finished product more visually transparent and beautiful.

Carving techniques like this use chain carving to create ring buckles, relief carving of double dragon flower heads, and openwork and hollow carving on the body of the card. The labor cost of combining multiple carving techniques can be said to be several times the price of the materials. Is it worth it? Let’s take a look at the finished product.

How much do you think such an antique pendant is worth?

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