Collection: The lie that "jade can be divided into new and old" is exposed

Old jade is deeply loved by players and collectors for its rich and colorful colors, inner and outer dazzling luster, and strong icy, gluey and oily feelings. More than ten years ago, as old jade collections became increasingly depleted, some merchants began to guide consumers to purchase new jade. The most popular teaching phrase is "Jade is not divided into new and old," meaning that new jade can also be played with. There is nothing wrong with letting people buy and collect new jade. The problem is that the saying "there is no new or old jade" is absurd in the extreme. The fallacy has spread more and more widely, covering up the historical value, craftsmanship value, and material value of old jade. When the materials are the same, the price of new jade products has surpassed that of old jade collections. There has even been a phenomenon of converting a large number of old jade artworks into new jade, which has dealt a devastating blow to the old jade culture.

In recent years, with the emergence of a large number of new jadeite and the growing group of people who recognize old jadeite, old jadeite has finally been restored to its original state and its price has surpassed that of new jadeite by several times. Unscrupulous merchants began to imitate old jade in large quantities to make a profit. The lie that “there is no distinction between new and old jade” has finally been completely shattered!

Recently, in the "Old Jade Special Exchange Group", a new jade merchant and old jade collector wrote down his more than ten years of business and collection experience in very classic words, distinguishing the similarities and differences between new and old jade, and now sharing it with people who love old jade.

"Who Says There Is No New or Old Jade" Author: Li Shu - I will answer some of the similarities and differences between old jade and new jade. Of course, I will mainly explain the advantages and value of old jade. New jade has many advantages and strengths, and because everyone has more contact with and understanding of them, I will not elaborate on them one by one.

1. The tools used to make old jade are basically no longer available for production. The few remaining water stools have long been placed in museums. Jade-dissolving sand was replaced by industrial sand before and after the liberation, and so on. History has been frozen, and old jade records a period of handicraft history and cannot be regenerated. Imitation is another matter.

2. Under the production conditions at that time, production efficiency was extremely low. Although the Mohs hardness of jadeite is only about half a degree higher than that of other jade materials such as white jade, due to its high wear resistance, especially the old ones, there are very few old jadeites with good craftsmanship. This is one of the reasons why it is generally felt that old jadeite on the market is not as good as old jade craftsmanship. The difficulty and orientation of the processing of pyroxene and amphibole are very different in many aspects.

3. When faced with new types of jade that are difficult to refine and have many inherent flaws and cracks, the spirit of ancient craftsmen is more fully reflected . This means that modern tools can cut jade like mud, and most production is measured in terms of efficiency and price. They save money where possible, cater to customers where possible, try their best to deceive others, and so on. This is also a feature of a market economy. The ancients worked harder to cherish nature, express nature, pursue beauty, and pursue art. For example: we are now emphasizing avoiding cracks and emphasizing so-called perfection. It is difficult to bid if it is not perfect. Some of this is really redundant and ridiculous. The ancients seemed to consider the natural beauty and even artistry of the products more, which can be seen in some old official jades that are well-made and not priced by working hours.

4. In terms of raw materials, some old jade materials have historical specimen significance. Restricted by the mining conditions at the time, most of the old jadeite is water stone and first-layer stone. Most of the old and famous mines are now exhausted. Even if they are not exhausted, they are still mining the lower layers of stone. My jade carver told me that in the past, as the jade was being carved, the water in the basin would turn black. Why? High wear resistance and hardness, can reduce iron chips. This phenomenon is extremely rare nowadays. Although many new jadeites look bright and shiny under current polishing conditions, they are actually not as hard as old jadeites. Mr. Yu Wenchao, a top student at the School of Jewelry of China University of Geosciences, had such an experience. He told me about his experience of seeing the fragments of Duanjia jade with "iron turned into water and slag turned into grass green" in Tengchong but was unable to buy it. Also, the ancients’ aesthetic taste for materials was different from that of modern people. Some of their preferences better reflect that the ancients’ aesthetic taste was more focused on the pursuit of morality. For example, in the purchase list preserved in the Qing Palace, white-based green ranked second in price, only after glass jadeite, which is unimaginable today.

5. In ancient times, jadeite was carved very slowly, much slower than white jade. Many jade carving masters such as Liao Jinwen and Chen Yi have told me about this problem. Some of them even tried it themselves. It is really too difficult and the efficiency is extremely low. Think about it, today’s power tools can make tens of thousands of revolutions per minute. How many revolutions can a foot-operated water stool make? Not to mention anything else. What does slow mean? It means a long time, carefulness, patience..., and a lot of people's "living labor" is condensed on it. What kind of handicrafts or artworks are collected? Isn’t this one of the elements of collection? This factor was also mentioned by Wang Jianlin in the video of Wang Jianlin showing his collection to Lu Yu that circulated online a few days ago.

6. Although old jade was once popular in history, there are not many of them left in the world, especially the fine ones. There are only more than 800 pieces of old jadeite in the Qing Palace collection, while there are tens of thousands of white jades. This is a very clear example! It is clearly recorded in the customs archives of the Qing Dynasty that even in the hottest era, only a few hundred dan of raw stones were imported each year (this is a rough memory, I have seen information before, but it is difficult to find now). However, when the market was good in the past few years, the official Myanmar data announced that the annual mining of raw stones reached more than 30,000 tons. Most of them came to China.

7. The old jade has gone through a catastrophe! As early as the Republic of China period, due to the admiration for Western culture, a large number of Qing Dynasty jadeite was remade, and many feather tube hats were waiting to be remade into ring faces or something...; I won’t talk about what happened after liberation and during the Cultural Revolution, as you can imagine; during the period of earning foreign exchange, due to the lack of materials, the state ordered the collection of old jadeite from the folk to be exported to Taiwan and Hong Kong (generally remade, especially Hong Kong) or remade domestically and then exported. There are still documents in the archives at that time issued by the State Council to the Yunnan Provincial Supply and Marketing Cooperative with the task indicators of collecting old jadeite pieces for export and foreign exchange earning; when it came to reform and opening up, and because the import of raw materials was basically not allowed in the country, some traditional artists collected old pieces and remade them. Yangmei and Pingzhou both did this, and this is public knowledge. I don’t know how many good old items my wife’s family has had taken away by people from Jieyang and Fujian.

8. Jade’s short history is often criticized by those who believe that old jade is worthless. In fact, precisely because most jade has a short history, it often carries family affection and memories, making it difficult for it to enter the market. Wan Jun, a famous jade expert, had a deep understanding when he was the manager of the jewelry department of China Guardian Auctions in the mid-1990s. He knew that the most difficult items to collect were old jade. CCTV has a program called "Cities Face to Face". When it came to the episode about Tengchong and a city in Germany, it told a story about a family in Tengchong who cut an ancestral jade bracelet into pieces and gave them to their descendants as a keepsake. The pieces were then scattered all over the world and became family tokens. It's really sad and touching!

9. The processing of old jadeite is called sanding by today's jade carvers. I personally believe that sanding is better than today's efficient grinding technology in presenting the mineral texture of the raw materials themselves. Jade carving master Li Muxiang once said in a discussion with me that some parts of the old jadeite appear to have been polished but are not actually polished. This is the effect of sanding, and you cannot imitate it even if you set the machine speed to a lower level now. I can tell the smell at a glance, but for those who can't see, there's no need to discuss it.

10. There are differences between old workers and new workers in terms of techniques and craftsmanship levels , not just the difference between one is faster and the other is slower. I will not elaborate on these, but just mention one point: the lathe used by the water bench worker rotates clockwise several times and then counterclockwise several times, while in the new process the lathe always rotates in one direction. Will it show up in the finished product? Please observe carefully! If I have to make a summary of the craft, I would roughly and somewhat subjectively say that the old craftsmanship can be summed up in three words: "cutting, carving, and grinding"; the new craftsmanship can be summed up in three words: "cutting, shaving, and throwing."

Let's stop here. I have said so much today, not to say that we love Lao Cui and that's so and so. I just want to avoid holding the view that it is worthless or blind or that we don't distinguish between the new and the old... just deliberately belittle it.

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