Why is the jade necklace so expensive?

In 2014, the craze caused by a jade necklace spread throughout the jewelry, auction and fashion circles. Do you still remember it vividly? A natural jadeite bead necklace from the collection of legendary socialite Barbara Hutton was sold at Sotheby's spring auction in Hong Kong for HK$214 million. It consists of 27 natural jadeite beads with a diameter of 15.40-19.20 mm, making it the most expensive piece of jewelry at the auction.

The appearance of jadeite bead necklaces at auction undoubtedly means high prices. Why can such tiny beads repeatedly create sky-high prices? Why are jade necklaces so expensive?

1. Small raw stones cannot be made into jadeite necklaces

The "Double Color" jade bead necklace, which set an auction record in 1997, is composed of 27 full-green jade beads, each with a diameter of approximately 15.5mm.

This is a necklace. Do you know how heavy the raw stone is? More than 50 kilograms! To make a jade bead necklace, there must be enough material, and in order to achieve uniform and uniform overall color, it must come from the same raw stone. A raw stone that is large enough does not necessarily mean it can be used. Only when it is cut and found to have enough color bands, enough valuable material, and very few flaws, will it be considered to be made into a necklace.

2. Fully manual rounding, extremely difficult

Jade bead necklaces may seem easy to make, but the truth is they are even more difficult to make than intricate carvings. The preliminary design takes a long time, and how to cut and how big to cut to save materials are issues that need to be carefully considered. Moreover, all these beads are ground by hand. It is not easy to grind all the beads into the same roundness and size or arrange them smoothly in gradient sizes. Moreover, there are very few people who can grind beads now.

3. The most wasteful approach.

Bead necklaces are definitely the most material-intensive jade jewelry, no doubt about it! To make a bead necklace, you first need to cut the selected material into small pieces, then slowly grind it into round beads, and finally drill holes and thread the chain. Just imagine grinding small square pieces into round beads, which in itself would sacrifice a lot of valuable raw materials. Even if two pieces of jadeite come from the same piece of raw stone, their color and quality are very different. If they are to be matched into a necklace, they must cut three times more beads than the necklace itself for selection. The most important thing is that when making a necklace, you must choose the part with the best color in a piece of raw material. But it is not the same for making bracelets and pendants. As long as there is a little green in it, the value will increase greatly. So after all the good colors of the jade bead necklace have been used, the material of other parts of a piece of raw stone will be greatly discounted.

4. The cost is so high that merchants are afraid

Jade bead necklaces require so much material and require a huge amount of money to produce. For jade merchants at the source, this is obviously a very unprofitable deal. Therefore, even though the price of jade bead necklaces is several digits higher than that of egg-shaped jade beads and bracelets, since the number of people with the money to buy them is relatively limited, people at the source of jade still prefer to cut the raw materials into egg-shaped jade beads and bracelets that save materials and have a fast turnover. For them, this is the way to maximize their profits. Only merchants with sufficient funds and courage will choose to make jade bead necklaces. In addition, the raw materials are scarce, so jade bead necklaces on the market are even scarcer, and the price is self-evident.

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