Jade Identification: How to Tell If a Rock Is Real Jade

You found a smooth, green stone that's surprisingly heavy. It's got a silky feel, almost waxy. Could it be jade? Or is it another green mineral playing dress-up?

Jade is one of the most misidentified rocks out there. Part of the problem is that "jade" isn't one mineral — it's two. And there are at least a dozen green stones that get sold as jade by people who either don't know better or don't care. Serpentine, aventurine, chrysoprase, prehnite, and even dyed marble all get passed off as jade on a regular basis.

The real stuff is special though. Jade has been prized for over 7,000 years, valued more than gold in some ancient cultures, and high-quality jadeite still commands prices that rival diamonds. So yeah, it's worth learning how to tell the real thing from the fakes.

The Two Types of Real Jade: Jadeite vs Nephrite

First things first. When geologists say "jade," they mean exactly two minerals: jadeite and nephrite. Everything else is "not jade." Both are tough, both can be green, but they're chemically and structurally different.

Nephrite

Nephrite is the more common type and what most people encounter. It's a calcium-magnesium silicate in the amphibole family, made of interlocking fibrous crystals that give it incredible toughness. We're talking tougher than steel. Ancient people used it for axes and weapons precisely because it's nearly impossible to break.

• Hardness: 6–6.5 on the Mohs scale
• Density: 2.90–3.03 g/cm³
• Colors: Creamy white ("mutton fat jade"), light green, olive green, dark spinach green, black, brown, yellow
• Luster: Waxy to greasy, sometimes silky
• Structure: Fibrous — looks felt-like under magnification
• Found in: Wyoming, British Columbia, New Zealand, China, Russia, Taiwan

Jadeite

Jadeite is the rarer, more valuable type. It's a sodium-aluminum silicate in the pyroxene family, with a granular crystal structure instead of fibrous. The finest jadeite — called Imperial Jade — is a vivid, translucent emerald green and can sell for millions of dollars per carat.

• Hardness: 6.5–7 on the Mohs scale
• Density: 3.24–3.43 g/cm³
• Colors: Green (all shades), lavender, white, yellow, orange, red, blue, black
• Luster: Vitreous (glassy) to waxy
• Structure: Granular — looks sugary under magnification
• Found in: Myanmar (Burma), Guatemala, Japan, Kazakhstan, California (rare)

The key difference for collectors: nephrite's interlocking fibers make it the toughest natural stone on Earth (tougher even than jadeite), while jadeite is harder and comes in more spectacular colors. Both are real jade. Both are valuable. Nephrite is just more common and typically less expensive.

How to Identify Jade: 7 Tests You Can Do at Home

Here's the practical stuff. If you've got a green rock and want to know if it's jade, work through these tests in order.

1. The Weight Test (Density Check)

Pick it up. Does it feel surprisingly heavy for its size? Jade is dense — significantly denser than most look-alikes. Nephrite sits around 2.95 g/cm³ and jadeite around 3.3 g/cm³. For comparison, quartz (including aventurine) is about 2.65 g/cm³. That difference is noticeable in your hand.

For a more precise test, use a kitchen scale and water displacement to calculate specific gravity. Weigh the stone dry, then weigh it suspended in water. Divide dry weight by (dry weight minus wet weight). If you get 2.9–3.0, you're in nephrite territory. 3.2–3.4 points to jadeite.

2. The Temperature Test

Jade feels cold to the touch and stays cool longer than most minerals. Hold the stone against your cheek — it should feel distinctly cold, almost like touching a piece of metal. Plastic imitations warm up almost immediately. Glass warms faster too. Real jade takes noticeably longer to reach body temperature.

This isn't a definitive test on its own (other dense stones also feel cold), but it's a solid first check.

3. The Scratch Test

Jade is hard. Nephrite scores 6–6.5 and jadeite 6.5–7 on the Mohs scale. That means:

• A steel knife (5.5) won't scratch real jade
• Jade will scratch glass (5.5)
• A quartz crystal (7) can scratch nephrite but barely marks jadeite

Try scratching the stone with a steel knife blade. If it leaves a scratch, it's not jade. Common imposters like serpentine (2.5–5) and soapstone (1–2) scratch easily with steel. If your stone resists the knife and scratches glass, you're in the right hardness range.

4. The Sound Test

This is the old Chinese method and it actually works. Tap two pieces of suspected jade together, or tap the stone with a coin. Real jade produces a clear, musical, resonant "clink" — almost like a bell. It's a pleasant, high-pitched tone that sustains for a moment.

Fake jade and soft imposters produce a dull, flat thud. This works because jade's interlocking crystal structure vibrates harmoniously, while less dense or less coherent minerals absorb the vibration.

5. The Light Test (Translucency)

Hold the stone up to a bright light or flashlight. Most jade is at least slightly translucent — you should see light penetrating the edges, even if the center is opaque. The light transmission often has an even, slightly cloudy quality.

Look at the internal structure. Nephrite shows a fibrous, felt-like texture when backlit. Jadeite shows a more granular, sugary texture. If you see sparkly flakes, that's aventurine, not jade. If it's completely opaque with no light transmission at all, it might be serpentine or dyed stone.

6. The Surface Examination

Get a magnifying glass or loupe (10x is fine) and examine the surface closely:

• Real jade: Smooth, even color distribution (nephrite) or slightly mottled color with a sugary texture (jadeite). May show tiny fibrous or granular structures. Surface has a natural waxy to glassy polish.
• Dyed jade/imposters: Color concentrated in cracks and surface pits. Dye often pools in fractures, creating visible darker lines. Under magnification, you can see the dye following natural crack patterns.
• Polymer-coated jade: Some treated jade (Type B or C) is bleached, dyed, and polymer-impregnated. Under UV light, the polymer coating fluoresces bright white or bluish. Natural jade shows little to no fluorescence.

7. The Toughness Test (Carefully)

Real jade is incredibly tough. If you have a small expendable piece, try hitting it with a hammer on a hard surface. Jade won't shatter — it might chip slightly, but it holds together because of its interlocking crystal structure. Quartz, glass, and most imposters shatter or fracture cleanly.

Obviously, don't do this with a valuable specimen. But if you're testing rough rock from the field, toughness is one of jade's most distinctive properties.

Common Jade Imposters (and How to Spot Them)

The list of "not jade sold as jade" is long. Here are the biggest offenders:

Serpentine ("New Jade"): Waxy, green, superficially similar. But it's much softer (2.5–5 Mohs), lighter, and a steel knife scratches it easily. Also called "Bowenite" when harder. The most common jade imposter worldwide.

Green Aventurine ("Indian Jade"): A variety of quartz with fuchsite mica inclusions that create sparkle. Hold it to light and you'll see glittery flecks — jade never sparkles. Also lighter than jade.

Chrysoprase: An apple-green chalcedony that's actually quite valuable in its own right. It's translucent and has a glassy luster, but it lacks jade's density and fibrous/granular structure. More uniform in color than most jade.

Prehnite: A pale green to yellow-green mineral that's sometimes marketed as "Cape Jade" or "Grape Jade." Lower density, different crystal habit, and lacks jade's toughness.

Dyed Marble ("Mountain Jade"): Cheap marble dyed green. Fizzes with vinegar or dilute hydrochloric acid (calcite reacts to acid; jade doesn't). Very soft (3 Mohs). This is the worst offender in tourist trap shops.

Glass: Smooth, perfectly uniform color, often with tiny bubbles inside. Feels lighter than jade and breaks into sharp pieces rather than chipping.

Jade Grading: Types A, B, and C

In the jade market, especially for jadeite, you'll encounter a grading system that's critical to understand:

Type A: Natural, untreated jade. Only washed and polished. No bleaching, no dyeing, no polymer filling. This is the good stuff. Valuable, authentic, and stable over time.

Type B: Bleached and polymer-impregnated. The stone is soaked in acid to remove brown and yellow impurities, then filled with polymer resin to improve transparency. Looks nice initially but deteriorates over years as the polymer breaks down. Significantly less valuable than Type A.

Type C: Dyed. Color is artificially enhanced. Often combined with Type B treatment (bleached, dyed, and polymer-filled). The least valuable treated jade.

Type B+C: Both bleached/filled and dyed. Common in cheap jewelry markets. Can look stunning but is worth a fraction of natural jade.

How to tell? Type A jade has natural color variations and inclusions. Types B and C often look "too perfect" — evenly colored throughout with unusual transparency. A UV light test helps: polymer in Type B fluoresces. A professional gemological lab is the only way to be 100% sure.

Where to Find Jade in the Wild

United States:

• Wyoming: The official state gemstone. Wind River Range, Crooks Creek, and Granite Mountains produce high-quality nephrite in greens, blacks, and the prized "Wyoming olive jade."
• California: Big Sur coast (jade cove), Monterey County, and Trinity County. Some of the best nephrite in North America washes up on beaches along Highway 1.
• Alaska: Jade Mountain in the Kobuk River area. Enormous nephrite boulders — some weighing tons.
• Washington & Oregon: Scattered nephrite deposits in river gravels

Internationally:

• Myanmar (Burma): The world's primary source of gem-quality jadeite. The Kachin State mines produce Imperial Jade worth billions annually.
• British Columbia, Canada: World-class nephrite deposits. Canada is one of the largest nephrite exporters.
• New Zealand: Nephrite ("pounamu" or "greenstone") is culturally sacred to the Māori people. Found on the South Island's West Coast.
• China: Historically the most important jade source. Hetian (Hotan) in Xinjiang produces the famous "mutton fat" white nephrite.
• Guatemala: The ancient Mesoamerican source of jadeite, rediscovered in 1974 after being lost for centuries.
• Russia: Siberian nephrite from the Sayan Mountains, including rare "Siberian jade."

When hunting jade in the field, look in riverbeds, alluvial deposits, and beaches near known source areas. Jade is dense and tough, so it survives river transport that destroys softer rocks. A heavy, smooth green cobble in a streambed is always worth investigating.

Why Jade Is Culturally Significant

No other stone has the cultural weight of jade. In China, jade has been revered for over 7,000 years — longer than gold in most civilizations. The Chinese word for jade, "yù" (玉), symbolizes virtue, beauty, and immortality. Emperors were buried in jade suits sewn with gold wire. Confucius compared jade's qualities to human virtues: its warmth represents benevolence, its hardness represents wisdom, its smooth edges represent justice.

In Mesoamerica, the Maya and Aztecs valued jadeite above gold. Jade masks, jewelry, and ritual objects were reserved for royalty and religious ceremonies. When the Spanish conquistadors demanded gold, the indigenous people couldn't understand why anyone would prefer it to jade.

In New Zealand, Māori pounamu (nephrite jade) carries mana (spiritual power). Pounamu taonga (treasures) are passed down through generations, gaining spiritual significance with each owner. It's still culturally protected — you can't just collect greenstone from the West Coast without Ngāi Tahu iwi consent.

How Much Is Jade Worth?

This depends entirely on type, color, translucency, and treatment:

• Raw nephrite (field collected): $2–$30 per pound for common material, $50–$200+ per pound for high-quality gem-grade green
• Polished nephrite jewelry: $20–$500 for common pieces, $500–$5,000 for fine material
• Fine jadeite: $100–$3,000 per carat for good quality
• Imperial Jade (top-grade jadeite): $10,000–$100,000+ per carat. A single bangle can sell for millions at auction

The most expensive jade piece ever sold was a jadeite necklace — the "Hutton-Mdivani Necklace" — which went for $27.4 million at Sotheby's in 2014. So yeah, if you find real jadeite, pay attention.

Ready to Identify Your Green Stone?

If you've got a green rock and want to know if it's jade, serpentine, aventurine, or something else entirely, grab Rock Identifier and snap a photo. The AI can analyze color, texture, and visual properties to give you an instant ID — no lab visit required.

Found something promising? Run through the seven tests above to confirm. And remember: real jade is tough, dense, cold to the touch, and rings like a bell. If your stone passes all seven tests, you might be holding something genuinely valuable.

Want to learn more about identifying valuable rocks? Check out our guide to rare rocks worth money, or start with the basics in our complete rock identification guide.