 FAQ's and PLACE FOR UPCOMING ARTICLES ON AMULETS, JADE AND ALCHEMY What is virgin jade? Jade that has never been dyed, cooked, acid boiled, injected with colloids or anything else. It goes straight from the earth to the carver, to the customer. More specifically our jade is Burmese jade, a.k.a. jadeite, the only gem quality form of the mineral. Is it guaranteed? Yes, please read our guarantee on our Contact page. We promise our customers that our jade is pure, UNDYED jadeite and will test out as such, should they wish to do so, by the GIA (Gemological Institute of America). The GIA is the ONLY internationally recognized authority on jade testing amongst sellers and collectors. Mercury's Marvels is one of the very few online (or offline) jade merchants that has the confidence to make said guarantee in writing. Our pieces do not come with GIA certification now because the test costs US$80. per piece and testing takes from 4-6 weeks. We could not offer our jade at these prices were each piece GIA certified. Our owner personally knows the owner of the mine our jadeite comes from and he guarantees their purity will pass GIA testing standards to us. He oversees the carvers as well. Why is it so important that jade is 'virgin jade'?. For us there are 3 reasons. For most others there are only two. One: jadeite or Burmese jade is a true gemstone. It has intrinsic value and appreciates as the years pass, just like rubies. diamonds or precious metals. Fake jade, and nephrite (a denser, less color ranging type of jade used in ancient times for utensils. armour, grave goods, etc. in Asia and the Americas) do not appreciate (unless a certified ancient artifact!). Why spend money on a jewelry item that has little or no intrinsic value? Two: natural jade's value is a function of two things - it's quality (somewhat open to taste) and it's color (hugely affected by trends and relative rareity in the earth). Of the two, color drives the price higher than overall quality alone. Hence, the ability to fake popular and/or enhance natural colors has been the Holy Grail of the jade trade literally for millenia. It's fairly straightforward to tell jade from it's many imposters either visually or by a specific gravity test. But nowadays dyeing techniques have become so sophisticated than not even an expert can discern a dyed piece from a natural one - without a GIA test. You used to be safe with white or multi-colored pieces. That is no longer true. Yet, while modern dyeing techniques are superb - what they do isn't. They destroy the underlying integrity of the stone. The dyes also change or yellow in five to ten years - leaving you with a yukky looking piece of now worthless who knows what. Certainly never spend four figures on a piece of jade without a GIA certificate - the original certificate. There are hoards of bogus authenticators and certificate givers out there. Also four figures is the usual price for Burmese jade bangles, and larger pendants in retail shops. The GIA is known as the IGA internationally. Three: we are specifically selling amulets, or talismans, that is items carved to imbue specific magickal properties, There are rules to what constitutes amulets, which in truth are pieces of enchanted jewelery designed primarliy as luck charms. If luck charms have been chemically altered, cooked, pressure treated, whatever, they loose their magickal efficacy - period. They carry no enchantment; they are not amulets. There are no maybes and no exceptions to that rule. The piece becomes a pretty decoration, not a magickal tool. The same is true if an amulet or talisman is made from "pot" metal, plastic, etc. It can be charged in a pinch, but carries no intrinsic magick. Why purchase luck charms, amulets, or talismans with no intrinsic magick? That's buying enchanted jewelry with no enchantment. It rather defeats the point. As a company our prime directive (if you will) is to deliver magick to our customers, just as Mercury would have it. That is what we do, and will continue to do. We will never knowingly offer you worthless, powerless, nifty sounding stuff. That's just wrong. We hope you will enjoy our efforts and our jade. Why jade; isn't that just a Chinese thing? No, see the above. Jade has been considered a magickal stone in every culture it has appeared in (Asian, American, African, Arctic and European) as far back as the Stone Age. The Chinese have simply lasted longer as a continuous culture and have thereby revered jade longer. Is there a standard guideline for jade pricing? Yes, in the U.S. the trade uses The Gem Guide to Wholesale Pricing, for sales within the trade. Like all guides it is highly subjective and only prices natural undyed Burmese jade. The retail market is free to sell dyed jade, nephrite or even fakes at whatever the customer will pay. According to the 2007-2008 Guide undyed jade in all colors, except green ranges from $125-$400. wholesale per 10mmx14mm oval cabachon. Very pale green and brownish yellows range from $35-$40. per same size piece wholesale. High quality lavender of a purple tone ranges from $350-$1000. per same size wholesale. True, undyed apple to Imperial greens range from $600.- $25,000. per 10mmx14mm oval cabachon. Note that the trade measures in mm, not carats, grams or inches. Our pieces are much greater than 10x14mm. We are very proud to bring you carved, undyed Burmese jade at significantly less than current wholesale prices. What does any of that have to do with Alchemy? Amulets are all about adjusting one's internal Alchemy and were so long before the formal study of Alchemy was even invented (3rd cent. | 
