Edwards Black Jade - Wyoming

[Redrummd]

Tonight I got a call from a jade dealer I do a lot of barter trades with. He is selling/trading me his entire Edwards Black Jade collectiion, 33 pounds or so of the very best! I have never been able to buy even a single slab before and some of the slabs I am getting are over a pound each and flawless.

I don't know if any of you know much about rare Jades but this is the real deal and this Jade was mined out totally in the late 1960's.

A lot of fake Edwards is out there that looks to be black jade but really is a super dark green. Edwards black Jade is true black Jade. I got a very small sample piece from the dealer a few days ago and have tested it by grinding the pencil thick tiny sliver it to a point. Even at the very tip it is still a deep black. It takes a MIRROR polish and is so tough that with my hands, I cannot break the pencil thick piece that is four inches long. I an pretty excited about this rare opportunity but it is still costing me dearly, even with doing a knife for him with some of the black Jade.

I may need to do a personal collection knife sale to finance this deal... :-)





I also bought 17 fairly large slabs of green Siberian from another jade collector on Friday but that is another story. Heck, the Siberian is rare but sitll can be bought occasionally.

[ken]

Good find. The Wyoming jade I have is dark green with black running through it with an occasional streak of white that doesn't polish. Like chalk.
Looks like it will make some nice scales.
Ken

[jadejunkee]

Hey Mike...old thread, doubt you'll see this...so I'll ask you later else where...but have you worked any of the true black Washington nephrite? i was wondering how you thought they compared?

[DigDug]

Would that be the same as Jadeite?

[jadejunkee]

My understanding is that the edwards black is nephrite...the black here that is similiar is also nephrite, though there is also the dark green "black" chloromelanite in Washington state.

[kurts]

Speaking of chloromelanite, here is a jade boulder I photographed today in the N. Cascades. The naturally polished surface is pretty cool, and unmistakable.

Knife for scale with smaller pieces of nephrite from this river:



Closer shot of the surface:

[arappaho]

Sweet looking rock there, kurts. Thanks for the pics.

[Redrummd]

kurts - How do you plan to haul that boulder out? Have you dug down to see how deep it goes?