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Please help me identify this material - is this the so-called calcified jade?

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Author Topic: Please help me identify this material - is this the so-called calcified jade?  (Read 883 times)
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marcos
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« on: May 27, 2016, 02:21:49 pm »

Hello there,

Does anyone know what is the material on this bottle? Could it be calcified jade or "chicken-bone jade"?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Marcos





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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2016, 03:44:32 pm »

Dear Marcos,

    That looks to me like fossilized mammoth tooth.
Best,
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey
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« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2016, 05:20:12 pm »

Another most unusual bottle from you Marcos ! 

Can you confirm that there may have been a Chinese character that is now somewhat faded on the face of the bottle ?

Also, can use a focused pic for both the top, and base of bottle.  Would like to get a better look at the blue within those two areas.

I like the bottle very much Marcos !
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« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2016, 03:45:11 am »

Dear Marcos,

Posting two Calcified Jade and a Mammoth for you to compare.

My guess is the Calcified Jade as they will feel cold and hard when handled.

Cheers,
YT


* Calcified Jade VS Mammoth.jpg (118.01 KB, 904x442 - viewed 40 times.)
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« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2016, 04:34:41 am »



Also, can use a focused pic for both the top, and base of bottle.  Would like to get a better look at the blue within those two areas.


It is strange that the blue is so prominent at the top and base, yet so little showing on the exterior of the rest of the bottle.

Still need additional better focused pics of these areas..
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« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2016, 08:20:25 am »

Fossilized mammoth tooth has the characteristic pattern as seen in YT's photo, so I don't think it is that.

My guess is calcified jade. The spacing of the fissures look unusually large (wide apart). It may have been artificially heat treated to create the effect, rather than naturally calcified.

All best,
Tom
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« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2016, 09:57:08 am »

Dear Tom,

     In July, 1974 I bought a beautiful calcined Jade (Chicken bone Jade?) snuff bottle from Sidney Borsook, a collector from Sandton, a Johannesburg suburb, after I had viewed his collection.

     It had very fine age/heat cracks and was the colour of aged bone (a pale off-white to even paler cream colour).

     I have never seen calcined jade with these large fissures, but I have seen fossilised mammoth tooth with them.

   Having said that, maybe this is the result of modern attempts to copy 'genuine' calcined jade, as you suggested.

Best,
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey
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« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2016, 09:39:33 pm »

Dear Joey,

You may well be right.  As always, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from photos, without handling.

Best,
Tom
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marcos
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« Reply #8 on: May 30, 2016, 11:58:48 am »

Dear George,

I am happy you liked it. I am sending better pictures of the base and the top.

I am quite convinced that it is calcified jade as it feels quite cold to the touch. I am not sure the black ink were chinese characters or some decoration.

I just did a specific gravity test with my crude apparatus and the result was around 2.40. Not high enough for jade but that excludes mammoth ivory (1.77 specific gravity).

Regards,

Marcos







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« Reply #9 on: May 30, 2016, 12:06:35 pm »


Dear Tom,

     It seems you are right regarding stone vs. organic. Could it be a limestone, or other soft, friable stone?
Best,
Joey


Dear Joey,

You may well be right.  As always, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from photos, without handling.

Best,
Tom
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« Reply #10 on: May 30, 2016, 12:44:54 pm »



Also, can use a focused pic for both the top, and base of bottle.  Would like to get a better look at the blue within those two areas.


It is strange that the blue is so prominent at the top and base, yet so little showing on the exterior of the rest of the bottle.

Still need additional better focused pics of these areas..

I can not explain why the bottle exterior is different shade and whiter color than the interior material, but sure looks like chrysocolla material looking at the top and base.  I just can not explain why the exterior has the appearance it does.. Perhaps heat treated ? 

Chrysocolla has a specific gravity of about 2.2/2.4

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« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2016, 12:45:27 pm »

Dear Joey,

I think you are right, it is probably another mineral altogether.

I just read here http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/jade/ that:

"The jade with a curious ivory-like appearance which the Chinese call ‘chicken-bone’ jade may be a manifestation of this phenomenon. This is also sometimes said to be ‘burnt jade.’ Burnt jade also has an opaque chalky appearance, usually with minute cracks all over the surface. It is known that nephrite when heated to about 1000 degrees Celsius in a dry atmosphere breaks down into diopside, eustatite ( a magnesium silicate) and some quartz. In an experiment in the Freer Gallery Laboratory, samples of blue-green and white nephrite were submitted to temperatures up to 1025 degrees Celsius and both altered to an opaque chalky beige color with no change in the shape of the piece or the decoration of the surface. The chief mineral which resulted was diopside, and several nephrite jades in the Freer which appear to have been burnt also give a diopside x-ray diffraction pattern. Jadeite when heated in a similar manner behaves quite differently; it fuses to a glassy material, the surface smooths out, and if the object is small enough it bends out of shape."

Diopside should yield an even higher specific gravity (3.4 on average).

Hi YT,

Thanks a lot for the comparison photos.

Regards,

Marcos
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« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2016, 01:38:25 pm »

Dear Marcos,

    Thank you for the quote re.jade.
It exactly describes the Calcined Jade bottle I purchased in South Africa in 1974.
Best,
Joey



Dear Joey,

I think you are right, it is probably another mineral altogether.

I just read here http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/jade/ that:

"The jade with a curious ivory-like appearance which the Chinese call ‘chicken-bone’ jade may be a manifestation of this phenomenon. This is also sometimes said to be ‘burnt jade.’ Burnt jade also has an opaque chalky appearance, usually with minute cracks all over the surface. It is known that nephrite when heated to about 1000 degrees Celsius in a dry atmosphere breaks down into diopside, eustatite ( a magnesium silicate) and some quartz. In an experiment in the Freer Gallery Laboratory, samples of blue-green and white nephrite were submitted to temperatures up to 1025 degrees Celsius and both altered to an opaque chalky beige color with no change in the shape of the piece or the decoration of the surface. The chief mineral which resulted was diopside, and several nephrite jades in the Freer which appear to have been burnt also give a diopside x-ray diffraction pattern. Jadeite when heated in a similar manner behaves quite differently; it fuses to a glassy material, the surface smooths out, and if the object is small enough it bends out of shape."

Diopside should yield an even higher specific gravity (3.4 on average).

Hi YT,

Thanks a lot for the comparison photos.

Regards,

Marcos
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« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2016, 09:21:37 pm »


I just did a specific gravity test with my crude apparatus and the result was around 2.40. Not high enough for jade but that excludes mammoth ivory (1.77 specific gravity).


Hi Marcos,

The material which Joey thought it could be was fossilized mammoth tooth, which is NOT ivory, but petrified tooth. I have handled a genuine old mammoth tooth bottle, and found it to be both cold to the touch (like stone) and heavy.

But reading the follow-on posts, I agree that it may not be jade at all. George's suggestion of heat-treated chrysocolla would explain the blue residue on the interior.

Tom
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« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2016, 10:33:03 pm »

Dear Tom,

   Actually, you are correct, that fossilized mammoth tooth is not organic anymore.
So it could still be that.
    Best,
Joey
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« Reply #15 on: May 31, 2016, 09:23:14 am »


Marcos,

This one has had me puzzled since you posted it.  It's apparent to me that it is a heat treated stone.  I check azurite, turquoise stained howlite and magnasite, and actual heat treat turquoise.  The only conclusion I've come to to date is that it may be a heat treated man-made turquoise.  See attached image of a large pile of man-made imitation turquoise blocks at a Chinese Materials seller visited by Russ Nobbs in 1996.

Charll


* block-turquoise.jpg (550.08 KB, 2048x1536 - viewed 22 times.)
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« Reply #16 on: May 31, 2016, 08:18:28 pm »

Charll,

An interesting hypothesis. Marcos should be able to do a quick test. Turquoise is relatively soft (will scratch easily with a steel blade, or even sandpaper), and lighter than jade, always assuming that man-made turquoise has similar properties to the natural stone.

Tom
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« Reply #17 on: May 31, 2016, 11:12:37 pm »

Dear Tom,

The Mammoth Ivory does feel hard and cold but if you use Joey's cheek test with a Calcified Jade, the temperature is still slightly higher. I just did that.

Charll's theory maybe more plausible.

Cheers,
YT

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