In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Jade, and Why It's so Misunderstood ft. Jewels of the Trade
Jordan Wentz, or Jewels of the Trade, shares her expertise on jade, one of the most misunderstood gemstones in the jewelry world, explaining its historical significance and how to identify authentic pieces. She illuminates the differences between Jadeite and Nephrite jade while providing guidance for retailers and consumers on recognizing quality jade and avoiding common pitfalls.
Join the Jewels of the Trade Discord community to learn more about jade, connect with experts, and share your collection. Follow Jordan on Instagram @jewels_of_the_trade or visit her YouTube channel to deepen your understanding of this fascinating gemstone.
More from Jordan & Jewels of the Trade: http://linktr.ee/jewels_of_the_trade
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
Welcome to In the Loop all of her expertise and knowledge with me and starts to explain the details and historical significance of jade, as well as what is kind of trending in today's day and age. She also tries to explain to me the difference between jadeite and nephrite, and we talk all about how you can spot quality jade and also how retailers can educate themselves so that they're not getting ripped off or being misinformed about their own products. It's a really cool talk. I hope you learn more about Jade and maybe consider carrying some in your store and also look into attending the Jade conference coming up real soon.
Speaker 2:Thanks and enjoy this episode is brought to you by punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom. Slash go.
Speaker 1:And now back to the show show. Welcome everybody. I'm joined by Jordan Wentz and you have a really interesting story, jordan. I don't even know 100% how to explain that you're with the Jade Summit. You've also been a sales rep at Mason Kay. When you introduce yourself, how do you introduce kind of like what it is that you're doing?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, michael. Thanks so much. It's great to be here. So I would describe myself as an independent sales rep, which means I own my own business and brands contract with me to sell their product. My specialty is Jade, so I work closely with Mason K Jade on the B2B and B2C sides of their business.
Speaker 1:Really interesting. So B2B and B2C. We've had this conversation in the past before on other episodes, but there are different kind of strategies and I feel like it kind of requires a different tone. Do you feel yourself sort of slipping in and out of the different kind of conversation styles when you have to go between the two?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, and I completely agree. I would say they're entirely different. Most of the strategies that I think you would use when selling directly to the consumer are going to be different when you're working with other professionals in the trade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you're also a sales rep with Mason Kay. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that and explain that to the audience?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my job with Mason Kay? Can you talk to me a little bit more about that and explain that to the audience? Yeah, so my job with Mason Kay is to assist them at trade shows, to sell their product at trunk shows and liaise with retail jewelry store accounts to help them place their orders, educate their staff, things like that. So that's what I do on the wholesale side.
Speaker 1:Interesting, and do you find that? I know that that was primarily your position before. Is that becoming more on the back burner as you started to kind of put your own business in the forefront a little bit more, or is that still taking up a majority of your time?
Speaker 3:Well, to be perfectly honest, Michael, what's kind of happened is we've seen more like end consumer demand for Jade and a lot of jewelry stores maybe they don't have, you know, like a clientele for Jade, or they don't know how to sell Jade and they get a little intimidated or afraid to sell it, and so those customers will usually end up shopping online. So we're trying to intercept those customers to keep them from shopping with untrustworthy overseas sellers that are going to offer treated jade, selling it, as natural things like that. So a lot of my job has actually shifted more to the B2C side.
Speaker 1:Interesting because I watched this video. I'm trying to remember completely. I wish I would have checked beforehand, but it was like jade bangles and they were showing the difference between like real jade and then like a substitute or like a fake jade, and they were clinking it together and it makes a completely different noise. It's like one is like more high pitched, one is not. What are, like, the main kind of ways to tell, um, I guess, fake from real when it comes to Jade?
Speaker 3:Wow, you really did your homework. So let's talk about that first. We call that the ping test. So Jade has sonority, which is a property that allows it to essentially sing. And in fact, when Mary Lou Reidinger discovered the Guatemalan Jade deposits with her husband, jay Reidinger, in the 1970s, the way that they found Jade was by walking around with a hammer for like I don't know eight, nine, 10 months, something like that, and hitting boulders until they could find that beautiful ping sound, and that was how they identified the jade boulders and made the discovery.
Speaker 3:So even when it's been cut especially if it's been cut into something continuous, for instance a solid jade ring or a solid jade bangle if it is translucent, unfractured and natural, if you strike it with a hard object it'll sing out, and the higher quality the jade is, the more beautiful the sound. Yeah, so it's really a tell of quality. The problem with that and this is why we don't recommend using this method for identification is that jadeite, jade's most common simulant, which is dyed green quartz, also has sonority. So when you have a dyed green quartz bangle that's also highly translucent and you ping it, it will sound very similar to a jade bangle. So that method is actually better for distinguishing natural, which is untreated jadeite jade, from treated jadeite jade which has been impregnated with polymer wax or resin. So when you ask the real versus fake question, it's so much more complicated than that because we have natural but then we have genuine that's been treated right. So you have the real jade, the treated jade and then the jade simulants and it all gets very confusing from there.
Speaker 1:I understand. So I always have this question, though, when it comes to these tricks or the, like you said, impregnated with polymer, I've wondered so obviously, in untreated and like this, you know the natural version is most likely going to be the most beautiful. It's probably the most temperamental, though, Besides losing you know the fact that you can say it's untreated in its value, are there any reasons why you shouldn't be using polymer or something like that on your jade? Is it just because, like I imagine, it's to protect it? Is that correct?
Speaker 3:It's not what you think. A lot of times, gemstones are treated to increase their durability. In the case of jadeite jade, that is not the case at all. Treated jade is substantially more brittle than natural jade.
Speaker 3:Which natural jade? Both natural jade are two of the toughest gemstones in the world. So then you treat them and you're literally I mean it's like a zombie jade, like you're putting plastic on the inside. So all of the fractures that already existed in that originally unsellable quality of jade expand, meaning it's much more likely to break. It is not stable in color. It has five to 10% the value of its natural jade counterpart If it doesn't have dye. If it does have dye on top of the polymer impregnation, it has almost no value whatsoever. So it's really, really important for the customer because jade can be so expensive for the customer to know that what they're buying is actually natural and not treated.
Speaker 1:Really fascinating. So I guess you've also had a bunch of experience on YouTube with sales and I've watched a couple of your streams before, and one thing that's fascinating is I feel like it's not picked up in popularity the selling, the live selling, and especially on Facebook. It was very popular during COVID and then it went away seemingly. And I'm always like man, I feel like you're on to something really clever, but you've stuck with it, especially with YouTube, and have cultivated an audience. Where do you see YouTube kind of fitting in your marketing kind of armada of techniques?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so interestingly enough, youtube has over two and a half billion active monthly users, so it's actually bigger than Pinterest and it's bigger than TikTok, but it's not quite as big as Facebook. Youtube is able to offer, like short form and long form content and everything is searchable because Google actually owns YouTube. So if you Google something about Jade, for instance, one of my videos will probably come up in the Google search because they're on YouTube. So that means that a video can sit for like six months or a year or two years, and when interest in that topic surges, the video can blow up, no matter how much time has passed. So a customer with cash in hand ready to buy can find a YouTube video in a Google search and make a purchase, irregardless of the number of views that the video has even gotten, because it's so targeted. Like, maybe it only has 70 views, but you made a $4,000 sale off of one video.
Speaker 3:Most of the people that I know sellers that are really successful with live selling in the United States, not China. China's live selling is kind of a different ballgame, right. They don't need a ton of views, they just get very targeted subscribers who are interested in buying, and then a lot of you know, you need a handful 20, 30 customers. Those customers repeat by repeat by. They tell their friends that grows, it gets bigger and bigger. But the idea of live streaming and having, you know, 10,000 views on your live stream, that doesn't guarantee success. That doesn't actually guarantee that somebody is going to buy.
Speaker 1:It's so fascinating. I always say that subscriber count and follower count and view count. A lot of those are these days are vanity metrics. They just kind of make you feel good and they sort of bring like an air of clout. But a lot of the times it does seem like it's about, yeah, attracting a couple of these power users. I had to kind of come to grips with that, with attracting a couple of these power users. I had to come to grips with that with this podcast, for example. I used to think the key to this thing being super successful is getting tens and hundreds of thousands of downloads by the wider audience. I was like, wait, but if I'm interviewing only retail jewelers, shouldn't I only want retail jewelers to be listening? If that's the target demographic and the target model, then we should be hyper-focused on that. And if we can have as close to 100% of our audience be our target, then the healthier our audience is. Is that kind of how you're viewing your YouTube platform as well?
Speaker 3:Literally words taken out of my brain. Michael, like I think you're spot on. That's exactly how I see it. I hope that jewelry sellers can grow to understand that exact concept, because if you have especially like a niche product, something that you really specialize in, oh my gosh, youtube can be such a lucrative avenue for you, and I've known people who can sell $50,000 worth of product in one YouTube live sale, but maybe they have 20 people watching. It's about finding the viewer, finding the customer. It's just not about views and subscribers Like those numbers are not as important as the actual dollars going into your pocket.
Speaker 1:That's so fascinating. So talk to me about the actual execution of a of a live stream, because one of the the the nature of an auction is that you probably are setting like a starting price and then hopefully you're going to go up from there, and I have done auctions in the past for my own artwork and sometimes it goes really well and you do way better than you expected. But the nature of the beast is that sometimes an item flops and it sells for either base price or sometimes even lower than that. When you're dealing with something that can have a high cost, such as Jade, are you setting a floor that, even if it never goes up from there, that you'll what you put in, or is it just the nature of the beast? Sometimes you take a bath on a couple of the products and then some of them go much higher than what you anticipated.
Speaker 3:Well, personally, I don't do any auction style live selling yet on my channel, but I do want to talk about this. So, michael, are you familiar with Whatnot?
Speaker 1:Whatnot? I don't think so.
Speaker 3:Whatnot is like if Twitch and eBay made a baby. So it's a platform for live selling that I think is taking off. I think it's going to get really huge. Basically, sellers will stream, sometimes for hours, sometimes every day, and it's all auction based. So they're auctioning off their goods to smartphone users who log in through an app and they buy by swiping the screen. So it's very quick decisions, it's very competitive and this is, I hope. I hope people hear this and realize like live selling is so much bigger than we realized. Like it's so much bigger than just like the Instagram sellers or the TikTok sellers, which really TikTok is a huge, huge economy for live selling. But there is more to it, especially deep into YouTube and on platforms like whatnot. So I personally believe YouTube is actually heading kind of in a direction more like whatnot, but it's just not quite there.
Speaker 3:Youtube to me, it offers a sales avenue, and that's not necessarily the primary focus of my channel, because the focus of my channel is education and community, but the reality is, I mean, people are going to want to buy right, they want to support content creators and they want to buy from someone that they trust. So, since I don't carry my own inventory. Yet I sell using affiliate marketing and Mason K has, you know, the retail side to their business that I mentioned. So they're my main affiliate and I feature their products on my Tuesday night live stream. So I sell products through the affiliate links in the video description. But YouTube right now has a function where it can sync up with Shopify. So other sellers who might be interested in live selling, if they have a Shopify site already and they have a YouTube account that meets certain criteria, they can sync their items that are already on their website onto YouTube so that they are clickable and like purchasable while someone is watching a video.
Speaker 3:And to me, like I think that is is probably safer than like the auction style that you were talking about. But I do think in a way it's limiting Cause, like you mentioned, with the auction style you can make so much more off of our product sale because you're actually taking it to the market and asking them like what is this really worth? What are you actually willing to pay for this? You know, and I think YouTube will go that way and we'll see more sellers doing that. It's just there's high risk right now for that sort of thing, um, but in the next six months or a year. That can be totally different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that one thing you've uh kind of started to allude to is this idea of like consolidating your base or like having your audience in a very tangible location. So the live streams, we already talked about it. You were saying that you know, maybe you have 20 or 25 people that are logged in, but it still can be super lucrative. And I sometimes think about it like the traffic to a website. Sometimes these, I'm like they're ghosts, they just like coming in and out and they sort of just float, and sometimes they click on stuff and sometimes they don't, and it's just like oh, is this? Are these even real people?
Speaker 1:But then when you see them and you consolidate them onto more of like a tangible location, like a live stream, suddenly, especially if they're typing into chat or they're interacting in a way, suddenly it becomes a little bit more tactile. But the actual like the apex of it seems to be through, for example, like a Discord server. Can you sort of talk about what you've set up with your own Discord server and what that kind of adds to your own brand and business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely let's. If we could just go back a little bit to something that you said about driving people to the website by using marketing tactics like YouTube and different types of live selling, whatnot? Instagram, tiktok, things like that. So what you mentioned is what we call conversion rate. I know you use this term too, so I let's say, I get a thousand people onto my website, how many of them actually convert? Right, when you're building a community, which is really the focus of my YouTube channel, rules of the Trade is more about building that community and networking. It's a little less about sales and it's more about enhancing the knowledge of the people participating in the community. So I always say a rising tide lifts all boats. Like we're trying to help people be more accurate when they speak about Jade, when they sell Jade.
Speaker 3:You know a lot of retail jewelry stores watch my channel as well. Appraisers watch my channel. It's important that the jewelry industry understands how misunderstood Jade really is, cause I think it's probably one of the most misunderstood gemstones that actually sells in the jewelry store, and understands what is accurate about it. So when you have that education and that community at the forefront, some of those metrics don't matter as much your conversion rate and things like that. Even though and I say this the Jewels of the Trade channel gets about 80,000 views a month, the past couple of months we've been getting around 100,000 views a month. That's quite a bit of traffic. We do drive those customers to websites where they do buy and it's very, very successful. And I will say like, overall, it is lucrative.
Speaker 3:I don't want people to think cause I, this aspect of community is, um, you know it's, it's coming from a very caring place and I do genuinely want people to know more and feel better about what they're purchasing and connect with trustworthy retailers, Even if it's not a company I represent. Like I just want people to spend money and buy jewelry and that that is there. But also the goal is, at the end of the day, to convert customers, because that's how we can afford to have the channel, so that we can expand the knowledge, you know. So it's it's sort of a cyclical thing. So that kind of brings us to the discord. Uh, I started the discord because it was sort of just like a natural evolution for the YouTube channel, because of the amount of views that I was getting and I didn't know what it was. So, like Michael, do you use Discord?
Speaker 1:I go through phases where I use it, but it's not something that is very ingrained into me. During COVID I was using it a lot, but not of late.
Speaker 3:Are you a gamer?
Speaker 1:I am a gamer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay. So I'm not a gamer and that's why I didn't know what it was, and I bet a lot of people listening to this probably don't know what it is either. So I started the Discord not knowing what Discord was. I chose it because I thought it would be easier to moderate than Reddit. It was gonna allow for video calls, private messaging and a more personal connection with the Jot audience. It was a natural next step for the YouTube channel because the channel was really growing.
Speaker 3:In the Discord, which is sort of like a group chat but also a repository for storing accurate information, jot viewers are encouraged to actually share photos from their.
Speaker 3:It's like a place where you, a Jade customer, you can talk directly to a Jade researcher or a Jade seller or a Jade appraiser or a Jade carver and ask questions that maybe your local jewelry store can't answer. Now, inevitably, we have jewelry store salespeople who have joined too to learn from the group and they're able to take that information to their customers in person at their store. So what it's doing is it's sort of creating this halo where we're increasing the knowledge of both customers and professionals. That inevitably, is going to drive demand, because people are going to be less intimidated and they're going to be less afraid that they're going to accidentally buy treated jade, because they're going to be more confident, they're going to know who to shop from. And it helps sellers because the sellers who are in it that are constantly learning, they can speak with a confidence and an accuracy that's going to bring like so much more trust in their customers towards them.
Speaker 1:Do you find that? So you had mentioned that Reddit was another option. So it's funny because I had a very similar train of thought right around 2019. And we were.
Speaker 1:We developed this closed Facebook group for our clients. We've talked about it in the past, called the Punchmark Community, and it has only active Punchmark retailers in there, and I was 50-50 on whether or not I wanted to create a subreddit that was invite only, or I was going to create a Facebook group. We ended up going with a Facebook group because our demographic skews older and most people already had a Facebook account and it would be easier to just pull people from there as opposed to create an entirely new platform for them. But Discord has always been something I've found to be so enticing because of the fact that, first of all, you can do things centered around topics and you can also limit speaking privileges in each topic. So, for example, you could have one, for example, about Jade Education and then only let people who are whatever you want to call it certified to be able to discuss it in there. Is that something kind of set up?
Speaker 3:I would say my discord is not that heavily moderated. Keep in mind, too, the goal of the YouTube channel. The primary goal of the YouTube channel is education. The secondary goal is sales. The goal of the discord is not sales.
Speaker 3:The goal of the discord is only community, and what I didn't realize when I started it is that the discord helps me a lot. It's a way for me to learn from people who know about things that I don't know, and for people to share their collections and share images and like things that I wouldn't normally have access to, like material from certain locales or certain inclusions in in Jade, from certain origins that I wouldn't normally see. I can be like hey, does anybody have a picture of this? And and somebody does. So there's a much greater advantage, I think, to the, the blank canvas that is the discord, where the people who join whatever, whatever knowledge and expertise they have, they can bring it to the table and we can all sort of share in that. So I would say, like I have not had to mute anybody or like, keep anybody from saying things, because I think like attracts like and I think, because of the nature of my channel, it's drawn in just like a really really good group of people who aren't going to spread misinformation in the discord Like the people who are in my discord.
Speaker 3:They know a ton about Jade. There's about 14 core members of the discord that control the culture of it and they're not moderators like me and my sister and my husband we moderated. If somebody's there to spam or if they're being sneaky, we'll just kick them out Because it's not Reddit, right, we can just do that. But the culture, the tone, the topics that get discussed, that's determined by the people who are in it, and the connections that we've all been able to make with each other have been so valuable because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also I think one of the best aspects of it is that you can control, um, the I guess you you own the railroads in that instance and that you can share, uh, for example, this episode, uh, when this one comes out, um, you'll be able to put it in front of your audience, as opposed to hope that your the algorithm will share it with them.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the parts that I have kind of been pushed away from Instagram in the past, because it used to be if you follow someone, you'll see their posts right in your feed. Then things happened with the algorithm and it started pushing similar content or suggested content in front of people and suddenly you stop seeing the content that you had subscribed to or followed in the first place. And I do find that, for example with Discord, that it allows you to have a very direct connection with your audience and that's how I used to use it in particular was you could have a connection with your creator or your community, instead of hoping that the algorithm will serve you up to people that already are engaging with it.
Speaker 3:It's really perfect. I mean, people can speak with me directly. They can just message me, they can tag me in things like instead of the YouTube channel being just me monologuing at people, it becomes very two-sided. It becomes a conversation, it becomes a dialogue, and a lot of that's been driven by the live streams as well. So the Tuesday night live streams that I do that offer product. People can go to the website. They can buy it. There are affiliate links in the description. They're very information focused, and so the live streams have done a lot to cultivate the community and bring people into the discord.
Speaker 3:Because, think about it, if you're a customer and you're really serious about learning, because you don't want to get swindled, you don't want to accidentally buy fake Jade, you want to know what you're getting, you might, because you have this motivation, sit and watch an hour long video, an hour long live stream where you can talk to a Jade expert and ask questions. You might actually do that, you might actually watch that and gain a lot from that. And then you're like well, what do I do next? Well, now you hop on over to the discord and all of these things factor into the decision that you're going to make when you eventually buy, and I think the real benefit of that is just intercepting customers so that they don't buy a bad product on accident for too high of a price.
Speaker 1:Educated customers are the best type of customers. I totally agree. I think, jordan, we're going to take a quick break and then, when we come back, I want to talk more about Jade, but especially about the Jade Summit. So, everybody, stay with us.
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Speaker 1:All right, everybody Still speaking with Jordan Wentz. Jordan, I want to ask a little bit about this upcoming event that you're putting on called the Jade Summit, and you were kind of discussing it with me. It sounds like you're very passionate about jade in general. What is the Jade Summit going to be?
Speaker 3:So this is the only professional jade conference in the US.
Speaker 3:So for gemologists, appraisers and jewelry sellers who are looking for continuing education, like what could be better than going to Monterey, getting an advanced education on a rare gemstone and then being able to write off your trip Like you can go to the aquarium, you can eat seafood, the whole event is like in sight of the actual Monterey Bay. It's right next to the water. So Mason K Jade is going to be presenting the first annual international Jade Summit at the Monterey Bay Festival, which is an outdoor Jade show that lasts for three days every summer. The summit is only one day long, it's indoor and it features seminars from some of the leading Jade experts in the world. So, like Kirk Makepeace, who pioneered the Canadian Jade industry and put Canada on the map as a major Jade producer, will be speaking. Mary Lou Reitinger, who discovered the jadeite deposits of Guatemala with her husband in the 1970s. She's going to be speaking. Lou Blanc, a geophysicist who specializes in jade formation, will be there, and Jeff Mason, who's the leading expert in the US on jadeite jade testing and valuation.
Speaker 1:That's going to be super cool, and are you putting it together or what is the? What is your role in this going to be?
Speaker 3:So technically, if you want to get fancy, I I'm called the conference director, which, like you know, basically I'm going to be emceeing it, um, and then Mason K is actually sponsoring it. So my husband and I are going to actually be like presenting the conference, but of course it's with, like the help from the Jade Events Unlimited board and the Mason K team. I mean, there's a lot of people that are really working very hard to bring this all together. So, yes, this is its first year. I'm hoping that it goes really well and I can run it every year, but we'll see. We'll see.
Speaker 3:You know, it just kind of depends on how many tickets sell. So it's open to anyone. So Jade customers and collectors are welcome to come as well. It's pretty advanced, though, and the seminars will be presented with gemologists in mind, so particularly appraisers and jewelry store sales people and Jade carvers, of course. So we'll see. I mean it's the first one. I feel like there's a lot of interest, just because Jade is truly a misunderstood stone and the biggest complaint I get from jewelry stores is that they feel intimidated by it. They're kind of afraid to sell it. So I'm hoping this sort of fixes that.
Speaker 1:And remind me when is it going to be taking place.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, june 14th 2025.
Speaker 1:Very exciting. So that's going to be coming up. So if they're interested, where should they be going, if they want to learn more, or maybe register.
Speaker 3:So if you visit montereybayjadefestivalorg, all of the information is there and you can register for your ticket, which includes breakfast and lunch, and there's plenty of time allotted for browsing the George Schmeerholtz Jade Carving Exhibition next door and, of course, the beautiful outdoor Monterey Bay Jade Festival inside of Old Fisherman's Wharf and the Monterey Bay.
Speaker 1:Very cool and I'll have that information in the show notes below. But to end this on like a real high note Jordan, can you tell me a little bit about Jade or some things that I might not know about it? I'm obviously definitely an amateur. Um, I don't own anything Jade. I would love to one day, but can you, um, tell me, uh, or the audience, a little bit about Jade that could really get them interested as an entry-level person?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. So, michael, have you seen Jade in person?
Speaker 1:I think so. I believe I've seen it at some jewelry shows, but it doesn't seem like it's used the way that other you know fine jewelry gemstones are used. It seems like it's a. Is it considered a stone?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what's so confusing, I think, about jade in particular is that it's an aggregate. So if you think of like lapis lazuli, right, so lapis is basically it's an aggregate of multiple minerals, kind of smushed together. Now we call it lapis, but lazurite, which is where like the lazuli comes from, right, like that's like one mineral and it mixes with other things. Jade is the same way.
Speaker 3:So there's two gemstones called jade, there's jadeite jade and there's nephrite jade and they're both called jade. Very confusing. But in the case of jadeite jade, jadeite is a mineral that's in jadeite jade. So yes, in that sense it is different from like ruby and sapphire and diamond and it lends itself to more variety in appearance and sometimes characteristics because it's I don't want to say it's loosely defined. It's not loosely defined, it's just more varying than a single crystal gemstone. So you have confusion because there's two gemstones called jade. And then, like actually identifying a stone as one of those two jadeite jade or nephrite jade becomes very, very difficult because so many sellers accidentally sell quartz and serpentine and grossular garnet as jade. So the word jade itself really is a trade term, it's not a mineral term. It's been super overused, very misunderstood and basically we have sellers like all over just selling whatever as jade because it's green, and they don't even realize that, like jadeite is a mineral. The minerals that constitute nephrite jade, which are actinolite and tremolite, those are distinct minerals. You can't just call anything jade.
Speaker 2:It's too confusing.
Speaker 3:Words have to have meaning. So I think that's what most people don't understand about jade. Is that just because somebody presents a gem to you and says this is jade, that actually that means nothing? Like the word means nothing. You need to ask is this jadeite jade or is this nephrite jade? And I do wonder, michael, when you've seen jade at jewelry shows, do you remember, like how it?
Speaker 1:was presented to you. Was it as jade or did they actually distinctly name the mineral? I think it was. What I saw was jade bangles and, like it seemed to be, it was one continuous piece that's. It's that iconic green color and I believe they just called it a jade bangle, but I don't quite remember now.
Speaker 3:Could have gone either way. And it's interesting that you bring up the bangle too because, like you said earlier, like jade is cut into unique ways that you don't normally see in, like sapphire and ruby I've never seen a ruby bangle. Yeah, and part of that is because it's an aggregate, so you have a larger boulder but only a small portion of that boulder is gem quality. So they're trying to use the most of the rough that they can in a piece of jade jewelry so beads or a bangle or a solid ring or a carving or a disc. They're basically trying to use as much of that high quality jade in the boulder as they can to use as much of that high quality jade in the boulder as they can.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned carving and it's obviously a cornerstone of jade culture, if that's a thing.
Speaker 3:It is a thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I watched your vlog discussing, you know, a trip to Guatemala and it seems like there's a ton of jade carvings but very, you know, very different than what, uh, typical. I guess maybe even western style carvings might even show, like you said, a lot of, a lot of corn carvings, a lot of, uh, seeming like, nature related. Um, what is like kind of is there an origin for why people are always carving in it? And like, is that to kind of make these aggregate pieces kind of have some life beyond just, you know, be turned into beads or whatever?
Speaker 3:So every civilization that's ever had access to jade revered it and any peoples who could get their hands on it valued it above all other materials. In the case of China, they valued nephrite jade for like 8,000 years and they carved it into relics for their religion. They carved it into tools and weapons, because both jades nephrite jade and jadeite jade are two of the toughest, like the absolute toughest, like gemstones on the planet. So we think of, like a bronze age and a stone age, civilizations like the Mesoamerican civilizations between 1500 BC and 1500 AD and ancient China. They had a jade age. New Zealand had a jade age, switzerland had a jade age. So that reverence for the stone comes from its durability, its ability to withstand like so much like just drama, I guess, and not break.
Speaker 1:So I guess was it useful in, for example, in tools, Like, because I know that in I think it was in Mesoamerica they used I think it was obsidian to make you know tools and daggers and things like that. Does jade hold an edge? Is that kind of part of it? Or was it more for like, because it was so hard? I guess I don't really understand.
Speaker 3:So there's hardness and there's toughness. So hardness is resistance to scratching and toughness is resistance to breaking. Jade is both so because of its hardness it can be basically carved to be very, very thin and have a sharp edge. Because of its toughness it's not going to break easily. So it was actually an ideal stone before metal for particularly weapons, for hunting, for tools, for kitchen utensils.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, there was the ceremonial sort of use of it because of its beautiful color as well.
Speaker 3:So, for instance, jadeite jade was actually used in Mesoamerica, and when the Spanish found it with the Aztecs, the Aztecs called it a word that I cannot pronounce properly it's like Chalchuhudl, and that referred to the plumage of the Quetzal bird, which today is like the national bird of Guatemala, it's probably like the highest, you know, valued bird in Mesoamerican history, and they equated jade with that very, very special bird that had so much meaning to their culture. The opposite of that, or not opposite, but I guess the inverse of that is that in China, when they first saw jadeite jade coming out of Burma in the 1700s, they called it feichui. Feichui refers to the plumage of the kingfisher bird, another really beautiful icon in nature, and so you can just kind of see how people, the way they viewed the stone, the way they thought of its beauty and considered it so different from other gems. China long believed that all gemstones want to be jade. China long believed that all gemstones want to be jade.
Speaker 1:Jade is like the ultimate stone. Wow, that's so fascinating. I guess that there's a utility to it, but it's also very beautiful. I guess that does put it in kind of a unique position.
Speaker 3:Well, that's why it's able to be worn in bangles too. Right, if, let's say you could get a diamond big enough lab grown, I guess you got. You could, right, like you could get a lab grown diamond big enough. If you cut a diamond into a bangle like it would shatter, like you wouldn't be able to wear it for more than a day. People wear jade bangles their entire life in china. They put them on teenage girls before their hand is done growing and then then, when their wrist gets bigger, they can't take them off. They wear them for their whole life.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is wild. What a really interesting stone, and one I hope I see more of. It does seem like for a really long time, I mean, at least in the Western culture. For a lot of the places that I've attended, the shows I've attended, it's all about, yeah, diamonds and around gold, but this is, you know, the fact that this is naturally, unnaturally occurring as well, and really beautiful. What a really interesting kind of aspect to it.
Speaker 3:Well, and I have one thing to add to that, michael, before we move on. I'm sorry, think of it this way too. The price of gold just hit $3,000 an ounce. When I left the jewelry store that I worked for in 2020, gold was $1,200 an ounce. Jade bangles, beads, solid bands, et cetera are impervious to the rising cost of gold and offer the customer an opportunity to buy fine heirloom, quality jewelry that's in their budget and at a more stable price. So for anyone wondering why it seems like they're hearing about Jade more, I think that's part of it. I think the demand for Jade is growing and I think just the stability of its pricing and the fact that it's so attainable, even in good qualities, is a major part of that.
Speaker 1:Hmm, interesting because there is a volume that it's able to meet the demand. That's. I wonder if that'll be able to keep up because as it gets more and more popular I'm sure that there will be more and more demand. So that'll be fascinating and hopefully that works out. For you know the Jade Summit as well and I guess Jordan, that kind of. To wrap this up, it sounds like you are positioning yourself in like a really unique spot in the jewelry industry. I guess I was going to ask like kind of where do you see this going as a, you know, event director for the Jade Summit but also helping with, you know, sales and marketing for Mason Kay? Where do you kind of see yourself going in the jewelry industry?
Speaker 3:So I am so proud of the jade industry Like I, I can't even believe that I get to be a part of it. The jade industry in particular, which is kind of more of a sect off to the side of the jewelry industry, it's a community of sellers who are really good to their customers. They're good to each other and honestly I want to see the jade industry do well Like I want jade to just blow up. In the United States I mentioned earlier. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Speaker 3:Most jade sellers would agree that it helps us all a lot more to promote the jade industry as a whole than to just promote one or two sellers. We want to connect customers with the stone and as an industry I think we want customers to have a good experience with it and treasure their jade and pass it down and really appreciate it. So anything that I do in my career, especially right now, I think it's because I believe in the jade economy in the U? S, which is small now but it's inevitably going to get bigger and frankly I want to be a part of it when it does.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a really uh, a wholesome way to kind of uh view it, especially with you know, the fact that it's not rare is something I do find kind of attractive about it, like the fact that my birthstones are garnets is garnet and as a result I kind of feel really lucky because garnet is not super expensive, because it is relatively not common I guess it's relatively common and with jade, the fact that there are mines that are still producing copious amounts of jade that are beautiful and it does all seem to be beautiful, that's kind of like one of those parts of jewelry I do feel like a lot of the times jewelry is the cornerstone is rarity and innate value because of rarity and there is a finite amount of gold. And then there's everyone's always discussing lab run versus natural diamonds because of, you know, rarity and the fact that it did come from the earth. But the fact that jade is not necessarily rare is, I don't know. I find that very enticing and kind of like an endearing aspect of it.
Speaker 3:Well, think of it this way too, because there are two jades. So I think that makes it feel like there's more of it than there is. But it's because we're talking about two gemstones. Nephrite jade is geologically more abundant, but jadeite jade geologically is very rare. So if you consider that there's probably 50 diamond mines in the us or, sorry, in the world my bad in the world there are two active jadeite jade mines that are producing any notable quality in any notable quantity of jadeite jade. So there are fewer jade producing mines that are offering gem quality jade and in fact gem quality jadeite jade I mean some of the imperial qualities can fetch millions easily.
Speaker 3:Barbara Hutton's necklace sold for, I don't know, 26 or 27 million and it was just not just, but I mean it was jade beads and of course gorgeous, but my gosh over $20 million. Of course gorgeous, but my gosh over $20 million. So one of the things that makes Jade special, and especially in its I want to say lower qualities, qualities that aren't necessarily gem quality maybe you wouldn't put it in your engagement rate it's still durable enough and it's still attractive enough to be art. Jade really is an art form. So you have really three industries within jade, you have antiques right pre, you know, pre-ccp era, I guess, um pre hold on, sorry editor, you're gonna have to edit this out while I think of the word. No, you're good, uh, 1911 world war two.
Speaker 1:Uh, world war one rebellion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, never mind, hold on, I'll think of another word. So you have. You have the jade antiques and antiquities. So you have pieces that are nephrite jade carvings that come from like the Ming dynasty or the Qing dynasty or, even more rarely, you know, the Han dynasty, like these dynasty jades that were not jewelry, it was just carvings. You have modern jade carving, which is an art form, like what they're celebrating in Guatemala at the Congress of Jade Carvers that they have in Antigua every year, and then you have jewelry as a separate category. So jade, unlike ruby and sapphire, spans multiple industries essentially and has a lot more to offer than just a gemstone for jewelry.
Speaker 1:Very fascinating, Jordan. You've convinced me I need to get myself a jade dangle. I need one.
Speaker 3:It sounds very cool, you do.
Speaker 2:Sounds like an awesome, awesome time.
Speaker 1:Jordan. If people want to learn even more, where can they find you on the internet, if they want to follow your accounts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so if you are in the trade, you can follow me on Instagram. It's Jewels of the Trade and that's where I connect with retailers and wholesalers and carvers and that's just a good way to kind of like actually talk to me. If you are interested in learning more about Jade, I do recommend my YouTube channel, which is also called Jewels of the Trade. And if you're wanting to get like nitty gritty, down and dirty with the details, like you want to really understand Jade, join down and dirty with the details, Like you want to really understand Jade, join my discord Honestly, like the link is in pretty much all of the YouTube video descriptions join, learn, watch, contribute, share photos of your collection.
Speaker 3:Because what we're trying to do with the jewels of the trade overall platform is just expand customer and seller Jade knowledge. We want to eradicate all of this misinformation that's poisoning people in jewelry stores and forcing people to buy crap jade online for too high of prices. We want to get rid of all that and we want this safe oasis where people can actually find good information and know that there's a reliable place to buy jade. We don't want people to be afraid to buy jade. We want people to feel confident and if you're a retailer who's wanting to sell Jade, I can help actually like train your staff and we can do a trunk show or we can collaborate in a way that will benefit you and your customers.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Thank you so much, jordan. I really appreciate you coming on. What a really interesting topic. I think it's something I'm going to have to look into even more, but I appreciate your time. Thanks everybody. Go give her a follow and we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers everybody, bye. All right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. My guest this week was Jordan Wentz, and she's with Jewels of the Trade, and I highly recommend checking out her YouTube channel and all of her links in the show notes below. It's super interesting. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Thanks. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers, bye, thank you.
