The short answer: archaic jade is priced on completely different logic from later wares — the earlier the piece, the simpler the tool marks, and the more attribution depends on the coherence of workmanship, calcification and form. The premium collectors pay for Han beast carvings and ritual jades is a price on unrepeatable cultural information, not on the stone.
Four anchors of dating: material, work, calcification, motif
- Material — early jades use regional nephrites; the stone's intrinsic value matters little. What counts is how the era used it.
- Workmanship — Hongshan grooving, Shang double-line incising, Han 'flying-thread' hairlines and the famed 'Han eight-cut' are the hardest dating evidence; modern rotary tool marks betray themselves under magnification.
- Calcification — alteration must agree with the stone's structure and burial erosion; a gradient working inward from the surface is natural, a uniform all-over colour is suspect.
- Motif — designs should cross-check against bronzes and stone carving of the same period; an 'unique motif' with no parallels warrants extra caution.
Why beast carvings trade like hard currency
Han yellow-jade guardian beasts — rounded, self-consistent modelling, richly layered alteration, palm-sized for scholar's-desk appreciation — have been collected without interruption since the Ming and Qing. Demand has never left and supply can never grow: the two necessary conditions of hard currency.
The Han yellow-jade beast and jade standing figure currently on our jade category page belong to this lineage; the page also carries a chronology and FAQ for archaic jade.
For a written attribution note and reference range, send multi-angle photographs with dimensions and provenance to [email protected].