Jade value by color: which jade is worth the most
The most valuable jade color is imperial green: a vivid, pure emerald green in near-transparent jadeite, which GIA describes as one of the world’s most expensive gems. Lavender is the next most valuable jadeite color. For nephrite the top color is the warm white known as mutton fat. One condition sits over all of this: a color carries that value only on fine, translucent, untreated stone. The same green on coarse or dyed material is worth very little.
Jade value by color: the jadeite ranking
The top of the order is firm and comes from GIA. Below lavender, neither GIA nor dealers give a fixed order, because texture and translucency outweigh hue once you leave top green.
| Color | How firm the position is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial green | First. Firm (GIA) | Vivid emerald green with near transparency and very fine texture |
| Other strong greens: kingfisher, apple | Just below imperial. Firm (GIA) | Kingfisher is vivid green, slightly less intense than imperial; apple is an intense yellowish green |
| Lavender | Next after green. Firm (GIA) | Value climbs steeply with saturation, and fine purple is scarce |
| Colorless ice and glass grade | Depends on the piece | No color at all, yet costly when texture and transparency are at the top of the scale |
| Red, orange and yellow | Depends on the piece | Valued when the hue is pure and not brownish; often heated |
| Black | Depends on the piece | Popular, and good pieces are expensive; low transparency is not held against it |
| White with green (moss-in-snow) | Depends on the piece | A named variety with bright green veining or spots on white |
| Grey, dull, coarse or blackish green | Last | The cheap end of natural jadeite |
A Chinese trade saying runs roughly: yellow fei, green cui, and purple the precious one. Red and yellow jadeite are called fei (翡) and green jadeite cui (翠), which together give the Chinese name for jadeite, feicui. The point of the saying is that green, purple and good yellow or red all add value, provided the hue is pure. For what each color looks like and what causes it, see every color of jade.
How green is judged
GIA and the gemologist Richard Hughes of Lotus Gemology agree on the essentials. Saturation is by far the most important element of color in green and lavender jadeite, the ideal tone is medium (neither too light nor too dark), and the color should look even to the unaided eye, without spots or veins. Intense colors command a substantial premium over lighter and weaker ones.
Chinese dealers sum up a good green in four words:
- nong (浓): saturated
- yang (阳): bright and lively, not grey or dull
- zheng (正): a pure hue that does not lean off-color
- yun (匀): evenly distributed
The finest imperial jadeite gets its green from chromium and combines it with high translucency and fine texture. Imperial jade has its own page.
On the same fine, translucent material, dealers say a vivid green can multiply the price ten times or more, sometimes close to a hundred times, compared with a colorless piece. At the top end small differences in shade cause large differences in price, especially for cabochons: the trade saying is that one notch of color can mean many times the money.
Why green jade can be nearly worthless
Green is both the most valuable and the least valuable jadeite color. Three kinds of green sit at the bottom:
- Coarse, opaque green. The same word covers imperial green and dry-looking stone with visible grain. Dealers stress that color only has value when it sits on fine, translucent material.
- Green that is too dark. The ideal tone is medium, and Burmese traders class very dark, blackish-green material as a lower-value grade.
- Dyed green. Dyed jadeite, called C jade, imitates the expensive colors, most often green and lavender, and is worth only a few dollars. A piece with vivid, perfectly even color at a low price is far more likely to be dyed than to be a bargain.
Guatemalan jadeite tends toward darker, greyer blue-green tones than Burmese material and sells for less as a whole, although rare blue jadeite also comes from Guatemala.
Home checks narrow things down, and a gemological laboratory report is what settles whether a color is natural. The treatment grades are explained in type A, B and C jade.
Lavender
Lavender jadeite, called zi luo lan (紫罗兰) or chun (春) in the trade, has a built-in trade-off. Strongly purple material is usually coarse-grained and not very translucent, and when the texture is finer the purple is usually pale. Pieces that are both fine and clearly purple are rare.
The auction record is a necklace of 35 lavender jadeite beads that sold at Poly Auction Hong Kong on 2 October 2018 for $2,723,077. A more ordinary result: a translucent pastel lavender bangle with green streaks made about $26,000 (converted from Hong Kong dollars, including premium) at Bonhams Hong Kong in November 2015. Meaning, shades and fakes are covered in lavender jade.
Colorless, red, yellow and black
Colorless. Ice and glass grade jadeite commands high prices with no color at all. GIA notes that the best jadeite is semitransparent and that good transparency can sometimes compensate for a lack of color. Even so, a touch of green or purple makes a piece clearly more expensive than a colorless one of the same texture.
Red and yellow. GIA lists orange-to-reddish jade as popular, especially when it is not brownish. Dull brownish material is often heated to turn it a brighter yellow or orange-red. The Chinese trade treats heating as an accepted enhancement that still counts as A jade, but GIA lists heating among jade treatments, and dealers do not agree on how much it takes off the price. If you are paying for natural red or yellow, ask for the color to be stated on a lab report.
Black. Black jadeite, mo cui (墨翠), looks black in ordinary light and shows green when a strong light is shone through it. Its low transparency is natural and does not count against it, and good pieces are expensive.
Nephrite colors: white first
Nephrite is valued the opposite way from jadeite: the most valuable is the least colored. The best is white nephrite with a greasy luster, known as mutton fat jade, and GIA researchers note that white Xinjiang nephrite has kept the highest price of any nephrite in the Chinese market.
Whiteness alone is not enough. The white should be warm and soft, not stark and chalky, and dealers rank fineness and luster ahead of it: a stark white, dry-looking piece is worth less than a slightly off-white piece that is fine and greasy.
| Nephrite color | Standing in the trade |
|---|---|
| White (mutton fat at its best) | Highest |
| Yellow | The scarcest after mutton fat white |
| Spinach green, bi yu (碧玉) | Valued for a bright, even green that is not greyish, some translucency and few black specks; dull, opaque dark green is the cheap end |
| Greenish white, brown sugar color, black, black-and-white | Depends on the piece |
| Grey-green (qing) | The most abundant, and the lowest price at a given quality |
The most expensive jade ever sold, by color
| Color | Piece | Sale | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imperial green | Hutton-Mdivani necklace, 27 jadeite beads | Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2014 | $27.44 million |
| Green | Doubly Fortunate necklace, 27 jadeite beads | Christie’s Hong Kong, 6 November 1997 | $9.39 million |
| Green to vivid green | Circle of Happiness bangle | Sotheby’s Hong Kong, April 2021 | $3.92 million |
| Imperial green | Pair of cabochon earrings | Sotheby’s Hong Kong, April 2021 | $895,080 |
| Lavender | Necklace of 35 jadeite beads | Poly Auction Hong Kong, 2 October 2018 | $2,723,077 |
| White nephrite | Imperial seal of the Qianlong emperor | Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 22 April 2021 | about $18.8 million |
The Hutton-Mdivani necklace, recorded by Guinness World Records as the most expensive jade jewelry sold at auction, made more than double its high estimate of about $12.8 million. Sotheby’s called the earrings a record for a cabochon imperial green jadeite. The seal’s price reflects age and imperial provenance as much as the stone, so it says little about white nephrite in general.
No reliable per-carat price by color exists: the charts published online contradict each other and none names a primary source.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most valuable jade color?
Imperial green, a vivid emerald green in near-transparent jadeite, is the most valuable. Lavender is the next most valuable jadeite color, and for nephrite the top color is the warm white called mutton fat.
What is the most expensive jade ever sold?
The Hutton-Mdivani necklace of 27 imperial green jadeite beads sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong in April 2014 for $27.44 million, the highest auction price recorded for a piece of jadeite jewelry.
Is green jade always valuable?
No. Green is both the most valuable and the least valuable jadeite color. Coarse, opaque or blackish green stone sells for very little, and dyed green jade is worth a few dollars.
Is lavender jade worth more than green jade?
Not at the top. GIA places lavender next after green, and the lavender auction record of about $2.7 million is far below the green record. A fine lavender piece is still worth much more than an ordinary green one.