Lavender Jade and 14ct Gold. There are two types of Jade: Jadeite and Nephrite. Nephrite is usually green in colour, often darkish but sometimes of a bright lively green; New Zealand Greenstone is Nephrite, the Jade of British Columbia is Nephrite and the Jade of historic China, fashioned through millennia into objects and jewellery, was Nephrite. Nephrite in China was becoming more scarce in the 1700s when, in the late 1700s or early 1800s, the Chinese realized there was a source of this favourite gemstone in not-that-distant Myanmar: Jadeite, virtually the same as Nephrite but with a slight difference in chemical composition, and found not only in greens, including the “imperial” apple green so valued in China, but also in a wide range of colours such as reddish browns, yellows, lilacs;  Lavender Jade is one of those Jadeite colours.
Myanmar is still virtually the world’s only commercial source  of the gemstone Jadeite.
The above Lavender Jade bracelet, six curved gemstone rectangles articulated in hand-worked 14ct Gold, was created in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Its closure is the classic bayonet type, with two safety clips. On the face of the closure box is a handcarved Chinese symbol, doubtless having to do with good fortune. (On the underside is the 585 stamp of 14ct Gold.)