258 – Gambling Stones

The biggest event of the Merchant Tour was the Jade Auction. Although the main purpose of the event was to sell cut jade stones to jewelry houses, there were also rough stones for sale to the general public. Elder Fu Yaoshi and the entourage walked around the hall. They saw smaller vendors who were selling small rough gambling stones. It was extremely rare to find something valuable from small vendors as they were from unknown regions. Only rough stones from Myan yielded imperial jade, the prized green jade that everyone wanted to collect.

The main exhibition was where large gambling stones were auctioned. The stones were already cut to display the interior jade contained. During the live auction, registered bidders could bid for the stones. 

“What are the values of these stones?” asked Li Yun.

“A lot,” Elder Fu Yaoshi replied. They walked to a lime green jade that was labeled with 15 kilo. “This is apple jade. Just based on the transparency and texture, the minimum bid price for this is 300k yuan.”

<Jade or Nephrite?>

Li Yun tapped on the stone and used jing sonar. A beautiful interlocking assortment of shapes appeared in his mind. He didn’t understand what they were, but a quick search on his phone suggested that they were structures of sodium, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen, elements that made jadeite.

<Which image is a close representation of Jadeite? Image A, B, or C?

Source: 3dchem.com>

Elder Fu Yaoshi walked around the different cut stones to show Li Yun and the live streaming audience. The stones came in different colors, transparency, texture classification, and sizes. There were large boulders of marbled green jade and small table size rocks displayed in the hall. 

“Glassy and translucent jadeite are rare, so you won’t see them here,” Elder Fu Yaoshi stopped in front of a 9-kilogram chunk of purple jadeite. “This one right here is pretty nice. Although it’s not glassy, icy jadeite is highly prized. It’s a shame that the color isn’t as intense and there are some black inclusions.”

As Elder Fu Yaoshi spoke to the camera, Li Yun did his own investigation using Jing Sonar. It drained a good portion of his energy looking at the various cut jade, but he was able to get a good idea of what real jade stone looked like. 

The color, transparency, and texture of jade varied depending on the elements. Imperial green was a vivid green associated with royalty and highly sought after by buyers. There were more traces of a particular element. Li Yun was sure it was likely chromium, an element that gave the jadeite its intense green color. The basic structure was the same except for the boulders that were labeled nephrite jade.

Nephrite jade was commonly found in China. Almost all antiques prior to the discovery of jadeite jade were nephrite jade. Nephrite was not as vivid and more common, hence it was less desirable.

“You’ll see a lot of unethical sellers pawn the nephrite jade off to naive buyers as jadeite jade,” said Elder Fu Yaoshi. “Only experienced buyers will know what to look for.”

A loud cheer could be heard in the adjacent hall. 

“It looks like someone got something from the rough gambling stone,” said Elder Fu Yaoshi. “Let’s take a look.”

In the adjacent hall, there were two sections. One selling the windowed rough stones and one selling blind rough stones. The small window that had been shaved off allowed gamblers to know that there was jade in the stone. However, whether the interior resembled the exposed parts were debatable. Without a cross-cut, there was no guarantee that the rest of the stone contained anything valuable. Colorless and cloudy jadeite did not have much value and could only be sold as regular stone boulders. 

The blind rough stones that had no shaved reveal. The stones looked like any other boulder found on the streets. They were less expensive, but the majority of them were nothing more than rocks. Gambling stones had always been popular, but it had boomed into a billion-dollar industry in recent years. 

Li Yun looked around and randomly inspected a stone. After using and draining half of his energy, Li Yun was beginning to think it wasn't possible to find a high quality stone. There wasn’t any stone that had the same structure as the cut jade. They were too rough. Li Yun wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t the specific type of pattern he was looking for.

Li Yun walked to the adjacent hall with the blind rough stones. There were a lot of selections of raw stones, around 50 of various sizes. There were more amateur gamblers in the hall as the prices were more affordable.

“Hey, that guy is buying a 20kg ore for 6k yuan (1k USD)!” One of the spectators remarked.

6k yuan was a lot for a piece of rock, but there were people out there with disposable income or gambling addiction. Li Yun watched as the floor manager assisted the buyer to the circular saw. There were other people walking around the saw to see what was inside the ore.

There was as much excitement in the room as in the gambling room of Macau. Every time someone buys and cuts open a rough jade, it becomes a spectacle. A few people took out their phones to stream the cut live.

As the blade made the first cut based on the buyer’s request, everyone held their breath. A small piece of the boulder was removed and landed to the side. The interior was nothing but the common dark and stony texture. The buyer sniffled in disappointment but didn’t give up. He instructed the manager to make another cut through the boulder, this time closer to the core. The circular saw spun again making loud mechanical noise. It squealed as the blade cut through the boulder. Once again, no clean or colored crystals of the jade.

After the buyer, there were several who attempted to cut the stone publicly, but only one person found anything of value. Even so, it was a disappointing pea-colored jadeite with many imperfections.

As the spectacle continued, Li Yun analyzed the different gambling stones. Most of the stones were complex and bizarre, but he was specifically looking for a composition that closely matched the cut jade. 

He approached a large 30 kg boulder closer to the center and held onto it with both hands. An image flashed in his mind. It was nearly identical to the compositions he had seen in the cut jadeite.

"This is it," he thought in his head. It took him over an hour to find, but he was able to find something good.

chocomug

<source: .gemguide.com>