Jamey,
I agree that the quality of the carving on the bead leaves alot to be desired, I always thought the crude carving gave this bead character that a perfectly carved could never have.

I also agree with you that most "Jade" beads are not Jade I have collected Jade for nearly thirty years and have spent a good part of those years educating my self on Jade especially during nine months in the PRC and some months in Hong Kong in the late eighties. I honestly think that this bead is a low grade piece of Guatemalan Jade, perhaps not.

I do want to thank you for at least saying something about this bead. One reason for putting it up is that there are very few stone beads posted and I wanted to try to generate some interest in what I feel is a quite often overlooked material in bead collecting. Stone beads aren't usually as eye catching as the beautiful glass beads but they are quite collectable.

My wife Suzi and I atarted collecting beads in the late seventies and we have a very large collection of both glass and stone, over the coming months I'll try and post some of my more interesting stone beads I just need to dig them out of storage.

Thanks again Jamey .......... All my best ...... Danny