Augusten Burroughs Necklaces

This is a unique handmade necklace featuring 41 translucent high-polish pine-green nephrite jade beads joined to a hand-fabricated, hand-textured heavy silver chain. The juxtaposition between the gleaming, glossy natural and untreated nephrite jade beads against the rugged, hammered and scarred chunky silver chain is great. The rich green beads are strung on vivid deep purple silk with modified a barrel-knot between each bead. I don't design and fabricate many pieces of jewelry but this is one of my creations. The necklace measures just under 37" in length and can be worn as a single strand or doubled. I sourced the nephrite beads from the mining company in Canda who extracted them from the earth. They are individually hand-carved and hand-polished and as a result, there are tiny irregularities in their shapes. My non-standard methods of fabrication result in a silver chain that is uniquely, stylishly crude. Links appear partially soldered (they're fully soldered), irregular in size and shape, nicked, scarred, hammered, and finally hand-finished with a polished sapphire cabochon. Some of the links appear to have a yellow tint in areas: this is gold, absorbed by the silver during the soldering process. In contrast, the pristine jade beads have strung old-school style (not just a single overhand knot) with a slightly more prominent knot that shows off the vivid purple sink...

This contemporary necklace of 59 10mm to 10.5mm nephrite jade beads is a contemporary classic. This is not the unappealing "spinach green" so commonly seen in mall-quality nephrite jade necklaces from the 1970s. These nephrite beads display a glossy high polish, excellent translucency, and an even tone. The coloring is similar to a Norway Spruce...

This jade, diamond, and quartz pendant is a study in translucency. The 25.5mm x 17.5mm oval natural quartz cabochon at the top is semi-transparent and glows like partially melted ice...

Each natural and untreated jadeite bead of this necklace was hand-carved. These beads were sourced from a small family business in Myanmar. They...

Australian chrysoprase is the rarest and most valuable form of chalcedony, which is a form of quartz. I purchased these fine, natural Australian...

If you could wear a necklace made out of small, perfectly spherical bubbles of light, it would probably look like this. Comprised of 120 glassy, semitransparent near-colorless jadeit...

These jade beads are indescribably luminous. As a second-generation collector of jade, I have been around the stone my entire life and yet when I saw these beads I was in awe, for th...

"Rare" is a term I try to avoid because it has joined the pantheon of Words Stripped of Their Meaning Due to the Corrosive Effects of Overuse (see also: delicious, gourmet, amazing, genuine, authentic). But sometimes the old, worn-out word is best. All that to say: this exceedingly *rare* 24" necklace/bracelet is composed of 140 lab-certified natural and untreated kosmochlor-jadeite jade beads...