金丝玉 - mauriceling/mauriceling.github.io GitHub Wiki

广东玉商逛石摊，
买得玉质小石蛋。
花了五十回家玩，
零三那日立史栏。

润黄坚硬质地好，
显漏田黄特籽高。
十斤买下两百元，
五彩层次金丝玉。

产地西北新疆漠，
又名戈壁玉石获。
戈壁也出五彩泥，
玉石透光不可替。

玉肉细腻又润手，
沙吹毛孔包浆受。
红透贵于黄和白，
天使泪中宝石光。

戈壁方圆一百里，
冬夏温差八十五。
冷热风沙百万年，
只代惜君一片天。
— 28/12/17.

Commentary: Gobi jade or 金丝玉 is a new type of jade stone that is known in this century. It was said that a jade merchant from Guandong, China, found an interesting stone at a stone merchant’s store in 2003 and spent RMB 50 on it. After playing with it, the jade merchant found that this stone has certain jade-like qualities to it and bought 10 catties of it for RMB 200. These stones came to be known as Gobi jade as they originated from Gobi Desert, within a radius of about 100 km. The best quality ones were known as “tears of angels”.

I came across Gobi jade in 2015 when I was buying some stones in Bugis and is attracted by its main yellow tones with very glossy smooth surface. It does feel like jade to me. Since then, I bought more than 100 pieces online of various qualities. When I ordered online in mid-2016, it was SGD 15 per package of 800 grams, con-sisting between 4 to 15 stones depending on size. Most of them are yellow with a few white or red varieties. Personally, I like the translucent nature of the stone. However, most online merchants were selling for SGD 6-30 per piece by end of 2017. When I read more, it seems that Gobi Desert ran out of such jade for easy pick-ing.