Is your jade necklace broken? These are your options

Jade may be as strong as steel but it's brittle and that makes it vulnerable to breaks and chips. If your jade necklace has broken you have a few options. Read them below. Our carvers have been dealing breaks for 25 years now so they're experts at fixing them.

1. My jade necklace has snapped

Approx cost $35NZD+ (if fixable)

The most common break we encounter is a clean snap right through the necklace. It's the worst type of break because 99% of the time we can't 'fix' it. We can however try to re-carve it. Depending on your design and the location of the break we would take one of three courses of action:

a. Pin and glue

If we can, we will pin the two pieces of jade together and glue them there. The glue is extremely strong, but if knocked while being worn you could lose a piece without knowing, so if glued we recommend it be displayed in the owners house in a frame, and a new one purchased to wear.

b. Reshape

We may be able to shape the two broken pieces into two separate necklaces, or we could reshape the larger of the two pieces. A lot of customers imbue their jade with special meaning so transforming the broken piece into a 'new' one is a great way to retain that meaning.

c. Purchase a new necklace

Unfortunately some snapped necklaces just can't be repaired. The necklace may be too small, it may have been cracked in too many places, or the cost to repair it may be higher than the cost of the necklace itself. In these cases all we can do is help you select a replacement necklace. Use the code MJBROKEN5 in the checkout to receive a 5% discount on your replacement necklace.

If your necklace has snapped we need a clear image of it for our carvers to assess. Email this to us at sales@mountainjade.co.nz and we will let you know which of the above routes you should take.

2. My cord is fraying

Approx cost $10NZD

If you wear your necklace all day every day then it's likely your necklace cord will fray and weaken at a faster rate. We need to know how long you want the replacement cord to be if this is the case. If that's the same length as your current one then measure it and email us the measurements along with an image of the carving.

3. I've chipped my necklace

Approx cost $35NZD

Assuming the chip is small the odds are we can fix it by sanding the chipped area of your necklace. It will likely change the carvings shape but there's no way around that. First we need to see the chipped area of the necklace so take a photo of the affected area and email it to us.

4. The binding of my necklace is coming off

Approx cost $35NZD

This is an easy fix. Usually the binding loosens because the oil from your skin softens the nylon strands that bind the necklace and they lose tension. We have a variety of cord thicknesses in different colours to bind with so we can replace the original binding exactly. We will need you to send the necklace to us in New Zealand so we can fix it. Like all of the other breaks it's always good to send an image to us at sales@mountainjade.co.nz with some instruction first.

5. I've cracked my necklace

Cannot be fixed

If you bang or drop your necklace it could crack. Unfortunately there is not much we can do in this situation.

If it's a minor crack you can continue to wear the necklace. If it's a major crack stop wearing the necklace immediately as you run the risk of losing it if a piece falls off without your knowledge. If you run your fingernail over the crack and it catches, it's severe so stop wearing it. In this situation we will need three images from you. The first is an in focus image of the cracked carving in sunlight, the second is a close up of the crack and the third is the carving held in your hand backlit by a lamp.

With these three images we will know if the carving can or cannot be worn and if it needs any attention. Email these images to sales@mountainjade.co.nz with some background on how you cracked the necklace to ensure we help you the best we can.