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Clay Iām sorry but that is not my experience and no matter just how good your Thai guy is my friends are pretty good too. My wifeās friend is a retired university professor her ex husband was governor in one of the Provenceās she has written a dozen books detailing the story and works by the master carvers across China. From 2008 I began traveling in China and with our friend have met, been to their studios become good friends with many of them.The market for "ice" jade is very new. There is no traditional source of transparent jade. All the "ice" jade comes from Guatemala - that material has only been available in Asia for about 4 years. The clear jades from Guatemala were treated with great suspicion in the trade for the 20 years or so since it was discovered but just recently there has been some demand. None of the Guatemala jades resemble traditional Asia/India jades in color or texture so I suspect they will be an expensive novelty for some time to come.
I've seen a lot of the black material you show. It's most often carved by local lapidaries. When I inquired about the material in the early 1980's my Thai lapidary contact steered me away with a chuckle. I asked what the inclusions were since they don't tarnish and he asked me with a wink if I knew of any natural metallic minerals that didn't tarnish. That led me to suspect it may be a man made or enhanced material. My mother had a collection of carvings of this same black material, it's heavy, tough, doesn't seem to take a good polish on the black portion and the brassy parts didn't tarnish in the 50+ years she had them. I'm not sure exactly what it is but it isn't natural jade.
The GIA published an article on the Guatemala jades just this spring.
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www.gia.edu