CONVERSATION--STARTING PENDANTS/Unique Pieces Open Doors for This Lapidary

摘要

I helped set up a lapidary hobby shop while I was stationed with the Air Force on Kunsan Air Base, Korea, around 1960. I and the other guys bought apple-green nephrite jade slabs from Rose's Rock Shop in Lander, Wyoming. The 3-inch by 4-inch slabs were cut 1/4 inch thick, as was standard back then. The price was only 7 dollars! If only I had purchased more jade and fewer beers. I cut an outline map of Africa from a piece of this jade while I was stationed in Taiwan for a year, leading a logistics team for a program sending U2 spy planes over Red China. My wife was also in the Air Force, and we hoped to get stationed in Europe next, facilitating a trip to Africa, which led to the design of my pendant. I provided a gold elephant head to a very competent Chinese jeweler, whose workmen added crossed spears and put it all together.