Anyone have experience with maw sit sit?

I have not worked with it but have bought various already made cabs of mawsitsit. One thing I can say is that there are two forms of mawsitsit, so I am not sure how much difference there would be in working with each form.

Tela,

I have worked it before and it grinds very fast, much softer than I had thought. The lighter areas that do not contain jade tend to undercut so a light touch is essential. I was able to get a very high polish on mine though. Pm me if you want me to send you a picture!

Thanks for bringing this up. I love the stuff. I have a small piece and am just going to set it in a stepped bezel.

I've heard it is somehow related to jade and to serpentine. Can somebody explain?

Thanks.

Should I put this in a separate thread?

The two forms of mawsitsit are maw sit sit, which is the darker green material with the black inclusions. This is the one I personally prefer. The other form of mawsitsit is known as Kyet Tayoe and is much lighter green with little or no black inclusions.

Would not touch that stuff here in the markets. Way too much money lost if you get it wrong.

I think I saw some pieces there a few days ago. Due to the extreme nature of the color, they stand out like a sore thumb. The color just looks unreal among all the jade-colors.

Been talking to some locals, and reviewing pics I took in the markets of things that I thought looked interesting and compared notes on what people said that the material is.
Result? Not one; not even a single info given by any one of those creeps was correct.
And prices for the things that I could ID trough the internet where nothing but pure fantasy. Including my cinnabar!

Lesson learned from my visit? Next time (possibly Christmas, as apparently the school likes our job), go there for one or two materials that you know very well, take your time with them, and leave everything else be. I slowly get why I did not see a single foreigner that day in that market.

I have my mawsitsit packed away but found an old pic of them:



They obviously are the two in the upper left corner.  I bought these and one other piece back about 6+ years ago. One I had mounted as a present for my mother who wanted some mawsitsit and I bought the other tow for investment since the mines had been closed down and the price was going up.

Yes, it is mined in the Tawmaw region of Burma.

Last I heard they had closed the mines.  But again that was around 6 years ago.  I don't know if they have ever resumed mining of the material.

I had forgotten that piece was in the barrel, and when I grabbed it it really startled me. Never have I held any rock so bright green. It was like grabbing a piece of a live frog and I jumped a little bit. It wore down quite a bit in 600, so glad I didn't start with anything more coarse. I'm going to process it in 1,000 now which make take several runs because they are still a few cracks. Dry it's not as amazing, but wet--wow.

When I was a child, my fav color was blue. But long ago it became green, so I am extremely fond of green rocks.