A black jade ring carved from a single block: a solid band, wide and domed, a deep black with a mirror polish. No metal, no solder.
Understated and graphic, it is worn on a man’s finger as on a woman’s. A stone ring cannot be resized: measure in the evening, and if you usually wear fine bands, take the size above.
A black jade ring carved from a single block: a solid band, wide and domed, a deep black with a mirror polish. No metal, no added stone, only the line of the band and the light sliding over it.
In four lines
A deep black, polished like a mirror.
A solid band carved from one block, with no metal at all.
Understated and graphic, worn on a man’s finger as on a woman’s.
It cannot be resized: this page helps you choose well.
Black, at its most elegant
This black jade ring does not try to shine through facets or set stones. Its brilliance comes from elsewhere: from a mirror polish so clean that the band reflects the window and the sky, and from a black so deep it seems bottomless. Depending on the light, it moves from ink black to a silvered sheen.
It is the piece people notice without it drawing attention. On the finger it draws a clean, graphic line that goes as well with a suit as with jeans and a jumper.
A single piece of stone
No mounting, no solder: the band is carved, hollowed and polished from a single block of nephrite. The outside is domed to catch the light, and the edges are softened so the ring slides onto the finger. It also exists in a porcelain white: its twin in white jade.
Why a jade can be black
Jade is associated with green, and yet black is one of its old colours. Often, a black nephrite is a green so dark, loaded with iron, that it looks black to the eye; others owe their black to fine graphite inclusions, and the Chinese gave them the name of ink jade. All the colours of jade.
Black does not pick a metal: it goes with a steel watch, a gold signet ring or fine silver bands. On its own, on the index finger, it states an understated style; on the middle or ring finger it becomes more discreet.
It is entirely at ease on a man’s hand, and just as right on a slender hand that likes clean lines. And for a striking contrast, wear it on the finger next to its white twin.
Choosing your size
A stone ring cannot be enlarged or tightened: there is no metal to work. So the size is chosen once and for all, in the dropdown above the buy button. The European size is your finger circumference in millimetres.
Measure in the evening, when fingers are at their largest. Its band is wide, and a wide band grips more than a fine one: if you hesitate between two sizes, or if you usually wear fine rings, take the size above, just one. Measuring your finger in two minutes.
Wearing it, and keeping it bright
A mirror polish has a character: it shows everything. Fingerprints show on it, and a wipe with a soft dry cloth returns its shine in a second. Fine scratches show too, more than on a pale stone: dust contains quartz, harder than jade, so avoid setting it down on a sandy surface or storing it loose with other pieces. Hardness and toughness, the difference.
Take it off for sport, for DIY and for gardening: a sharp knock against a hard surface can crack any stone. Lukewarm water, a mild soap and a soft cloth are enough to look after it. Never ultrasonics, steam or solvent.Care in detail.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Black
Stone shape
Solid band
Motif
No motif
Mounting
None
Metal
None
Setting
No setting
Worn by
Unisex
Paired stones
None, jade only
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 6.5
Reference density
2.90 to 3.03 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to black jade
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are usages and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece of jewellery in this shop is sold as a treatment, and I attribute no effect to this one.
A stone of moral virtueIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than with effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of all.
Ink jadeChinese lapidaries call ink jade a black nephrite whose colour recalls the calligrapher's ink stick. The name ties the stone to the brush, and so to the world of scholars.
Black, the colour of the NorthAn ancient Chinese treatise on rites, the Zhouli, assigns six ritual jades to Heaven, to Earth and to the four directions. The dark jade there is the one of the North.
Two mournings, two coloursIn the West, black is the colour of mourning; in China, it is white. The same black band therefore does not tell the same story depending on which side of the world it is worn.
Dispatch within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no stock in reserve, and I will not promise a date I could not meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 whatever the destination, free on orders over €47 to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece travels in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not a question of presentation: the hardness of jade is unremarkable, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together arrive marked.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No need to give a reason. An email is enough to open a return; there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids it. The size guide.
Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That is all, and it is enough.
What You Must Never Do, and Why
No ultrasonic cleaners, no steam, no solvents, no heat source. This is not a precaution for show: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier does not know it, and weighing identifies the mineral without telling me anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The information sheet on treatments.
Scratches, and Where They Come From
Jade is tough, meaning very difficult to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it usable for axe heads in the Neolithic. Its hardness, by contrast, is unremarkable, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7: that is what dulls a jade, not knocks. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and cream, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening and sport, where knocks against hard edges are common. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. French, from Morbihan, living in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them mounted: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. What I bring is the selection, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am not a gemmologist, not a lapidary, not a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not Certify
Before a listing goes online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unmounted, I weigh it in air, then suspended from a thread in a glass of water: the ratio of the two masses gives the density, and that figure separates jadeite, nephrite, serpentine and dyed quartzite without ambiguity.
One example per listing, and not every piece. I do not handle the piece that is sent to you, and I would rather write that down than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier does not know it, and the scales do not tell me: they identify the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. So you will never read “Grade A jadeite”, “Type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where My Jade Comes From
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is legal. Not the one you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did ban these stones in the United States, but that ban was lifted on 7 October 2016. What applies today dates from 8 April 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but a US person is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. A single supply chain serves ten markets, so it has to hold up in the most demanding of them. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin charter.
