Black jade bangle in nephrite, carved from a single block, wide and polished solid. The black is crossed by parallel grey bands that appear and disappear depending on the angle.
It is sized by inner diameter, not wrist size: it has to pass your closed hand, thumb tucked in. Measure before you order, it does not open and cannot be resized.
On a black stone the weighing is decisive: obsidian is at 2.4, onyx at 2.6, nephrite never drops below 2.90. Bare stone, therefore weighable. Treatment status undetermined.
A black jade bangle in nephrite, carved from a single block, wide and polished solid. The black is not plain: it is crossed by grey and silver bands, parallel, that appear and disappear depending on the angle. It is the darkest piece in the catalogue, and paradoxically the one the scale judges best.
In four lines
Carved from a single block: no hinge, no clasp, no solder.
Sized by inner diameter, measured across your closed hand.
A black crossed by grey bands, which only show as you turn it.
Bare stone, therefore weighable, and on a black stone the weighing is decisive.
It Does Not Open, So You Measure First
A bangle has neither hinge nor clasp, and it cannot be resized: jade is far too tough to be cut open and soldered back like metal. The only question that matters before you buy is whether your hand will go through.
It is not the wrist you need to measure. Close your hand, tuck your thumb as deep into your palm as it will go, measure around the widest point, and divide by 3.14: that gives you the minimum inner diameter. Add one or two millimetres, because a bangle that only just goes on will go on once, cold. The method in detail, and the size guide.
Black Jade, a Trade Name That Covers Several Things
“Black jade” is not a mineralogical term. Among sellers it describes just about any dark polished stone: nephrite very rich in iron, but also obsidian, a volcanic glass, onyx, which is a chalcedony, or dark serpentine.
Good news: these are materials that density separates by a wide margin. Obsidian is far lighter, around 2.4; onyx and serpentine around 2.6; nephrite never drops below 2.90. Half a point apart is enormous for a kitchen scale. On this piece the measurement will therefore say something clear, which is not the case for the whites in the catalogue. The three limitations of the weighing.
The Grey Bands, and What They Tell You
The black of this piece is run through with parallel pale bands, silvery, that follow the curve of the bangle and shift as you turn it. That is the fibrous structure of nephrite caught lengthwise: the bundles of fibers return the light differently depending on their orientation.
Here too it is not proof, and the treatment status of this piece remains undetermined. But it is the opposite of a warning sign: obsidian would show sheet-like reflections and a conchoidal fracture instead, and coloured glass would show nothing at all. The checks that need no equipment at all.
Wearing It, and What Damages It
Once in place, a bangle sits snug and barely turns. If it turns a lot, it is too big and it will knock against tables. On a dark, mirror-polished piece, micro-scratches show more than anywhere else: the quartz in everyday dust, which rates 7 on the Mohs scale against 6 to 6.5 for nephrite, dulls the curve over time and that reads immediately on a black stone.
Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth, and a pouch it has to itself. Never an ultrasonic cleaner, never steam, never solvents: since the treatment status is unknown, any resin there might be would not survive them. Care in detail, and the difference between hardness and toughness.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Black
Stone shape
Solid bangle
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Rigid bangle
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 Attaches to the Jade Bangle
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blend it into the rest of the listing. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of this stone's history. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
The left wristSeveral Chinese traditions link wearing the bangle on the left wrist to the idea of receiving rather than giving. The custom is widespread; no basis for it is known beyond the custom itself.
Never taking it offA bangle goes on once and stays on, sometimes for a lifetime. The closed shape has much to do with it: this is not a piece of jewellery you choose in the morning, it is an object you wear.
Black jadeBlack has never held, in the Chinese jade tradition, the rank of white or of green. It is a colour of modern trade far more than of ancient ritual, and I say so rather than invent a lineage for it.
The scholar's stoneIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of them all, and it is nephrite the old texts describe, since jadeite only reached China in the 18th century.
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.
