Thin Jade Bangle, a Slender Ring from a Single Block
40,90 €
Thin jade bangle, cut from a single block, with no hinge and no clasp. A light, very translucent green on a slender ring that lets itself be forgotten on the wrist.
It is taken at the inside diameter, not at the wrist. A thin ring passes the hand more easily than a wide one, and is readily worn two or three together. Measure before ordering.
Species to be established by weighing, jadeite or nephrite. Treatment status undetermined: my supplier does not know it, and my scale does not say it. Why I write it down.
A thin jade bangle, cut from a single block, in a light and very translucent green. It is the opposite of the massive bangle: it lets itself be forgotten on the wrist, it passes the hand more easily, and it is readily worn several at a time. In exchange it asks for more care, because a thin ring takes a knock less well.
In four lines
A thin ring, cut from a single block: no hinge, no clasp, no seam.
Taken at the inside diameter, with less margin than a wide bangle.
Worn on its own, or two and three together, and then heard softly.
Treatment status undetermined, and the page writes it rather than let anything be assumed.
What a thin ring changes, one way and the other
A thin bangle has two immediate advantages. It passes the hand better: it slides on at an angle and profits from its tilt, where a wide ring stays flat. And it layers: two or three thin bangles are worn together without overloading the wrist, which a single massive bangle forbids.
It has a drawback too, and I prefer to write it. A thin section takes a knock less well. Jade is remarkably tough, but toughness protects against the spread of a crack, not against a sharp blow on the corner of a table or a fall onto tiles. A thin bangle comes off for housework and sport; so does a massive one, but it forgives more.
For the measurement the rule does not change: it is not the wrist you must measure, it is the passage of the hand. Hand closed, thumb folded as far as it will go into the palm, take the circumference at the widest point and divide by 3.14. The method in detail, and the size guide.
A light green, and why it is worth checking
This bangle is a light, frank green, clearly translucent: set in front of a window, the ring lets the daylight through across its whole section. That is exactly what you come to it for if you do not like dark greens, and it is also the most imitated colour in the section.
In jadeite, a sodium aluminium pyroxene, the green comes from chromium. In nephrite, an amphibole, it comes from iron and turns towards spinach. On a piece as light and limpid as this one, both readings stay open until the scale has spoken. What separates the two minerals.
And what allows a ring this thin to be cut from a stone is not its hardness, it is its toughness: a structure of interlocked crystals that resists the spread of a crack. No other ornamental stone would hold at that section. The difference between hardness and toughness.
Why I write thin jade bangle
Because the thickness is the real difference here, ahead of the colour: it is what decides how the piece is worn, how it layers and how it is protected. And because the word jade on its own does not say much. What is sold under that name is very often serpentine, labelled new jade or Korean jade, or dyed quartzite, sold as Malaysia jade. None of those names denotes jade.
The difference stays physical and it can be measured: the four marks of the record are separated by far more than the uncertainty of a kitchen scale. All the bracelets in the section.
Additional information
Stone
Jadeite or nephrite, not resolved
Colour
Light green
Stone shape
Solid bangle
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Rigid bangle
Metal
None
Setting
No setting
Worn by
Unisex
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole, Sodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 7
Reference density
2.90 to 3.36 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the jade bangle
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are customs and beliefs, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
The left wristSeveral Chinese traditions associate wearing the bangle on the left wrist with the idea of receiving rather than giving. The custom is widespread; no basis is known for it other than custom itself. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Wearing several banglesStacking thin bangles is a habit of adornment before it is a symbol. Where a meaning is given to it, it is that of accumulation over time: you add a ring on an occasion, not all of them on the same day.
The bangle that breaksTradition holds that a broken bangle took the blow in place of its wearer. It is a reading after the event, and it says above all how much attachment goes into a piece worn for a long time.
A stone of moral virtueIn 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.
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.
