Jade flower ring: two blooms in a frank green, carved in the round and set side by side on a silver tone band, each with a small pink stone at its heart.
The band is open at the back, so this one adjusts to the finger. It is the exception of the section: every other jade ring here is a solid band that cannot be resized.
The pink stones are not announced by my supplier, and the silver is not hallmarked: I write silver tone, not 925. Why I write it down.
A jade flower ring: two blooms in a frank green, carved in the round and set side by side on a silver tone band, each with a small pink stone at its heart. The band is open at the back, so this one adjusts, which makes it the exception of the section.
In four lines
Two blooms carved in the round, not engraved on a surface.
Silver tone band open at the back: this one adjusts to the finger.
Claw set, so the stone comes out and can be weighed.
The silver is not hallmarked by my supplier: I write silver tone, not 925.
The only ring in the section that adjusts
All the other jade rings in the catalogue are solid bands cut from the stone: they cannot be resized, neither by filing nor by tightening, and they have to be right first time.
This one is different. The band is metal and it is open at the back, the two ends overlapping slightly. You widen it or close it by hand, gently, and it holds. It is the simplest answer when you do not know the size, and by far the easiest to give.
Two precautions: do not reshape it too often, because metal tires, and do not force it in one sharp movement. The size guide is still useful for starting from an approximate size. The size guide.
Carved in the round, and what that means
An engraving removes material from a flat surface. A carving in the round releases a complete volume, which can be looked at from every angle: here each flower has petals hollowed right through, a pierced centre to receive the pink stone, and a rounded back.
That is far more work than a cabochon, and far riskier: every thinned petal is a start for a fracture. Jade takes it thanks to its toughness, its interlocked crystals resisting the spread of a crack. No other common ornamental stone would hold at that thickness. The difference between hardness and toughness.
The two flowers are not identical, and that is normal: a hand carving repeats itself without superimposing. Perfect symmetry between the two would, on the contrary, be the sign of a casting.
What I do not know, and what I write
The two small pink stones at the heart of the flowers are not announced by my supplier. I am not going to call them rubies because they are red, nor spinel because it sounds well: they are flagged in the record as not announced, and they will stay so until I know more.
The silver is not hallmarked either. So I write it as silver tone, and not 925: a hallmark is information, and I do not invent it. The shop does carry one piece whose metal is genuinely hallmarked, the jade and sterling silver bracelet.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the flower and to 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 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 plum blossomThe plum tree flowers at the end of winter, on bare wood, often before the thaw. It figures tenacity in Chinese painting and poetry, and its five lobes are brought close to the five blessings of the traditional wish. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Giving jadeIn ancient Chinese usage, jades were given to seal an agreement or mark an alliance, between families as much as between people. The object stood for a commitment, and its quality said how serious the giver was.
The jade you patinate by handChinese usage holds that a jade worn every day becomes warmer and brighter with the years. What changes is the surface, polished by friction and by the natural oils of the skin: the effect is real, the explanation is mechanical.
White before greenCultivated Chinese taste long placed white nephrite at the top, well above green. The present hierarchy comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, and it is a matter of fashion rather than of quality.
Dispatched within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no buffer stock, and I won’t promise a timeframe I couldn’t meet.
Postage charges
€6.99 to any destination, free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount appears in the cart before you pay.
The packaging, and why it matters
Every piece ships in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This isn’t about presentation: the hardness of jade is ordinary, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together end up scratching each other.
Fourteen days to change your mind
With no need to explain yourself. An email is enough to open a return, there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece doesn’t match its listing or arrives damaged.
The wrong size is the main reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes of measuring almost always prevents it. The size guide.
Warm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That’s all, and it’s enough.
What you must never do, and why
No ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. This isn’t a token precaution: the treatment status of my pieces is not established. My supplier doesn’t know, and weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin tolerates 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 hard to break: its interlocking crystal structure resists fracturing, and that is why axes could be shaped from it in the Neolithic. Its hardness, on the other hand, is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in everyday dust sits at 7: that is what dulls 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 the knocks against corners happen. 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. I’m French, from Morbihan, and based in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and I don’t do the metalwork myself. The work I do is the sorting, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am neither a gemmologist, nor a lapidary, nor a therapist, and I don’t claim to be.
I weigh, I don’t certify
Before putting a reference online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unset, 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 reference, not every piece. I don’t handle the piece that goes out to you, and I would rather say so than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I can’t know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier doesn’t know, and the scales say nothing about it: they establish the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I don’t have that done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where my jade comes from
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is a legal one. Not the reason you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did indeed 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-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no general ban, but an American is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has passed through. One single supply chain for ten markets: it has to hold up for the most demanding of them. When an origin isn’t confirmed to me in writing, the listing doesn’t state it. My sourcing policy.
