Green and White Jade Ring, a Mottled Band

50,90 €

Green and white jade ring: a solid band where patches of bright green cross a very pale ground on the diagonal.

The pattern cannot be ordered. It comes from the way the colour was distributed in the block, and the cut passes through it at random: the photographs show one example, not yours.

A two coloured stone tells you more than a plain one: on a jade the green and the white melt together; on a dyed quartzite the colour follows the network of micro cracks. The checks to make.

How to Measure Your Size: The Guide, Family by Family

French sizing: the finger circumference in millimeters, so a 54 measures 54 mm.

Category:

A green and white jade ring: a solid band where patches of bright green cross a very pale ground on the diagonal. The pattern cannot be ordered, it comes from the way the colour was distributed in the original block, and it falls differently on every ring.

In four lines

  • A solid band in bare stone: no mount, no seam, no metal.
  • Green patches in a pale ground, falling differently on every ring.
  • It cannot be resized: a stone ring does not adjust.
  • The record will be published: nothing hinders the weighing here.

The mottling, and why no two rings are alike

The colour of jade is not spread evenly through a block. It gathers in veins and patches, according to the way the colouring elements travelled while the rock formed. When a band is cut out of that, the cut passes at random through that distribution.

So one ring will have a wide green patch on top and an almost white back, the next will be crossed by a diagonal, the third barely speckled. The photographs show one example, not yours, and that is worth knowing before ordering.

For many people that is exactly the appeal: you choose a principle, not a reference identical to the last one. For others it is a disappointment, and I would rather it came before the purchase.

What the contrast lets you check

A two coloured stone tells you more than a plain one. On a jade coloured through its mass, the green and the white melt into each other through gradients, sometimes sharp but always progressive at the scale of a millimetre, because the colour is in the material.

On a dyed quartzite the boundary is quite different: the colourant has lodged in the porosity and follows the network of micro cracks, which gives cobweb outlines rather than patches. Against the light, near a window, that network shows without a loupe.

It is the most useful examination on this reference, and it needs no equipment. The checks that need no equipment.

A ring that cannot be adjusted

The stone is the band, cut and drilled in one piece. Jade allows that because it is tough, its interlocked crystals resisting the spread of a crack, which is a quite different property from hardness. The difference between the two.

So it cannot be resized: no filing, no tightening, no stretching. It has to be right first time, and fingers swell with heat and at the end of the day. The size guide.

As for the word jade on its own, it says little: what is sold under that name is very often serpentine or dyed quartzite. None of those names denotes jade. All the rings in the shop, and what separates the two minerals.

Additional information

StoneJadeite or nephrite, not resolved
ColorTwo tone
Stone shapeSolid band
MotifNo motif
MountingNone
MetalNone
SettingNo setting
Worn byUnisex
Mineral familyCalcic amphibole, Sodium aluminum pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)6 to 7
Reference density2.90 to 3.36 g/cm³
ToughnessExceptional, interlocking crystals
TreatmentNot determined
OriginOutside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed

What tradition attributes to two coloured 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.

Two colours in one stone Chinese carvers made a speciality of using the colour zones of a block: a white ground and a green patch become a fish in the foam or a leaf on snow. The practice has a name, qiao se, the clever colour, and it is among the most prized skills of the craft. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
White before green Cultivated Chinese taste long placed white nephrite at the top, well above green. The present hierarchy comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, from the eighteenth century onward, and it is a matter of fashion rather than of quality.
The jade you patinate by hand Chinese 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.
A stone of moral virtue In 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.

These readings are told, not verified. The virtues attributed to jade, said honestly, and the moral virtues in Confucius.

A stone does not replace a doctor and treats nothing: the full warning is here.

Lead Times

Shipped within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from the day it ships. I keep no buffer stock, and I will not promise a date I cannot meet.

Shipping Costs

€6.99 no matter the destination, and free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The exact amount shows in your cart before you pay.

The Packaging, and Why It Matters

Every piece leaves in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not about presentation: jade’s hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust rates 7. Two pieces of jewelry that travel together arrive scratched.

Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind

No reason needed. One email opens a return, and there is no form to fill out. Return shipping is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.

Getting the size wrong is the leading cause of returns 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.

It is all spelled out here, with no fine print.

The Simple Routine

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 cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. The reason is not caution for its own sake: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier cannot tell me, and the weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The treatment information page.

The Scratch, and Where It Comes From

Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it possible to turn it into axes 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 rates 7, and that is what dulls a jade, not impacts. The difference between the two.

Day to Day

Put the piece on after perfume and lotion, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening, and sports, where the hard knocks happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone does: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.

Cleaning a jade piece and storing it.

What I Do, and What I Don’t

My name is Jade. I am French, from Morbihan in Brittany, and I live in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I carve nothing, and I do not do the metalwork myself. What I bring is the sorting, and with this material the sorting decides everything.

I am not a gemologist, a lapidary, or a therapist, and I do not claim to be.

I Weigh, I Do Not 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, and not every piece. I never handle the piece that ships to you, and I would rather say so plainly than let anyone believe otherwise. The method, with its three limitations.

What I Cannot Know

The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier cannot tell me, and neither can the scale: it establishes the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only laboratory infrared spectroscopy would settle the question, and I do not have that testing done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information page.

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 October 7, 2016. What applies today dates from April 8, 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but an American is not allowed to do business with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. I run one supply chain for ten markets, and it has to stand up to the strictest one. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin policy.

The whole story.