Jade Band Ring, Solid Nephrite Carved in the Round
44,90 €
A jade band ring, carved in one piece from nephrite: no cabochon, no setting, no metal. A wide band, domed, polished solid.
It cannot be resized, ever: jade is not cut open and soldered back the way a metal is. Measure at the end of the day, and take the size above if you hesitate. The size guide.
It is the only ring in the shop that will be weighed: the others carry a set cabochon. The figure will be published here, with its date. Treatment status not determined.
A jade band ring carved in one piece from nephrite: no cabochon, no setting, no metal. The band is wide, domed on top, polished solid, and its dark green shifts in patches depending on where the light falls.
In four lines
Carved in one piece from the stone: no metal, no setting.
It cannot be resized, ever. The size you choose is final.
A bare stone from end to end, therefore weighable: the figure will be published here.
A dark green that shifts in patches, with grain visible in the mass.
It cannot be resized, and that has to be read before choosing
A silver ring that is too small gets opened up again by a jeweller. This one does not: it is carved from a block, and jade is not cut open and soldered back the way a metal is. The size you choose above the buy button is final. It is the same problem as the bangle, moved to the finger.
The European size is the finger circumference in millimetres: a 54 measures 54 mm around the inside, nothing to convert. Measure with a tailor’s tape or a strip of paper, at the end of the day rather than on waking, since the finger is thinner in the morning. And on a band as wide and domed as this one, take the size above if you hesitate: the width makes the ring bear on more of the finger, and it grips more tightly at equal size. The size guide.
What solid stone changes
There is nothing on this ring that can wear out other than the stone: no claw that lifts, no setting that holds water, no silver that tarnishes. It is cleaned with lukewarm water and a mild soap, and that is all.
In exchange, it asks for some attention to corner knocks. Jade is very tough, its interlocking fibrous structure stops a crack from spreading, and that is what lets a ring of stone hold on a finger. But its hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite: the quartz in household dust, which sits at 7, dulls the dome over time, and a sharp knock on a door frame chips an edge. The difference between hardness and toughness.
A green that shifts, and what that indicates
The colour is not uniform: it moves in patches, darker on one side, almost olive on the other, with grain visible in the mass when the light grazes it. That is what a natural material does, where the iron did not distribute itself to order.
It is not proof, and the treatment status of this piece remains not determined. It is simply the opposite of the signal that should alert you: a colour rigorously identical everywhere, or one that follows a network of fissures rather than the mass. The checks that need no equipment.
Nephrite, and what that word changes
This piece is stated as nephrite, a calcic amphibole, one of the two minerals the word jade covers. The other is jadeite, a pyroxene, and the two are unrelated: Alexis Damour established that in 1863. What tells them apart.
For a ring carved from the block, nephrite is the better of the two: it is the tougher, and a ring of solid stone is precisely the object that tests that property every day. Its green comes from iron and pulls toward spinach, where jadeite’s comes from chromium and rings clearer. Jade for men, this form being worn just as well either way.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Dark green
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 a jade ring
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.
The ring of solid stoneRings carved from the block are attested in China long before metal settings: the archer wore a thumb ring in jade, an object of rank as much as of use. The form is ancient, its function has changed.
Pale greenLight, milky greens were long distinguished from clear greens in the Chinese jade trade, without a fixed hierarchy taking hold. The rankings vary by period and by house.
The scholar's ringIn imperial China, the jade ring was also worn as a mark of rank and of study, not only as an ornament. It is the usage best attested by surviving objects.
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.
