A jade cabochon ring set with a clear green oval, domed and polished solid, held by four claws. Each shoulder carries a small pavé of white stones. The band is open at the back and tightens on the finger: there is no size to choose.
In four lines
A domed oval cabochon, held by four claws, not by a closed bezel.
An open band: no size to choose, it tightens on the finger.
Two pavés of white stones on the shoulders, not identified.
Set, therefore unweighable: no figure will be published, and the page says so.
An open band, and why there is no size to choose
The two ends of the band overlap at the back instead of meeting. You put it on by sliding it from the side of the finger, then close it with a light press, and it holds. It is the mounting that forgives the most: a finger swollen on a hot day, a hand that changes over the years, and the ring follows.
So you will see no size dropdown above the buy button, unlike the closed band rings in the shop. Putting one there would mean making you choose a value I would do nothing with. One piece of advice all the same: the metal tires if you open and close it every day. Set it once, and leave it alone.
Four claws, and what that changes
The stone is not enclosed in a band of metal: four claws bite it, two at the top, two at the bottom. The cabochon stays visible over almost all of its surface, girdle included, which a closed bezel forbids. On a stone where translucency is what you judge, that counts.
In exchange, an exposed stone takes corner knocks first, and a claw can lift and catch on a fabric. Check the claws twice a year, by running a fingernail over them: if one catches, it has opened, and a jeweller tightens it in two minutes. That is the only maintenance this ring needs.
A clear green, and where it comes from
The green of jadeite comes from chromium, where nephrite’s comes from iron and pulls toward spinach. The two minerals are unrelated: jadeite is a pyroxene, nephrite an amphibole, and it was Alexis Damour who separated them in 1863. What tells them apart.
The cabochon is domed and polished solid, with no facets: the green reads as one block, denser around the rim where the thickness crossed is greatest. And what lets a stone this size hold on four fine claws is the toughness of jade, not its hardness, which stays ordinary. The difference between hardness and toughness.
What the word jade does not cover
What is sold under the name jade is very often serpentine, labelled “new jade” or “Korean jade”, or dyed quartzite, sold as “Malaysia jade”. None of these labels means jade.
On a bare stone, the scale settles it: the four markers in the reading are separated by far more than the uncertainty of a kitchen scale. On a set stone it settles nothing, and this page writes that rather than let you believe otherwise. It is also why none of my pages carries the words certified, guaranteed or appraised: I weigh, I do not certify.
Additional information
Stone
Jadéite
Colour
Clear green
Stone shape
Cabochon
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Metal band
Metal
Silver tone, alloy not stated
Setting
Claw set
Worn by
Women
Paired stones
White stones, not identified
Mineral family
Sodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)
6.5 to 7
Reference density
3.25 to 3.36 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 open bandSeveral late readings see in the unclosed band a figure of what remains in progress, as opposed to the completed circle. It is a modern interpretation, and I give it as such.
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.
