A jade ring for men, a rectangular cabochon with softened corners, bezel set on a wide sterling silver band. A dark opaque green, shoulders pierced with a medallion.
Take the size above if you hesitate: a wide band feels tighter than a fine band of the same size. The size guide.
A pavé of white stones borders the setting: my supplier does not name them, and I will not do it either. Set, therefore unweighable. Treatment status not determined.
A jade ring for men, mounted on a wide sterling silver band: a rectangular cabochon with softened corners, bezel set, in a dark opaque green. The shoulders of the band are pierced with a circular medallion, and a line of small white stones borders the setting on either side.
In four lines
A rectangular cabochon with softened corners, bezel set on a wide band.
Sterling silver, shoulders pierced with a circular medallion.
A pavé of white stones, not identified, on either side.
Set, therefore unweighable: no figure will be published, and the page says so.
A wide band, and what it changes in the wearing
The band is flat and wide, it does not turn on the finger and it shows under a sleeve. That is the main difference with a fine band: the weight spreads out, the ring stays in place, and the stone always presents face up.
Take the size above if you hesitate. A wide band feels tighter than a fine band of the same size, because it bears on a greater length of finger: the rule holds for every signet ring. Silver can be resized by a jeweller, but a pierced band like this one lends itself to it poorly, since the motif distorts. The size guide.
The medallion on the shoulders
Each shoulder carries a pierced circular medallion, cut into the metal: a circle divided by bars, from the family of Chinese longevity rosettes. I am not going to give its exact reading, these motifs coming in dozens of variants of which several resemble one another, and my supplier does not name it.
What I can say is more down to earth: openwork means less metal and more edges. It lightens the ring and it catches on clothing more. On a working hand, a solid band would be quieter.
A dark opaque green
This stone is a deep green, almost bottle, and it lets no light through: that is a green of nephrite more than of jadeite, the first taking its colour from iron and the second from chromium. But colour points, it does not prove, and the setting forbids weighing: the page therefore writes jadeite or nephrite and stops there. What tells them apart.
Opacity is not a defect. The market overvalues translucency, and that is a pricing convention, not a hierarchy of material: the most sought-after Neolithic jades are opaque. What makes the price of a jade.
What jade takes, and what it does not
Jade is tough: its structure of interlocking crystals resists the propagation of a crack, and that is why axes were made from it in the Neolithic. Its hardness, on the other hand, is ordinary, and the quartz in ambient dust, which rates 7, dulls a cabochon far more surely than a knock. On a man’s ring worn every day, it is the polish on top that will go first. The difference between hardness and toughness.
Lukewarm water, a mild soap, a very soft brush for the openwork. Never ultrasonics, never steam, never solvent: the treatment status being unknown, any resin would not take it, and a bezel setting holds water under the stone. Care in detail, and jade for men.
Additional information
Stone
Jadeite or nephrite, not resolved
Colour
Dark green
Stone shape
Square cabochon
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Metal band
Metal
Sterling silver 925
Setting
Bezel set
Worn by
Men
Paired stones
White stones, not identified
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 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 longevity medallionThe pierced circular rosettes on the shoulders belong to the family of Chinese longevity motifs. They come in dozens of close variants: I name the family, not the exact reading.
Jade worn by menJade was long an attribute of men in China, worn at the belt and on the seal, before it became a woman's ornament in the West. The reversal is recent and cultural, not ancient.
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.
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.
