A genuine jade ring, a water green oval cabochon held by prongs cast into the body of the metal. The stone stays visible almost everywhere, edge included.
An open band, so no size to choose: it slides on from the side of the finger and closes with a light pressure. It is the only ring in the shop with no size dropdown.
Genuine means jadeite or nephrite, never serpentine nor dyed quartzite. Set, therefore unweighable, and treatment status not determined. Why I write it.
A genuine jade ring with a water green oval cabochon, held by irregular prongs cast into the body of the metal. The band is open: its two ends do not meet, and it closes onto the finger. It is the only ring in the catalogue that has no size.
In four lines
An open band: no size to choose, it closes onto the finger.
A water green oval cabochon, held by cast prongs, with no closed setting.
Genuine means jadeite or nephrite, never serpentine nor dyed quartzite.
Set, therefore unweighable: no figure will be published, and the page says so.
What genuine means here, and what it does not mean
On this site, a genuine jade ring is a ring whose stone is jadeite or nephrite, and not serpentine sold under the name “new jade” or “Korean jade”, nor dyed quartzite sold as “Malaysia jade”. None of those names designates jade.
Genuine never opposes untreated to treated. That is the most widespread confusion on the market, and it suits everyone except the buyer. The treatment status of this piece is not determined, it is written in the reading above, and no word on this page suggests otherwise. What the letters A, B and C cover.
An open band, and why there is no size to choose
The two ends of the band do not meet. You slide it on from the side of the finger, then close it with light pressure, and it holds. It is the most forgiving mounting there is: 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 other 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: metal tires if you open and close it every day. Set it once, and leave it alone.
Water green, and what it points to
This stone is a pale, translucent green, the one called water green. On jadeite, that green comes from a low content of chromium; on nephrite, from a low content of iron. It is precisely because the two minerals can produce very close greens that they are not separated by eye, and that a Frenchman had to settle it in the laboratory: Alexis Damour, in 1863, established that they are two unrelated species. What tells them apart.
What does not change from one mineral to the other is toughness: a structure of interlocking crystals that resists the propagation of a crack. It explains how polished axes were made from jade in the Neolithic, and why a cabochon held by four fine prongs does not shatter at the first knock. The difference between hardness and toughness.
Cast prongs rather than a closed setting
The metal does not go around the stone: it crosses it in two or three irregular cast bands that bite over the top. The cabochon stays visible over almost its whole surface, including from the side, which a bezel setting forbids. In exchange, it has to be treated as an exposed stone: it takes corner knocks first. Care in detail.
Additional information
Stone
Jadeite or nephrite, not resolved
Colour
Water green
Stone shape
Cabochon
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Metal band
Setting
Claw set
Worn by
Women
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 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 any 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.
