Water green jade ring: an oval cabochon in a very light green, claw set in a silver tone openwork of scrolls and leaves.
The openwork is not only decoration: it lets daylight pass behind the stone and come out on top. On a pale translucent green, a solid mount would put the stone out.
A claw setting comes apart, unlike a closed one: the stone comes out, so the weighing is possible and I will publish it. The method.
A water green jade ring: an oval cabochon in a very light green, claw set in a silver tone openwork of scrolls and leaves. The openwork is not only decoration, it lets light pass behind the stone, and that is what holds this pale green up.
In four lines
An oval cabochon in a very light water green, domed and polished.
Silver tone openwork mount: light passes behind the stone.
Claw set, so the stone comes out and can be weighed.
The silver is not hallmarked by my supplier: I write silver tone, not 925.
Why openwork changes everything on a pale stone
A solid mount sets the stone on a bed of metal. On a dark jade that has no consequence: the light was not going to cross it anyway. On a translucent water green it is a disaster, because the stone goes out and looks grey.
Here the mount is pierced right through. Daylight enters from behind, crosses the cabochon and comes out on top, which gives the stone a luminosity it would not otherwise have. It is a technical choice before it is an aesthetic one.
The drawback is upkeep: openwork holds soap, cream and dust. A rinse in lukewarm water and careful drying are enough, but you have to think of it, where a solid mount makes do with a wipe of a cloth.
Claws or closed setting, and what it changes for you
A claw setting holds the stone with four metal legs folded over its edge. It leaves almost the whole stone visible and, above all, it comes apart: a jeweller lifts the claws, takes the stone out, and folds them back. That is what lets me weigh this reference.
A closed setting, by contrast, shuts the stone inside a continuous collar. It is safer, nothing catches, but it forbids removal: the pages in the shop that carry one announce an empty record, and they say so. The oval jade ring is one such case.
Day to day, claws call for a check now and then: a claw that spreads is mended in two minutes at a jeweller, a lost stone is not recovered.
What you can look at yourself
On a pale translucent cabochon, the simplest thing is to hold it in front of a lamp and look at what comes through. Jade spreads a soft, milky glow; a glass lets light through frankly, without that veil; a resin blocks it.
Look also at the reflection that moves when you turn your hand. On a stone it glides in a soft band, because it forms partly below the surface. On a glass it stays sharp and local. The checks that need no equipment.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to water green 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.
Water green, called the colour of springVery pale greens have their own name in the Chinese jade trade, and they were long preferred to bright greens in scholarly taste, where restraint counted more than brilliance. The fashion for intense green is recent and commercial.
Transparency as a qualityConnoisseurs judge a jadeite on its shui, its water, that is the depth to which light enters it. A pale but deep stone is worth more than a vivid, opaque one, and that hierarchy is old. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
The jade you patinate by handChinese 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.
White before greenCultivated Chinese taste long placed white nephrite at the top, well above green. The present hierarchy comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, and it is a matter of fashion rather than of quality.
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.
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.
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.
