The Banded Stone

The object

• Undyed golden tiger's eye only. The red and blue versions sold everywhere are heat-altered or dyed, and our spec excludes them.
• Beads matched for band direction, which is the difference between a bracelet that moves as one thing and a bag of stones on a string.
• Doubled elastic cord, hand-knotted, knot tucked inside a bead.
• A card on fire in the five-element system, and on the tiger in Chinese tradition.

Materials and craft

Golden tiger's eye, undyed and not heat-altered — the red and blue material that fills this category is one or the other, and neither is disclosed often enough to be an accident. Beads are 8 mm and sorted for band direction so the chatoyancy runs continuously around the wrist rather than flickering bead to bead. Doubled elastic cord, hand-knotted.

What it is in the tradition

The bands move as the stone moves; the effect is called chatoyancy and comes from fibres inside the quartz. Warm amber over dark brown puts it with fire in the five-element system — the element of visibility, of the thing that is seen. In Chinese tradition the tiger is the animal of decisiveness and a guardian figure on gates and children's shoes, and this stone is traditionally worn in that register.

Anything we make is jewelry: an object to wear, and a reminder of an intention you set yourself. We describe its materials, its craft, and what it has meant in Chinese tradition. We do not describe it as something that changes financial outcomes.

How to wear it

The questions every shop in this category leaves unanswered: which wrist, which way round, when to take it off, and what the customs actually are.

1. 01

   Which wrist

   Chinese custom reads the left side as the one that receives and the right as the one that acts, so a stone worn for its own sake usually goes on the left. Regional practice varies — plenty of families follow 男左女右, men on the left and women on the right. Both are customs rather than rules, and we pass them on as customs.

2. 02

   Getting it on without killing the cord

   Roll it over the knuckles rather than stretching it open. Cord fatigue is what ends most bracelets in this category, and cord fatigue is mostly a habit of stretching. Doubled cord buys margin; it does not repeal physics.

3. 03

   When people take it off

   Shower, pool, gym, sleep. Soap works into the cord and stays there, chlorine dulls a polish, and a bracelet caught under a sleeping wrist is where beads chip. Dress first, scent first, bracelet last.

4. 04

   The customs people ask about

   Whether to lend it out, whether two can be worn at once, whether a new piece should be rinsed before wearing. The tradition has answers — a daily piece usually stays with one wearer, and many people rinse a new one under running water or leave it out overnight first. These are observances, not conditions attached to an object doing something, because we make no claim that it does.

Care

Hard enough for daily wear, but the fibrous structure takes a scratch from anything harder — a stacked metal watch case is the usual culprit. Dry cloth, no soaking, no ultrasonic cleaner.