{"title":"Featured","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe pieces we would put in the window.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot a sales chart — nothing here has been open long enough to have one. This is a choice, made at the bench, about which pieces say the most about the rest.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"green-agate-bird-butterfly-ring","title":"The Flight Itself — Green Agate Bird \u0026 Butterfly Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a river in Sicily that has been renamed at least four times. Around 300 BC it was called the Achates, and a Greek called Theophrastus — Aristotle's student, the first person we know of who tried to write a serious book about rocks — recorded that a banded stone was being pulled out of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe named the stone after the river. Agate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe river is now the Dirillo and has almost no agate left in it. The name outlived the supply by two thousand three hundred years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore it was jewellery it was administration. In Mesopotamia agate was carved into cylinder seals, rolled across wet clay to sign a contract. Rome kept the habit and put it into signet rings — a stone hard enough to take a carving, and hard enough that the carving would not soften after ten thousand pressings. When a Roman pressed an agate into wax, the point was not decoration. The point was that this could not be faked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe banding is real geology, not pattern-making: chalcedony laid down in the cavity of a lava bubble, one microscopically thin layer at a time, each one recording a slightly different chemistry in the water that made it. You are looking at a sediment log. It just happens to be beautiful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eI chose green agate here because the silver work is already busy — a bird, a butterfly, leaves — and a loud stone would have turned it into an argument. The agate sits underneath all of it and holds still.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating on the wings and leaves, so the two metals do the work the stone is not asking to do. The band is open, which means a little forgiveness in the fit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMade after you order it. Up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£159 at launch, £179 after.\u003c\/strong\u003e This one takes the longest at the bench of anything in the first collection, because every leaf edge is finished by hand and there is nowhere to hide a rushed one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural green agate — 3.5×7 mm marquise, 4×6 mm oval and pear, 3×3 mm round\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNano emerald-green accent stones — laboratory-grown, not mined emerald\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOpen band — adjusts a little\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarried for centuries as a stone of steadiness and of proof. Some people feel something when they put it on. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a two-thousand-year-old idea you are wearing on your finger.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038640414890,"sku":"ASI8-AGA-001","price":159.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p01a.jpg?v=1786491298"},{"product_id":"rainbow-moonstone-ring","title":"Inner Moon — Rainbow Moonstone Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNot luck. Company.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore anyone knew what light was made of, the Romans decided this one was made of moon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePliny the Elder wrote it down in the first century. That the stone held the moon inside it. That its brightness rose and fell with her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was a naturalist, not a mystic. He was writing what his century held to be true, and he was not embarrassed about it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was wrong about the moon. He was right that something in there moves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe effect has a name now — adularescence. Light goes in, meets layers inside the stone thinner than the wavelength itself, and comes back out as a blue drift sitting just under the surface rather than on it. Tilt it and the glow moves before you do. No cutter puts that there. It is in the stone or it isn't.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe word comes from Mount Adular in the Swiss Alps, where the first specimens were catalogued. The finest still come from one stretch of ground near Meetiyagoda in Sri Lanka, dug by hand out of pits, as it has been for centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn India it has never been an ordinary stone. It is laid out on yellow cloth. And it was the stone you were given when you were going somewhere — pressed into your hand when nobody could come with you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat is the part I keep returning to. \u003cstrong\u003eNot luck. Company.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe one here is rainbow moonstone, which is not strictly moonstone at all. It is labradorite, feldspar's other daughter, and it throws more than blue — gold at one angle, a green edge at another.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI set it open, in silver shaped like leaves, because I wanted it to look found and then grown around, rather than mounted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£129 at launch, £139 after\u003c\/strong\u003e — the lowest price in the collection, along with two others, and that is a decision rather than an accident. This is the piece I want to be somebody's first.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural rainbow moonstone (labradorite)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarried for centuries by people going somewhere alone. Some feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a stone with the moon apparently caught inside it.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038640513194,"sku":"ASI8-MOO-003","price":139.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p03a.jpg?v=1786491298"},{"product_id":"citrine-butterfly-floral-open-ring","title":"The Flower of Plenty — Citrine Butterfly Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe merchant's stone. Kept where money was counted.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCitrine has been called the merchant's stone for so long that the reason has almost been forgotten. It is not poetic. Traders kept it in the till.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe logic was plain: a yellow stone the colour of gold, kept where money was counted, on the principle that like calls to like. It was in cash boxes, in ledger drawers, sewn into the lining of a coat that carried takings home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is one of the very few stones whose folklore is about commerce rather than love or war, and I find that refreshing. Every other stone in this collection is about how you feel. This one is about what you are owed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuartz is hard enough to be worn without ceremony — 7 on the Mohs scale, the same as the sand that scratches everything softer than it. A ring you can put on in the morning without thinking about it, which is the point of a stone you keep near the money.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe merchant's stone was for the ordinary Tuesday, not the occasion.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe setting is open floral silver with a butterfly, and the citrine sits where a bud would. Open band, so a little give in the fit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating on the butterfly. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£199 at launch, £219 after.\u003c\/strong\u003e Priced for the silver work, which is where the hours actually went.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural citrine\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOpen band — adjusts a little\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTraditionally kept where money was counted. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the only stone in the collection with a head for business.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038643265706,"sku":"ASI8-CIT-005","price":189.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p05a.jpg?v=1786491298"},{"product_id":"blue-sapphire-bird-ring-earrings","title":"Sapphire Flight — Blue Sapphire Bird Ring \u0026 Earrings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSapphire and ruby are the same mineral. Corundum. A red one is a ruby and every other colour is a sapphire, and the entire distinction is a trace of chromium versus a trace of iron and titanium. One element's difference and four thousand years of separate mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorundum is 9 on the Mohs scale. Only diamond is harder, and diamond is a long way off at 10 — but nothing else in ordinary life comes near. \u003cstrong\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMedieval clergy noticed. Sapphire became the stone of the ecclesiastical ring — heaven's colour on the hand of somebody who was meant to be pointing at it. Pope Innocent III fixed it in the twelfth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSri Lanka has been supplying them for over two thousand years. Ratnapura — the name means city of gems — sits on gravel beds that Marco Polo wrote about and that men still work in pits by hand, standing in water, sieving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth pieces here are birds, in silver with gold-plated wings, set with blue sapphire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI put a ring and earrings together because a bird alone reads as an ornament and a pair reads as a pair — which is different, and better.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sapphires are natural. Like the overwhelming majority of sapphire sold anywhere in the world, they are heat-treated: standard, permanent, disclosed, and practised since antiquity. Untreated sapphire of good colour exists and is priced for collectors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£209 at launch, £229 after\u003c\/strong\u003e — for both pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural blue sapphire — heat-treated, as is standard\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBlue accent stones set around each bird\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRing and earrings, sold together\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWorn for centuries as a stone of safekeeping. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the second-hardest thing there is, in the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038658994346,"sku":"ASI8-SAP-015","price":219.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p15a.jpg?v=1786491297"}],"url":"https:\/\/asieight.com\/collections\/featured.oembed","provider":"Asi8","version":"1.0","type":"link"}