For a clear head
Night Amethyst — Black Rhodium Ring
Worn for nine hundred years by people other people were relying on.
For nine hundred years it was the stone you wore to be answerable.
Made after you order it · up to 20 days · 925 sterling silver
- 01 A stone is chosen for your order by hand, held to the light.
- 02 It is set in solid silver and cut to your size, finished, and checked.
- 03 It rests, and is wrapped by hand with its card — the stone, and the date it was finished.
- 04 Dispatched with tracking. Up to twenty days.
- Free delivery, no minimum
- Tracked worldwide
- 14-day returns
The story
Amethyst means "not drunken". A-methystos. The Greeks cut wine cups from it and believed you could drink all night and keep your head, and the belief was so durable that it survived the Roman empire, the fall of Rome and the arrival of Christianity without anybody seriously checking.
The church kept it and changed what the sobriety was for. From the early middle ages, an amethyst was set in the ring a bishop wore, and it was kissed. Not a stone of pleasure denied — a stone of being clear-headed because people were relying on you.
For nine hundred years it was the stone you wore to be answerable.
And it was expensive. Until the 1700s amethyst sat with ruby, emerald and sapphire in the top rank of precious stones, priced accordingly, worn by people who could prove they mattered.
Then Brazil. Enormous deposits found in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and within a generation the price collapsed. The same stone, unchanged in every physical respect, went from cardinal's ring to something a schoolgirl could be given.
I think about that more than is probably healthy. Nothing about the stone moved. Only how many of them there were.
I plated this one in black rhodium — dark metal, so the purple has to work for its attention — with gold on the leaves. It is the piece that keeps the first collection from being sweet.
925 sterling silver base, black rhodium and gold plating. Plating on a heavily-worn ring will thin at the contact points over years; that is what plating does, and a jeweller can redo it.
Made after you order it, up to twenty days.
£139 at launch, £159 after.
Materials
- Natural amethyst — 4×6 mm oval, 3×5 mm and 3×3 mm
- Nano emerald-green accent stones — laboratory-grown, not mined emerald
- 925 sterling silver, black rhodium and gold plated
- Made to order, up to 20 days
Worn for centuries to keep a clear head. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the stone that a bishop's ring and a schoolgirl's pendant have in common.
Night Amethyst — Black Rhodium Ring
Every frame is the piece itself, photographed as it is — amethyst, set in solid sterling silver.
Amethyst
Two and a half thousand years of being worn by people who had to keep their head.
-
01
The one everybody knows
Sobriety
The Greeks cut wine cups from it and drank all night on the belief that the stone would keep them clear. The name says it outright: a-methystos, not drunken.
Greek, from the 4th century BC -
02
Less known
Office
From the early middle ages an amethyst sat in the ring a bishop wore, and it was kissed. Not pleasure denied - clear-headedness because other people were relying on you.
Latin church, 11th century onward -
03
Almost nobody knows
Rank, lost
Until the 1700s it sat with ruby, emerald and sapphire in the top rank of stones. Brazil was opened, the price collapsed in a generation, and nothing about the stone had changed. Only how many there were.
Brazilian deposits, 18th-19th century
All of the above is history and folklore, written down because it is real and it is interesting. It is not a claim about what the stone will do. Some people feel something. Some don’t. More in The Codex
Everything we can tell you
-
01
The stone
Amethyst. What we know about the material in this piece is written on the page above, in the measurements we were given. Where a stone is lab-grown or treated we say so by name. We never call a treated stone natural, and we never use the phrase “semi-precious”.
Read what it has been carried for → -
02
The metal
Solid 925 sterling silver. This design carries a plated finish over that silver. Plating is a surface, and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not. We never plate base metal, and we never describe plating as solid gold.
How to keep it → -
03
Made after you order
Nothing here sits in a warehouse. Work begins when the order does, and the piece takes up to 20 days before it ships. Your ring size is cut at that point, which is why we ask for it at checkout.
Making & delivery → -
04
Size & fit
Ring sizes run 4.5 to 10 (UK J to U). Measure warm, at the end of the day, and take the reading three times.
How to measure at home →
- Free UK delivery
- 30-day returns
- Hallmarked 925 silver
- Nickel-safe fittings
- Gift box included
