For a clear head

Plain Speaking — Sky Blue Topaz Ring

Worn for centuries by people who needed to see the situation as it was.

This blue did not exist before 1970.

£139.00~~£159.00~~

Made after you order it · up to 20 days · 925 sterling silver

Ring size

Not sure of your size? Measure it in two minutes

Two minutes with a strip of paper now saves three weeks later. Everything is made after you order, so a size change afterwards means starting again.

1. Cut a strip of paper about 5 mm wide.

2. Wrap it round the base of the finger — snug, but it should pass the knuckle with a little resistance.

3. Mark the overlap, lay it flat, measure in millimetres. Find that number in the circumference column below.

Ring size	Circumference	Inside ø	UK	EU
4.5	48.0 mm	15.3 mm	J	48
5	49.3 mm	15.7 mm	K	49
5.5	50.6 mm	16.1 mm	L	50
6	51.9 mm	16.5 mm	M	52
6.5	53.1 mm	16.9 mm	N	53
7	54.4 mm	17.3 mm	O	54
7.5	55.7 mm	17.7 mm	P	56
8	57.0 mm	18.1 mm	Q	57
8.5	58.3 mm	18.5 mm	R	58
9	59.5 mm	18.9 mm	S	60
9.5	60.8 mm	19.4 mm	T	61
10	62.1 mm	19.8 mm	U	62

Measure in the evening. Fingers are largest at the end of the day. Measuring at 8am in January is the single most common reason a ring turns out tight.
Between two sizes? Take the larger. A ring you cannot get off is a worse problem than one that turns.
Wide bands run small. 6 mm or wider, go up half a size.
Adjustable pieces need no size at all — they open a little and hold.

Not sure? Email your measurement to asi8@gmail.com and we will tell you which number to choose. We would far rather spend five minutes on that than remake a ring.

The millimetres are the inside circumference of the band. Between two sizes, take the larger.

Add the gift box Linen-lined, wax sealed, with the stone card set into the lid. +£25

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

Topaz has been carrying somebody else's name for two thousand years.

Pliny recorded a green stone from an island in the Red Sea called Topazios and the name attached. The island produced peridot. It has never produced topaz. Everyone worked this out eventually and nobody was willing to renumber the whole of Western mineralogy over it, so topaz kept a name it was never owed.

For most of history topaz meant a golden stone. Imperial topaz, sherry-coloured, from Ouro Preto in Brazil — a town whose name means black gold, which is a coincidence I did not arrange.

Now the honest part.

This blue did not exist before 1970. Natural blue topaz occurs, but it is pale and rare and almost none of it reaches a shop. Sky blue topaz is colourless topaz — abundant, cheap, entirely natural — that has been irradiated and then heated to bring the colour up. The process is fifty years old, standard across the industry, and regulated: irradiated gems are held until residual activity falls below legal limits before they can be sold. The colour is permanent.

So this stone is natural, and this colour is ours. Both of those are true at once and I am not going to pick whichever one sells better.

A simple ring on purpose. One stone, a slim band, dark accent stones along the shoulder. Nothing to explain.

925 sterling silver. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.

£129 at launch, £139 after. The lowest price in the collection, and the one I expect to sell most, and it is not the one I would call the least serious.

Materials

Natural topaz — irradiated and heat-treated for colour, as is standard for blue topaz
925 sterling silver
Made to order, up to 20 days

Topaz has been worn for centuries as a stone of clear thinking. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a very good blue.

More Topaz

Blue Antler — Swiss Blue Topaz Deer Jewellery Set £299.00

Open Current — Sky Blue Topaz & Amethyst Drop Earrings £139.00

Unbridled — Amethyst & Blue Topaz Horse Necklace and Brooch £189.00

Broken Light — Mystic Quartz & Topaz Ring £179.00

Seen closer

Plain Speaking — Sky Blue Topaz Ring

Every frame is the piece itself, photographed as it is — topaz, set in solid sterling silver.

01 Sky blue topaz ring in sterling silver

Made after you order it Take this one

01 — 03 Drag, scroll or use ← →

What it has been carried for

Topaz

A stone that has been answering to somebody else’s name for two thousand years.

01
The one everybody knows
Clear sight

Carried for centuries by people who needed to see a situation as it actually was rather than as they would have preferred it.
European lapidaries
02
Less known
The wrong name

Pliny recorded a green stone from a Red Sea island called Topazios. The island produced peridot and never produced topaz. Everyone worked it out and nobody was willing to renumber Western mineralogy over it.
Named in error, c. 77 AD
03
Almost nobody knows
A colour younger than your parents

Sky blue topaz did not exist before about 1970. Colourless topaz - common and cheap - is irradiated and then heated. The stone is natural. The colour is ours, and permanent.
Irradiation process, from 1970

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

Before you decide

Everything we can tell you

01
The stone

Topaz. 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. 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 →