14K Gold Black Onyx Studs - Classic 10x14mm Oval, 1998

Nearly everything in our 14k and 18k gold collection came out of our founder's mother's jewellery shop as a single pair. When it sells, that is the end of it - no second chance, no matching set, no replacement if one goes missing down a sink. This design is the exception. It was made as a small production run in 1998 and sixteen pairs survived, which changes what you can do with it:

· Buy more than one. Matching pairs for bridesmaids, for a mother and daughter, for sisters - the only piece here where that is possible.
· Buy a spare. Studs are the earring people actually lose. This is the one design where losing one is not the end of the pair.
· Give it more than once. A birthday present this year that you can repeat for someone else next year, identically.

Everything else about it is the same as the rest of the collection: hallmarked solid 14k gold, real onyx, made by hand in the same workshop. It simply happens that there are sixteen. If you want several, message us before ordering and we will make sure they are set aside together.

Onyx takes its name from the Greek onux, meaning fingernail or claw. The myth runs that Cupid clipped his sleeping mother Venus's fingernails with an arrowhead and left the parings scattered on the sand, and because nothing of a goddess may perish the Fates turned them into stone. Beyond the story, onyx has one of the longest working lives of any material in jewellery: Roman signet rings were cut from it because it takes a crisp intaglio and releases hot wax cleanly, and the Victorians made it the stone of formal mourning, which is where its association with dignity and composure comes from. A grounded, quietly serious gift for her. More motif meanings at JewelMotif™ · Watch & read: Why We Wear Protective Jewellery

Onyx is banded chalcedony, a form of microcrystalline quartz, and in nature its bands are usually white and grey rather than solid black. Almost all the black onyx in the world jewellery trade is grey chalcedony that has been soaked in a sugar solution and then in acid, which carbonises the sugar inside the stone and turns it a permanent, even black. The Romans were doing this two thousand years ago and it has been standard ever since. It is a change to the stone itself rather than a coating, it does not fade or rub off, and no one in the trade regards it as a fault. We say so plainly rather than letting the word natural do quiet work it has not earned.

Our founder grew up in her mother's shop, Hong Kong Jade House Ltd, established 1960. Nearly every piece in this gold collection came out of its cases - chosen by her mother, kept for decades, and finding owners now a generation later and a continent away.