Jet

It warms in your hand within seconds.

Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales under Whitby. A bead of it weighs a fraction of what a glass bead does. It warms in your hand within seconds. Victoria wore it for Albert and an entire industry followed her lead inside a year.

Essentially very fine coal that takes a carve and a polish.

Fossilised monkey-puzzle driftwood from Jurassic shales beneath Whitby, essentially very fine coal that takes a carve and a polish. Victoria wore it for Albert and the entire industry followed. Bronze Age to the nineteenth century is one of the longest documented runs of any material here.

A jet bead weighs a fraction of a glass one.

Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales under Whitby and carved into most of the mourning jewellery in Britain after Victoria wore it for Albert. A jet bead weighs a fraction of a glass one the same size. Streak it on unglazed porcelain and the mark is brown.

Victoria wore it for Albert and Whitby became an industry.

Britain has been carving and burying this since the Bronze Age, and Victoria wearing it for Albert turned Whitby into a mourning industry. It is fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, light enough that a bead weighs almost nothing. It cracks if it dries out, so keep it off the radiator.

A jet bead weighs a fraction of a glass one.

Whitby, North Yorkshire, in shales laid down under a Jurassic sea. Jet is fossil driftwood from monkey-puzzle trees, essentially a very fine coal that carves and polishes, and a jet bead weighs a fraction of a glass one the same size. Victoria wore it and an industry followed.

It weighs a fraction of glass and warms immediately.

Pick it up. Jet weighs a fraction of what glass or onyx the same size does and it warms in the hand at once, which settles the question before any other test. It is Jurassic monkey-puzzle driftwood compressed in the shales under Whitby. Its streak on porcelain comes out brown.

Victoria wore it, and an entire industry followed.

Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales below Whitby. Pick up a bead and the lightness settles it, since jet weighs a fraction of what glass or onyx the same size weighs. Victoria wore it for Albert and an entire industry followed her lead.

Victoria wore it for Albert. The industry followed.

Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales below Whitby, and so light that a bead weighs a fraction of a glass one. Victoria wore it for Albert and an entire mourning industry followed. Documented ritual use in Britain runs from the Bronze Age to the nineteenth century.

British ritual use runs back continuously to the Bronze Age.

Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed into the shales under Whitby in North Yorkshire. It became the material of Victorian mourning after the Queen wore it for Albert, and British ritual use of it runs back continuously to the Bronze Age. Almost weightless in the hand.

Used continuously from the Bronze Age to the nineteenth century.

It is astonishingly light, warms in the hand instantly, and streaks brown on unglazed tile. Jet is fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales below Whitby into something soft enough to carve. Britain used it for mourning from the Bronze Age to the nineteenth century.

Britain has used it in burial practice since the Bronze Age.

Fossil driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales under Whitby, and light enough that a bead weighs a fraction of what glass would. Britain has used it in burial practice since the Bronze Age. Victoria wore it and an entire industry followed.

Whitby jet is now scarce and mostly picked off the beach.

Warm to the touch, light in the hand, and soft enough to carve with the tools you would use on wood, because it is fossil driftwood. It dries out and crazes if kept near heat, so mourning jewellery needs looking after. Whitby jet is now scarce and mostly picked off the beach.

Jet is carried for grief, protection and boundaries. Fossilised driftwood from Jurassic monkey-puzzle trees, compressed in the shales below Whitby, and the definitive material of Victorian mourning jewellery after the Queen wore it for Albert.. Tradition links it to the root chakra.

Jet is not faked often, but it is still worth checking. Streak test on unglazed porcelain gives a distinctive brown mark, onyx and obsidian give white or none. Jet is very light and warms instantly in the hand; glass stays cool and is heavy.. Genuine jet is untreated.

No. Jet dissolves or spalls in water. Dust it dry instead of soaking it, and keep it out of salt.