White Copper Antique Pattern Open Ring

The virtue of an open ring is that it moves. Fingers are slim in the morning and swollen by midday, and an open band follows that a little, so you are not stuck agonising over a half size. The trouble is in the same place. Bend it often and it loosens. My advice is to bend it once to fit and then leave it alone. White copper is tough, but fold the same spot repeatedly and sooner or later a hairline crack opens there.

The water pattern is the most straightforward of the group. Arc inside arc, climbing from one side of the band to the other like ripples stacked on a surface. On porcelain this is called the sea-water pattern, and it appears in brocade too; the source is too early to pin down. It flatters any hand, and the lines run with the direction the finger works, so it does not catch on clothes. Lhamo La-tso is a high lake in Shannan, Tibet, and its name means lake of the goddess Palden Lhamo. The tradition of finding reincarnated teachers included looking into the water for signs. That design presses the shoreline into an irregular rim and leaves the middle blank, which means the polish has to be spotless.

The crossed vajra is two vajras laid over each other into a cross, properly called the karma-vajra, with four heads facing the four directions and standing for everywhere at once. Its lines are the hardest in the collection, all horizontals and verticals, and the workmanship shows immediately. The four heads must be the same size and the centre must be true; a hair off and the whole thing leans. Geometry has a second advantage: wear does not show, because it never relied on fine detail in the first place.

The Everest design is an outline. The ridge line runs down the middle of the face with sloped walls on either side, and light catching it draws a bright edge like a snow line. The garuda is the busiest of the five. Bird head, both wings and curling tail feathers are crammed onto a narrow band, and made small it blurs, so it wants a slim finger. Of the five, the garuda is the hardest to dress around and the water pattern the easiest. The three in between are a matter of taste.

Antiqued white copper keeps the hollows dark and the raised work bright, and the water and mountain designs lean on that for depth. The crossed vajra and the garuda have hard lines that read cleaner with the dark pressed in. Take the ring off to wash your hands or put on hand cream. The oils sit in the pattern and yellow over time. The open ends are cut faces, so run a fingertip over them for burrs. If you find one, a pass with fine abrasive paper, never a file, which leaves a step you will feel forever.