White Copper Five Jambhalas Open Ring, Multi-size

Putting the Five-Road Wealth Gods on a ring is a problem. The face has only one curve to work with, and five figures have to crowd onto it at no taller than a grain of rice. The solution is to enlarge the central figure and shrink the other four to either side, using the difference in height to make depth. With the centre holding, the flanks do not scatter. Make all five the same size and it looks like five men in a queue. All five must face the same way, outward. Turn one inward and the whole picture falls apart.

Shrunk to that size the features blur, inevitably. What identifies them is the folds of the robes and what they hold: the central figure with a whip, riding a tiger; the others holding ingots or a ruyi sceptre. Being able to tell who is who is enough; do not expect to read a face. Someone will always bring a magnifier and complain that the eyebrows are unclear, which means they have not understood where the limits of this work lie. Blurred or not, the five still need differences in height. All level and it is a row of cakes.

On an open band the two ends overlap, and it spreads to go over the knuckle. White copper is hard, so spread it evenly; force it at one point and in time it cracks. Adjust it once and then wear it as a closed ring. The overlapping section should lie flat. Lifted, it catches hair and presses on the next finger. The ends are best finished as small rounds. Square ends catch knitwear and scrape the back of your own hand.

Large and small differ in the width of the face. A heavy hand in the small size, with its narrow face, makes the knuckles look bigger; a slender hand in the large one has the face wider than the finger, which looks wrong too. At the counter, have people try both on; it is more accurate than asking their size. Run a finger round the inside. A burr should be smoothed, or it rubs the skin, and once it leaves a red mark nobody wears the ring. The large size is heavy and digs in when typing, so office workers mostly take the small for the lightness.

The subject is the folk set of five: Zhao Gongming at the centre plus the four roads, each with a direction of its own. That account has a history behind it, so do not dress it up. The inside of a white copper ring collects sweat, so take it off, dry it, then put it away, and do not wash your hands in it. Detergent left in the crevices damages the colour worse than sweat. Customers ask whether all five have to be collected; one ring already holds the five, and there is no need to buy five rings. The names are easy enough to memorise. The harder part is not to describe them as five kinds of wealth: the five roads are one god of wealth keeping five directions.