This is one of the most exciting bespoke commissions we have worked on at Jacqueline & Edward, a unique engagement ring handmade in ethically sourced recycled platinum and featuring an extraterrestrial pallasite peridot, an extremely rare gemstone sourced from the Jepara meteorite.
These gemstones formed in pallasite meteorites when planet-sized objects collided with one another during the first 5-20 million years of the solar system’s history, fragmenting and ultimately ending up within the asteroid belt as we know today.
By definition, unique engagement rings testify to the unequalled covenant shared between two people, and a bespoke commission gives our customers the opportunity to weave their personal stories, histories and ideas into their deeply significant piece of forever-jewellery and what will become a future family heirloom. Yet when Jacqueline & Edward were approached by a customer with the proposition of handmaking a platinum engagement ring featuring an extraterrestrial pallasite peridot gemstone, this really expanded our understanding of what a unique engagement ring could be and the stories it could tell.
Our co-founder Mark was thrilled to build a commission as unique as this. ‘I love geology, I always have. The chance to work with the Jepara Pallasite, one which Phil supplied and went to painstaking lengths to acquire, was akin to an early Christmas present. The only difference…I had to give the present back at the end of the festive season.’
Creating an unusual engagement ring
Having never worked before with extraterrestrial pallasite peridot, this presented our extremely talented and highly experienced head of workshop Cat with some interesting challenges. “These gemstones are relatively soft on the Mohs scale of hardness, so great care had to be taken when working with them.”
Hand making a ring as delicate and complex as this bespoke commission was no easy task. As with every Jacqueline & Edward piece, the platinum band was hand forged the old, traditional way with manual tools and using only ethically sourced recycled metals. Eleven individually crafted pieces, each handmade to exact sub-millimetre measurements, were soldered together to create the band and double bezel gallery setting. An elegant, tapered shank leads to a diamond halo surround – centering a 0.49ct cushion-cut extraterrestrial pallasite peridot, its striking olive and lime tones striated with vibrant needle-like inclusions.
Rare gemstone makes for an unusual engagement ring
Within an already rare gemstone, these rainbow coloured needle motifs appear in less than 5% of the pallasite found in the Jepara meteorite; it’s thought perhaps they are signatures of the unfathomable shocks and forces the meteorite underwent during its early formation four-and-a-half billion years ago, one billion years before life on Earth.
The probability of one of these gemstones making its way to our planet is astronomically low, and as our customer Phil discovered, the journey of verifying and grading the stone’s provenance was almost equal in cosmic ambition. Had the Jepara meteorite had a slightly different trajectory, even by a fraction of a degree, it would have been forever lost at sea – yet even in the safe hands of humanity, it almost succumbed to the competing bureaucracies of Earth’s gemology institutions.
Luckily this pallasite peridot’s 4,500 million year journey was not in vain, and through working together with Jacqueline & Edward, Phil’s partner is now the custodian of a unique engagement ring suitable in its complexity, elegance and ambition to honour such a rare gem. Embellishing his proposal, Phil, within an eloquently written note given alongside the engagement ring explained in detail just how unlikely this mineral was to have found its way into his possession before finishing with words which will be remembered in Jacqueline & Edward for time to come ‘The 0.49ct gemstone in your ring, is perhaps the second rarest Gem in the world. You, of course, are the rarest.”
Phil’s letter to Gemma
Pallasites are a rare type of iron meteorite containing olivine crystals, less than two percent of all asteroids are pallasites. Formed at the start of the solar system ~4.56bn years ago, pallasites pre-date the earliest estimates for life on earth by over 1bn years, as well as pre-dating the first formation of diamond by over 1.5bn years.
Olivine is thought to have formed in pallasites when Moon-to-Mars-sized bodies with still-molten cores collided with one another during the first 5-20 million years of the solar system’s history, fragmenting into asteroid-sized pieces, and ultimately ending up within the asteroid belt as we know today. The resulting gemstone found within these asteroids is known as pallasitic peridot.
Astronomers estimate that the average distance between any two asteroids in the asteroid belt is about 600,000 miles. This is about 2.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The chances of two asteroids colliding are so small, and their numbers and orbit patterns so unknown, that it’s mathematically impossible to put a number on it. The chances of any given asteroid then bouncing off in a trajectory that ultimately meets Earth, is infinitesimally smaller still.
As of 2022, out of the approximately 66,000 officially recognised meteorites which have landed on Earth, there are only 138 known pallasites (0.2%).
The Jepara meteorite was discovered as a 500kg mass less than four miles from a beach on the Indonesian island of Java in 2008, during an excavation project. Had the Jepara meteorite had a slightly different trajectory, even by a fraction of a degree, it would have been forever lost at sea.
Jepara holds the oldest and rarest gemstones that have ever been held in human hands. Furthermore, less than 5% of the gems from the Jepara meteorite show needle-like inclusions, possibly formed through shock triggering as the massive parent-bodies from which the meteor eventually dislodged, collided during the formation of the solar system.
The 0.49ct gemstone in your ring, is perhaps the second rarest Gem in the world.
You, of course, are the rarest.
