Augusten Burroughs Jewelry & Watches

This is a unique handmade necklace featuring 41 translucent high-polish pine-green nephrite jade beads joined to a hand-fabricated, hand-textured heavy silver chain. The juxtaposition between the gleaming, glossy natural and untreated nephrite jade beads against the rugged, hammered and scarred chunky silver chain is great. The rich green beads are strung on vivid deep purple silk with modified a barrel-knot between each bead. I don't design and fabricate many pieces of jewelry but this is one of my creations. The necklace measures just under 37" in length and can be worn as a single strand or doubled. I sourced the nephrite beads from the mining company in Canda who extracted them from the earth. They are individually hand-carved and hand-polished and as a result, there are tiny irregularities in their shapes. My non-standard methods of fabrication result in a silver chain that is uniquely, stylishly crude. Links appear partially soldered (they're fully soldered), irregular in size and shape, nicked, scarred, hammered, and finally hand-finished with a polished sapphire cabochon. Some of the links appear to have a yellow tint in areas: this is gold, absorbed by the silver during the soldering process. In contrast, the pristine jade beads have strung old-school style (not just a single overhand knot) with a slightly more prominent knot that shows off the vivid purple sink...

This contemporary necklace of 59 10mm to 10.5mm nephrite jade beads is a contemporary classic. This is not the unappealing "spinach green" so commonly seen in mall-quality nephrite jade necklaces from the 1970s. These nephrite beads display a glossy high polish, excellent translucency, and an even tone. The coloring is similar to a Norway Spruce...

This jade, diamond, and quartz pendant is a study in translucency. The 25.5mm x 17.5mm oval natural quartz cabochon at the top is semi-transparent and glows like partially melted ice...

Each natural and untreated jadeite bead of this necklace was hand-carved. These beads were sourced from a small family business in Myanmar. They...

Australian chrysoprase is the rarest and most valuable form of chalcedony, which is a form of quartz. I purchased these fine, natural Australian...

Here's the thing: Tanzanite rings for men typically feature huge stones and lots of diamonds. I felt there should be a more *discreet* men's tanzanite ring so I designed one and had it fabricated by a jeweler in Manhattan. This 14k white gold ring is sleek and slender —8.70 mm in the front, tapering to just 2.75 mm in the rear, so it's as unobtrusive as a wedding band. Unlike a wedding band, however, this ring features a pristine violet-blue Tanzanite gem from Tanzania. The stone was given to me by a friend who went on safari and returned with several very fine-quality stones. I designed a ring to fit the scale of this 6 mm round, approximately one-carat stone, a simple and classic gypsy setting with the gem bezel-set flush with the surface of the ring. The bezel was created in contrasting 14k yellow gold. This would make an ideal wedding band for a man who wants something unique, not just a plain metal...

If you could wear a necklace made out of small, perfectly spherical bubbles of light, it would probably look like this. Comprised of 120 glassy, semitransparent near-colorless jadeit...

These jade beads are indescribably luminous. As a second-generation collector of jade, I have been around the stone my entire life and yet when I saw these beads I was in awe, for th...

"Rare" is a term I try to avoid because it has joined the pantheon of Words Stripped of Their Meaning Due to the Corrosive Effects of Overuse (see also: delicious, gourmet, amazing, genuine, authentic). But sometimes the old, worn-out word is best. All that to say: this exceedingly *rare* 24" necklace/bracelet is composed of 140 lab-certified natural and untreated kosmochlor-jadeite jade beads...

This ruggedly handsome 18k yellow gold ring features a large and round whiskey-colored Brazilian precious topaz that flashes with red, gold and umber, sometimes a little blue. "Imperial Topaz" is a natural pink or a blushing peach, neither of which would be ideal here. Rather, this is a very fine topaz from Brazil which is eye-clean and untreated, 13 mm in diameter and approximately 6.75 carats in weight. The stone doesn't sparkle garishly; it smolders. There is a brooding, stormy intensity to it. Two old cut bezel...

A fine emerald-green Burmese jadeite jade cabochon glows imperially from within its thick, heavy solid 22K gold setting. Six thick claws hold the luminous jade cabochon in place. Thi...