No, kidney stone jewelry is not made from kidney stones, but it can be pretty confusing.
What’s called a kidney stone in the jewelry business is really nephrite or hematite. The stones have been historically used by crystal healers and others in “treating” problems with the kidney, hence the name kidney stone.
That doesn’t mean, though, that gall and kidney stones haven’t been used to make jewelry. For example, take Larry Hagman’s ring. When television actor Hagman (I Dream of Jeannie, Dallas) had a liver transplant, he also decided to have gallstones removed.
Although most hospitals refuse to allow patients to take home their spare parts, celebrity has its perks. Hagman reclaimed his gallstones and had an artist friend turn one of them into a ring.
Hagman doesn’t wear the ring though, he says it’s too soft and will break. Instead, he says, he keeps his once-internal keepsake inside a velvet box, hidden away in a “special place.”
No doubt his heirs will thank him when they inherit it.
