Ships worldwide. This piece is held at our workshop and ships internationally.
One of a kind
Every carving is cut from its own block of rough. The photographs on this page show the exact piece you will receive — not a sample from the same batch.
Natural stone, untreated
100% natural stone, never dyed or reconstituted. Veins, inclusions and small shifts in colour are how the material formed; they are marks of origin rather than faults.
Carved by hand
Cut, shaped and polished by hand. Proportions differ a little from piece to piece because each one follows the block it came out of.
Checked and packed
Hand-inspected before dispatch and shipped in shockproof packaging.
Combined Strength
Tiger iron is traditionally read as the properties of its three components acting together: the eye's discernment, the jasper's stamina, the hematite's grounding.
Held rather than displayed when a task needs all three.
Very Old Rock
Banded ironstone is among the oldest rock accessible to carvers, which gives the stone its association with endurance on a scale beyond a person.
Set it where the long view is needed.
Effort and Recovery
Of all the stones here it is the one most consistently associated with physical exertion and with recovering from it.
Kept in the bag rather than on the shelf, by most accounts.
Holding Under Load
The hematite bands give it the usual iron reading: bearing weight without buckling.
Hold it before the thing you expect to be heavy.
Why We Carve Dragons
A dragon leaves no fossil, so every carver is arguing about an animal that exists only in stories. Across both European and East Asian tradition the dragon is a guardian — of hoards, of thresholds, of water and weather — and the skull is the part of any creature that outlasts it.
Traditionally kept where something needs watching over: a doorway, a desk, a shelf above the money.