It’s long puzzled me, but rings seem to be sold as complete circles. Surely it would be more sensible to sell them split - with an air gap - so they can be easily resized?
Yet another area in which the jewelry industry can learn a thing or two from the gum ball machine industry. 
It’s too easy to get something stuck in the split and break a finger, or run the risk of ripping it off.
I had a ring like that a few years ago - admittedly quite a cheap one.
It was a complete PITA - I kept catching the ends, snagging in clothing etc. In the end it got so bent out of shape from this that I threw it away (after a year or so).
Unless your ring is made of some exotic material (my wedding band is tungsten and can never ever be resized - then again, it can’t be bent either) or has a complex pattern around the whole circumference, then resizing a ring is a fairly trivial job for a competent jeweller. I had my silver puzzle ring (actually six interlocking rings) resized a few years ago, IIRC it cost about £30. It’s not something that needs doing often enough to worry about, IMO.
I’ve had rings like this as a kid. They’re terribly uncomfortable. What inevitably happens is a bit of your skin occasionally bulges through the gap when you move your fingers, and then you have the misfortune of banging the finger on something. When that happens the skin that moved into the gap gets pinched.
I’m not thinking of a small gap that would have the pinching or sticking problems but a significant gap of 90 degrees or so.
Those two ends are still going to catch on everything, regardless.
Think about running your hands through your hair for instance! Or petting the dog, or a thousand other things, every day!
Bad idea!
A ring; no beginning or end.
Jewelry is not about being sensible.
But as everyone in this thread has posted - an incomplete ring is not sensible. Any gap leaves two ends that catch on things, small gaps pinch, a 90 degree gap would probably fall off frequently - the chord length of the opening is 7/10 of the diameter.
True, split rings are unpopular for obvious reasons, but not wearing a ring at all is the most sensible choice. Your hands are important tools and having nothing to catch on things or for things to catch on has saved an unknowable number of fingers from being ripped off.
Here are some unlucky ring-wearers (not mainly photos, don’t worry):
“Rings have been made this way for many thousands of years. Is everyone but me just stupid?”
“rings seem to be sold as complete circles.” Seem to be??
Did Anamen post some pictures of people’s fingers being ripped off (I won’t go look) to try to convince humans not to wear rings?
It is medical case studies, not primarily pictures. Small pictures are present, and I tried to edit too late to clarify that better, sorry.
I don’t think people should not wear rings, but I know why I don’t. I like my fingers and use them every day. Encumbering them with a ring makes them less useful even without the risk of the ring damaging them.
I wear two rings every day of my life. One of them is my dead mother’s engagement ring. One of them was a gift from my father. Eventually I hope to add my own wedding ring and possibly an engagement ring (I will probably replace my mom’s ring at that point).
I work in an office so there is little to no chance of it getting ripped off. My rings have sentimental value and I have no intention of not wearing them. Plus, they look nice, and considering the kind of pain we have gone through as a species to “look nice” the chances of having a ring ripped off seem minute.
I’m not saying you don’t have a point. I just don’t see it happening that people stop wearing rings. Now, removing them while operating certain equipment seems smart.
That was my point pretty much: people aren’t generally wearing jewelry for sensible or practical reasons. I’m not saying that aesthetic or sentimental reasons are not valid. Of course they are!
On the other hand, (ha!) I used to have a spoon ring that I wore for years. It didn’t catch on stuff any more than an average ring, so maybe the solution for the split ring is to just wrap further around the finger.
See, it really depends. I can’t wear rings like that, they catch in my hair. I have woefully curly hair, though, so admittedly it catches in everything, but I have learned never to buy things like that. I’m even careful with rings that have prongs or jutting things.
This. My current wedding band is made of stainless steel and thus is not removable in an emergency the type of which is referenced in the link provided AnaMen. Avulsion is…well…gross.
I used to be an E.M.T. and witnessed a few avulsions. Almost experienced one myself while ON a call. It was a bad call. Woman thrown from a horse. In my zeal to close the side door of the ambulance and trot around and jump in and drive, my then-wedding band made of white gold got caught in the steel “flip open type” door handle. I slammed the door and it caught and yanked my body right over. The ring tore into my finger to the bone.
I pulled the ring off through the gore immediately, before it started to swell, put on a latex glove and drove. Bit of a deal in the E.R. over it…
Anyway, a split ring is an atrocious idea IMHO. A ring like a commitment is seen as endless. It also, as has been pointed out, is a catching on things risk moment to moment.
I bought a ring at some festival, it was kinda cool looking, like a nail twisted round your finger. I bought it and wore it, to much praise, for about a week. Even though it wrapped well around my finger, no gap, it still caught on no end of stuff.
If I carried a plastic shopping bag, for instance, it would always manage to get caught in it, and it was like a Chinese puzzle trying to free my hand!