What’s October’s Birthstone? – Tourmaline or Opal
What’s Tourmaline’s meaning? – Healing
Color – Multi color often with pink and green or multi-color
“Tourmaline is the technicolored dream coat of gems, there isn’t another stone with a greater range of colors found in nature. Because no two tourmaline’s look alike, they were mistaken for other gems until the 1800’s when they were reclassified as a distinct mineral species. Before that tourmaline’s had been confused for sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and other gems. In fact, the rubies in both the Russian and British crown jewels are now believed to be red tourmaline’s also known as rubellite.
Opals, like tourmaline, can exhibit a wide variety of colors. The difference, an opal diffracts light and can display all the colors of the rainbow simultaneously. For this reason, it has been considered great luck throughout history as it was thought to possess all the value of each gemstone in the opals color spectrum. However, after the publication of Sir Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, people in the 1800s began to associate opals with bad luck and even death.
What’s November’s Birthstone? – Citrine
What’s Citrine’s meaning? – Joy
Color – Dark Yellow
Citrine is one of the rarest varieties of Quartz found in nature. Natural citrine has only been found in Spain, France, Hungary, and Arran (a small island off of Scotland). Despite this it has become the second most popular variety of Quartz in jewelry (after amethysts). Jewelers had even been heat treating some lower quality amethysts and smoky Quartz gems to change the color to a shade of yellow or reddish yellow to more closely resemble citrines to keep up with a growing demand.
This popularity was due to the lack of affordable gold gems on the market. Gold gems are attractive because they channel the power of the sun and all of the positivity associated with it. Citrines are believed to improve your mood and appreciate your surroundings. Giving a citrine as a gift is a great way to tell someone that they radiate joy and make you experience their joy.
What’s December’s Birthstone? – Turquoise
What’s Turquoise’s meaning? – Friendship
Color – Turquoise
These opaque blue-green gems have been highly valued for thousands of years by many cultures that each had their own names for them. Turquoise comes from an Old French word for Turkish because it was introduced to the French via Venetian traders who had purchased the stones in modern day Iran (then a part of Turkey). Turquoise was widely traded because deposits are so rare. The only major turquoise deposits currently known are found in Iran, Egypt, the Southwestern United States, and China. Turquoise also has the unique distinction of having a color named after it and not vice-versa.
In Turkish tradition, the gift of a turquoise was supposed to give you the ability to make friends very, very easily. The only catch was that in order to acquire this super power, you needed to already have a friend who would give you a turquoise. This sounds a bit like a catch-22, if you ask me. Turquoise’s association with friendship is appropriate because it requires copper and aluminum compounds to work together and form a new mineral, just like a friendship.”
