October's Opal Birthstone!

Shalom!

I hope everyone is doing well.  It has been crazy busy where I live.  However, I have been working hard on keeping you all informed on various things.  So, it is October.  This month is full of various holidays!  We have: All Hallows Eve, Samhain, Winter Nights, Thanksgiving (for Canada), Columbus Day, Nanomonestose, and a whole bunch of made up holidays like Mole Day and Sweetest Day.  For me, I have family with birthdays this month.  What is the birthstone of October?  The Opal is the traditional birthstone of October.  However, with Opal being a fragile stone, the alternative is Tourmaline.  Today I will be talking about the Opal, since it is the traditional stone.  So, on with the post!

Opal is a type of silica that contains about 6% to 21% water.  It is commonly found with sandstone, basalt, and rhyolite stones in Australia.  In fact, 97% of Opals in the world come from Australia where it is considered the national gemstone!  Some Opals come from Mexico or Oregon.  Fun fact, Opal is the only stone that can throw off every colour with minimal cuts to it. 

Speaking of Opal colours, it comes in many different colours.  The most desirable Opals are the ones that throw off the beautiful plays of colour.  Sometimes if the stone is clear and has a great amount of colour play it is called a Jelly Opal.  However, you can also find more that are a milky white, bluish green, yellow, brown, and colourless.  Many of these opals are not very desirable.  However, there are the beautiful Mexican Fire Opals and the Mexican Water Opals.  While they do not give off a great amount of colour play, they do throw off green flashes.  Fire Opals are a red to a yellow colour while Water Opals are clear with a blue green colour inside.  Black Opals are extremely hard to find and are considered to be some of the rarest Opal one can find.  However, Boulder Opal is even more rare and is very beautiful as well.  Boulder Opal is Opal that is found in small streaks within other the surrounding stones.  People will often polish the whole stone into a cabochon and make it into jewellery.

Opal

Boulder Opal

Fire Opal

 

Opal is almost always polished into a cabochon.  Because of the nature of the stone it makes it near to impossible to cut the stone.   The nature of the stone also makes it incredibly fragile!  You would not believe how many people come in to the jewellery store with broken Opals.  We have even gone to put a new Opal into a ring with an already broken stone and broke the stone we had to put in there.  It can be quite frustrating.  This is the reason why most jewellers will dread selling or even seeing Opal rings or bracelets.  If you are going to buy an Opal your best luck is going to be buying pendants and earrings.  Because of their fragility, imitation Opals are very common.  Thankfully, they are also incredibly easy to identify if you know what you are looking for.  Chances are, if it looks like thin little triangles or squares put together and sealed under something, chances are, they are imitation.  Very rarely are they real and a jeweller will let you know if what you are looking at is imitation.  If you come across a piece when you are out and about and you are not sure if it is genuine, there is a simple test that you can do at home!  If you hold the Opal in question under a UV light and it fluoresces then it is genuine.  If the Opal does not fluoresce under the UV light it is NOT genuine!  However, if in doubt just take it to your jeweller and they will be able to tell you if it is genuine or not.

Before I close, there is a common superstition that if you wear an Opal and it is not your birthstone it will break or you will lose it.  This is not true at all.  I have a PANDORA Pink Opal ring that I wear all the time at work and it has never cracked, never been lost, and I have never had any problems with it.  It is just a fragile gem and you have just as much chance of cracking it as someone born in the middle of October.

So, I hope you learned something new today about this beautiful stone.  If you have any questions feel free to ask! 

Until next time!  Stay beautiful and lovely everyone!