The origin of birthstone jewelry and the birthstone months

A lot of people believe that there is something special about having the birthstone that applies to the month that they were born. While the idea that certain gemstones have a special connection with certain months is an ancient one the idea of birthstones is not nearly as old. The truth is that the modern list of birthstones has exploited the ancient idea as little more than a marketing tool.

The concept of having gemstones that are associated with each month goes all the back to an ancient Jewish tradition. It was believed that there were twelve different stones in the breast plate of Aaron. Originally these were believed to represent the twelve Jewish tribes. The connection between the gems tones and each month wouldn’t come until the first century when it was noticed that there were twelve months in the year and twelve gemstones in the tradition. This seemed like more than a coincidence so each gemstone was applied to a different month.

Originally the gemstones were associated with certain months but not with birth. The idea was wearing the appropriate gem during the right month would bring you luck and keep you healthy. That meant that you needed to have all twelve gemstones so that you could wear the right one during the right month. There does seem to be some evidence that this tradition came to the west from India which had long had a tradition of assigning gemstones to the planets, however this is far from clear. Wherever it came from the tradition would continue in this way for centuries.

It would seem that the idea of wearing the birthstone that corresponds to the month that you were born began in the eighteenth century as nothing more than a way to sell jewelry. Apparently as Jewish gem traders started to arrive in Poland they used the idea of birthstones as a way to drum up sales. This caught on and people all over Europe started wearing jewelry that included their birthstone. As a marketing tool the idea proved to be remarkably successful and it has continued to this day.

The modern list of birthstones used in birthstone jewelry was only finalized in the early twentieth century in the United States. Mainly this was because of the fact that it was hard to sell birthstones if there was no agreement on which stone went with which month. The list hasn’t been changed since it was first created in 1912 but there have been a couple of attempts to add new birthstones as a way to increase sales. There are some months that now have more than one birthstone which was done apparently for no other reason than to help the sales of gemstones that weren’t moving all that quickly. Clearly we have reached the point where birthstones are nothing more than a marketing tool.