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October birthdays get two birthstones, and the two could hardly be less alike. One is soft and does something with light that no other gem manages. The other is hard enough for daily wear and comes in almost every colour you can name. Picking between them comes down to what you plan to put the stone in and how the person wears their jewellery. Here is how we talk it through at the counter. Why October has two stones Opal is the older of the two. GIA calls opal the traditional October birthstone and traces the name to India, where...

Two necklaces, both tagged gold, both under a hundred dollars. One has 0.4 microns of gold on it. The other has 5 microns, more than twelve times as much, and nothing on either tag tells you which is which. Here is how the measurement works, what Canadian law lets a seller print, and how to read a mark before you pay. Two different ways to measure gold, and why they do not compare Gold coverage gets measured two ways, and the two answer different questions. Thickness, in microns. A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre. Electroplating deposits a gold...

Almost every ring has something written inside it, and almost nobody knows what it says. A ring made in Birmingham carries a row of five marks struck by a government-linked laboratory. A ring made in Coquitlam carries two marks applied by the person who made it. Both can be honest. They mean different things, and that difference is worth knowing before you buy or sell anything. A hallmark and a quality stamp are two separate things People use the word hallmark for any stamp inside a ring. In the trade it means one thing: a mark struck by an independent...

Most people store jewellery by accident. A dish on the dresser, a drawer that became the jewellery drawer, a box from a birthday fifteen years ago. Then something goes missing or gets scratched, and the question finally gets asked properly. There are three real options, they protect against different threats, and the honest answer for most households is that you need two of them at once. Start with the threat, not the container Each of the three solves a separate problem. A jewellery box protects pieces from each other. Lined compartments stop a diamond ring dragging across a pearl strand,...

The choice between a four-prong and a six-prong setting comes up in almost every engagement ring conversation we have, and it usually gets answered with a slogan: four prongs show more diamond, six prongs are safer. Both halves of that are true as far as they go, and neither is the whole story. What actually determines whether your stone stays put is the quality of the head, the metal it is made from, and whether anyone looks at it once a year. Here is how the two compare on the things that matter. What a prong actually does A prong...

Every zodiac sign has a gemstone attached to it, and the pairings are older than most people think. The tradition mixes ancient astrology, a bishop's breastplate from the Bible, and a few centuries of jewellers and astrologers arguing about which stone goes with which sign. If you are shopping for a birthday gift or just curious what your sign's stone is supposed to mean, here is the real history and the practical buying advice, not just a list. Where zodiac gemstones actually come from The idea that stones and the calendar are connected goes back further than astrology itself. Ancient...