Finding a beautiful birthstone color chart with reliable information is a real trick. A few years back, when I looked for birthstone charts, I found a few pretty ones, but none that were worth pinning on my Pinterest boards because they had the wrong information.
How do I know they were wrong? Because the "official" charts listed different stones.
Soooo... what's with the pretty but wrong charts??
I went on the hunt and discovered that - in all fairness - "official" birthstones are arguable considering the innumerable ancient and modern traditions.
But the most credible birthstone experts listed the same information from the same sources.
So I went directly to the source and made my own birthstone color charts!
Click any picture below to take you to a pinnable birthstone chart... one that's both pretty to look at AND has correct information. Yeah! :)
1. Color Chart |
2. Official List
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3. Traditional
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4. Modern
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5. Zodiac |
6. Day of Week |
7. Seasonal
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Sources
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An acceptable alternative to any birthstone is another stone of similar color. Here’s the perfect chart for finding birthstone alternatives by color.
January – Deep Red |
July – Red |
A lot of sites give different information as to what are the true birthstones. But according to the American Gem Trade Association, here are the “official” gems for you to pick from, the ones most commonly found in ancient and modern traditions.
These stones tend to be the ones based most commonly in ancient cultures and traditions.
These birth stones are based on more current trends in the modern world.
Zodiac birthstones are based on astrology. You'll see any number of different zodiac stone lists all over the web. Why? Every culture in every century has their own "expert" astrologers. So you may still see some reliable lists out there with different info based on different civilizations.
This list however, seems to be the most commonly referenced list in the history books and birthstone charts.
Aquarius Birthstone - Garnet |
Leo Birthstone - Onyx |
These are known as “birthday stones” – birthstones based on the day you were born, not the month you were born.
Most people choose from the monthly birthstone lists above. But if you’re like me and you have an aversion to the stones picked out for you, try out this list to see if one tickles your fancy.
NOTE: To see what day of the week someone was born, you can look up their birth date with this simple little day-of-the-week calculator.
Here’s another lovely yet less-known list of birthstone names, this time based on your birth season as opposed to your birth month.
I checked many, many birthstone, color and birth flower "experts" when making these birthstone color charts. The most credible experts cited the same sources, which I eventually turned to myself.
Here are links to them if you want to check them out.
1. American Gem Trade Association (AGTA)
They are the experts EVERYONE quotes. The AGTA
created the "official" birthstone list back in 1912 to help standardize
modern traditions and make birthstone shopping easier on jewelers and buyers alike.
They have a listing of all the same traditional flowers mentioned in source #2 as well as modern alternatives with their various meanings.
I found this information to be in sync with other flower authorities as well. They include tables showing birth flower traditions from various cultures around the world.
These guys know their colors! I really like their short, yet descriptive list of color meanings.