November is my birthday month, so I'm biased — but I think we got the best birthstones in the calendar. Two of them, actually: topaz and citrine. Both golden, both warm, and both more interesting than most people realize.
Topaz: Heavier Than You'd Expect
The first thing you notice when you pick up real topaz is the weight. It's denser than quartz, denser than most stones people handle casually, and that heft gives it a presence that's hard to describe until you feel it. An 8 on the Mohs hardness scale — harder than quartz, harder than most gemstones in the shop. This is a serious stone.
Topaz comes in more colors than people think — white, blue, pink, orange, brown — but the one that stops traffic is imperial topaz. It's a golden-pink to reddish-orange variety that only comes from one place on earth: Ouro Prêto, in Brazil's Minas Gerais state. That's it. One source for the entire world's supply. The color comes from trace chromium in the crystal, and when the light hits it right, it shifts between gold and rose in a way that makes you understand why they called it "imperial."
A word of caution, though. Most blue topaz on the market is irradiated and heat-treated — it starts as colorless topaz and gets processed into that vivid Swiss or London blue. There's nothing wrong with that if you know what you're buying, but know what you're buying. I've had vendors try to sell me crystal quartz labeled as topaz because "that's what it said on the box." Ask questions. Work with people you trust.
Citrine: The Merchant's Stone
Citrine is the one I wear. As a small business owner since 1997, a stone called "the merchant's stone" — believed to attract prosperity and abundance — yeah, I'll take all the help I can get.
But here's the thing most shops won't tell you: roughly 90% of the citrine on the market is actually heat-treated amethyst. They take amethyst — which is cheap and abundant — and bake it at high temperatures until the purple turns orange. The result is that bright, burnt-orange "citrine" you see everywhere, often still in its geode form with a white or cloudy base.
Natural citrine looks completely different. It's pale — champagne, smoky gold, soft honey — and it's rarely vivid. If someone's selling a deep, fiery orange citrine point for fifteen dollars, you're almost certainly looking at cooked amethyst. Natural citrine is uncommon enough that gem dealers take it seriously.
The easiest tell? Natural citrine shows dichroism — it shifts color slightly depending on the viewing angle. Heat-treated amethyst never does.
Does that mean treated citrine is worthless? No. It's still quartz, still a 7 on the Mohs scale, still beautiful. But if the distinction matters to you — and for a lot of our customers it does — ask. We'll tell you exactly what you're getting.
The November Palette
What I love about having two birthstones is the range. Topaz brings the weight, the formality, the richer tones. Citrine brings warmth and light — it's the more accessible stone, easier to work with in beading, and it plays beautifully with other quartzes.
Some of my favorite pairings: citrine with smoky quartz for a fall-into-winter gradient. Imperial topaz with warm gold findings for something that looks like it costs ten times what it did. Citrine rounds mixed with carnelian for a bracelet that practically glows.
And if you're a November baby like me? There's something about wearing your own birthstone that just fits. It's not superstition. It's not even about the metaphysical properties. It's just — yours. You put it on and you feel like you're carrying a little piece of your own story.
Come in and find yours. We'll help you pick the real thing.