WEARING OF OPALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19691, 18 July 1927, Page 12

WEARING OF OPALS.

THE BIRTHSTONE QUESTION. CONCERN IN AUSTRALIA. [from our own correspondent. 1 SYDNEY, July 7. " Little two-line paragraphs which, in their skeleton form, often look, so dull in the newspapers, prove at times, on investigation and elaboration, quite interesting. The Premier of New South Wales, Mr. Lang, for example, recently asked the State agency in London to submit to the National Jewellers' Association the question of reconsidering the exclusion of opals from its list of birthstones. There now turns out to be quite an" interesting story behind that little overture. It is revealed, strangely enough, by someone associated with one of the Safe Deposit firms in Sydney. Opals, it is contended, sell on their merits without the birthstone advertisement. This contention has evoked the wrath of one who apparently knows a good deal about opals, who savs that those who are trying to exclude them from the list of birthstones are simply trying to boost the aquamarine at the expense of one of Australia's national gems. Why, he asks indignantly, should a beautiful Australian product be ousted by the South American aquamarine? He points out the world-wide belief attached to birthstone:;. and states that, of a total population of 490,000,000 people in Europe, Canada and the United States more than 40,000,000 were born in October, the opal month. If, he says, only one-eighth of that vast number, or five millions, wear their birthstones, at an average value of 10s per stone, it would mean £2,500.000 for Australia alone.

It sounds a little mercenary, but it is perhaps worth bearing in mind by those who first looked out upon the world in October.