The birthstone you were sold is one list among dozens. The Jews, the Romans, the Arabians, the Poles and the Russians each gave the months their own stones, the astrologers gave them to the signs, the days and the hours, and the jewellers of Kansas City drew up a trade list in 1912. This app shows every one of them side by side and never picks a winner.
38 lists and 93 stones, each read from George Frederick Kunz’s The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (1913), and each given with the line of the book it came from.
Features
- Wheel — a ring of months, signs, days, hours or seasons with a stone on every segment and a pointer at the present, filled from any list of that kind
- Today’s stones of the month, sign, day, hour and season, each naming the list it came from
- Birth — every stone that applies to one person, by month, sign, weekday, hour of birth and season, with the month’s angel, apostle and flower, saved for any number of people
- Wedding anniversaries, with this year’s gift and the next one due
- Traditions — every list as Kunz prints it, from the breastplate of Aaron to the navaratna, and a grid comparing thirteen lists of the months with the stone they most agree on
- Stones — a dictionary of 93 stones with the historical names that map to each, every list it appears in, its mineralogy from Dana’s System of Mineralogy (1892), and its lore quoted from Kunz
- Search by any name a stone has gone by, and filter by colour
- Saved people and stones, and a record of what you have read, with any stone or birth profile shared as a card
- Home Screen widgets for the stone of the hour and the present, and Lock Screen widgets for the hour’s stone
- An optional daily notification of the day’s stones, and a word the morning before a saved person’s birthday
- Universal — on iPad the wheel and the stone plates are drawn large, and the comparison grid shows every list at once
- A chromolithographed plate for every stone, in the manner of an Edwardian book of gems
About the Engine
The sign is worked out from the Sun’s true position at the moment, so a birth on the day the Sun changes sign is placed exactly, or shown under both signs where no time is given. The seasons begin at the equinoxes and solstices, and turn round for the southern hemisphere if you ask. All of it is computed on your device, and the app never goes online.
About the Lore
Every list names its tradition, its date and its source, and every name is kept as it was printed. Nothing modern is presented as ancient: the 1912 list is labelled a trade list of 1912. The virtues of a stone are reported as history and never as advice.
Privacy
No ads. No tracking. No account. No subscriptions. No in-app purchases. The app works offline and asks for nothing on first launch. Notifications are off until you turn them on.
Support
Need help with Birthstones Wheel? Whether you have a question, want to request a feature, or need to report a problem:
- Ask a question — get help using the app
- Report a bug — let us know if something isn’t working
- Request a feature — suggest an improvement, or a list of stones and the source it is printed in
You can also browse existing issues to see if your question has already been answered.