Unlucky unless it is your birthstone
Opal brings bad luck to anyone not born in October.
Objects superstition
Opal bad luck
Opal bad luck: unlucky to wear unless it is your birthstone. First recorded: 1829 — Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein. That makes it 197 years old — the 36th oldest of the 45 superstitions we have dated.
- Earliest record
- 1829 see the history below
- Written down in
- 1913 George Frederick Kunz
Record: George Frederick Kunz, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott, 1913).
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
1829 — Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein
That makes it
197 years old
Rank by age
36th oldest of 45 dated here
Category
Objects
One of the few superstitions traced to a single book, though Scott never called the stone unlucky. European opal sales reportedly fell by half within a year of publication.
Why it stuck. A good story attached to an expensive object travels. Claims that rival gem dealers spread it on purpose are often repeated but have never been documented.
35 of the dated superstitions here were written down earlier and 9 later.
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Primary source
As it was written down in 1913
“There can be little doubt that much of the modern superstition regarding the supposed unlucky quality of the opal owes its origin to a careless reading of Sir Walter Scott’s novel, ‘Anne of Geierstein.’”
George Frederick Kunz, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott, 1913) — read the original text.
Kunz blamed a careless reading of Walter Scott’s Anne of Geierstein (1829), in which holy water quenches an enchanted opal and its owner dies — Scott, he argued, never meant the stone itself to be unlucky.
The versions people follow
What exactly is believed
The Walter Scott curse
Sir Walter Scott's 1829 novel Anne of Geierstein featured a cursed opal, and European sales are said to have collapsed afterward.
Opal as the stone of love
Before the nineteenth century opal was prized as a lucky stone combining the virtues of all gems.
Losing its color
An opal that loses its fire is said to warn of illness or the end of a love.
How the bad luck is traditionally undone
Wearing opal with diamonds, or only as an October birthstone, is supposed to neutralize its bad luck.
Where it lives today
Opals can crack when they dry out, which may have fed the idea of an unlucky stone. Australian opal mining helped restore their reputation from the 1890s.
What people say
Unlucky to wear unless it is your birthstone.What is going on
Opal contains up to 20% water and can craze if it dries out or is knocked — so opals do fail more often than other stones, which lends the story evidence it does not deserve.Where it applies. European and North American; Australia, which produces most of the world's opal, treats it as a national stone.
Nearest in age
Opal bad luck is the 36th oldest of the 45 dated superstitions here. Of those, 3 date from 1900 or later and 14 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Opal Bad Luck Superstition: Origin and Meaning.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/superstitions/opal-bad-luck/
For Wikipedia
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