Australian opal is the most prestigious and valuable type of opal in the world. Lightning Ridge is also a very rare and mysterious place because of its black opal.
The black opal that comes from Lightning Ridge is top notch and can make for a very expensive Australian opal Jewellery. Setting an expensive opal in jewelry is a very intricate and careful task by the jeweller. Most jewellers in Australia have worked with opal in some way. Experience is a must when a jeweller is setting an opal, because of its hardness. Opals are not as hard as diamonds or even saphires.
White opal is a very nice type of opal to have in jewelry and has been the icon of what opal looks like in most people’s ideal of opal. This has come around by the smart marketing that most opal wholesalers had sold in the early day of white opal. The black opal is a much more rare type of opal and is very unknown around the world because of its rarity. Some Black opal jewelry pieces have reached prices of over $500,000 with a centrepiece black opal that the queen of England would be proud of.
Australia’s opal supply is slowing down and finding the right type of opal for you is getting tougher. I time when black opal and top quality crystal opal is so rare the prices will be rising fast due to the lack of mining and restrictions that the government has put on the miner. Supply to the world’s biggest opal jewelry manufacturers will be slowed to a halt once there stocks have run out.
Investing in opal is a must right now if you can find the quality opal that once came out of the ground at an astonishing rate. Now is a trickle of gems is coming out of the ground that the world has to compete to buy. Consider yourself very lucky to own a red onblack opal and my suggestion is to keep it for investment purposes for the future.
Unless there is another opal strike like the Coocoran field, with opal having the same quality and quantity flooding the market, there is not much chance of that. Miners are still prospecting out there going over old ground with 9 inch drills to find what other opal miners have left behind. New ground looks a long way off with the government favouring the farmer and their farming soil for cattle, than what can be underground.
For more information on opal cutting or purchasing opal. Please email blackopalsdirect@live.com or you can call me on Skype My username is Blackopaldirect and it’s free!
No comments yet.