Rough Opal Archives - Black Opal Direct

Posted on September 26, 2021September 23, 2021 by Tamika Ireland — Leave a comment

Rough and Ready

Easy peasy lemon squeezy is my prediction on how this rough opal piece is going cut — low stress and smooth sailing or rough and ready? I am so excited to cut and shape this piece of rough opal and the game changer will be if we can get some green coming through the blue.This is the piece from the parcel of my last Lightning Ridge trip that I have the highest hopes for, my expectations sit around the $4000 – $5000 mark, (fingers crossed). Firstly, we’ll need to navigate through the white cap and a mountain of black potch to find where those colors live and hope they are…

Posted on August 29, 2021September 22, 2021 by Tamika Ireland — Leave a comment

Uncut gem screams — TOP BLACK OPAL!

This uncut gem has seemingly high potential but does it deliver?Join Justin on another rough opal cutting rollercoaster ride — does it achieve a rainbow of color or does it derail? Cutting an opal from rough always has it’s challenges — I often describe the uncut gem as a rollercoaster ride because of the enormity of the journey.From identifying the potential in the rough piece of opal, to the cutting process and the challengers that lie within each decision made at the wheel, to then the final stage of polishing the gem to enhance the plethora of colour each glorious Opal has to offer. This particular nobby is from my…

Posted on March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 by Justin Thomas — Leave a comment

Three unique features of nobby rough opal from Lightning Ridge

I’ve been cutting some new nobby rough opal from Lightning Ridge. I thought it be good to share some of the unique features of these type of formations. I’ve selected an example to work on in the image below. The one thing that many (but not all) of these nobbies have in common is a potch base and a white cap on top. We see this a lot in rich deposits of opal. Some of the main opal fields including places like Jag Hill, Wyoming, and much of the Coocoran opal fields all have this in common. The Nobby You can see from the bottom up of this…