Tag: Australian Opal

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Show & Tell — JT’s Treasured Personal Collection

Treasured Personal Collection

We thought it was about time that we did a little update on Justin’s treasured personal collection of Opals and other cherished items.Join us as we take you through some of Justin’s newly acquired top gem Crystal Opals.Plus, some of our favourite Black Opals that live on the website waiting for their forever homes. Personal Collection Opals Let’s begin our show & tell session with an incredible Andamooka Crystal Opal which I found at a vendors’ booth in Tucson during my last trip.This gem is such a feast for the eyes with its flagstone and chaff patterns and 3D color on color.Andamooka Crystal Opals with this kind of clarity are…

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950 carats of seam opal goodness!

Big, bold and a little unassuming — one thing is for certain, we’re going to need to bring out the heavy grit wheel to work on this monster gem.Weighing in at a colossal 950 carats, we’ll need to clear the schedule to work on this piece of rough opal. Tips & Tricks Unearthed in the Grawin Feild in Lighntning Ridge, otherwise known as ‘seam opal country’, pieces like this one can be rare due to the size the cavity must be to create it.Slides, fissures and cracks underground caused by movements in the earth for over hundreds of milliions of years create these cavities which fill up with silica spheres…

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Lightning Ridge Opal Mines

Lightning Ridge has many different opal fields or mines in and around it. The opal from each mine and area can differ from black opal to white opal and even grey opal. The opal mines in Lightning Ridge, like the 3 Mile Flat, have produced some of the most beautiful black and crystal opal gemstones the world has ever seen. Opal, in general around the ridge, is of gem quality when it is found, but finding it is a different story. Many people have tried to find opal and failed over and over again. Only a few select people have made it big, and I mean really made it. By…

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