Ready, steady, cut!

Hold onto your seats, this ride is a rough one (no pun intended).

This gorgeous-looking grey crockery top Wyoming Field nobby looks like it has the potential to turn into an incredible black opal gem. Although, revealing the layers of this particular rough opal, will not be a stress-free journey.

Revealing the layers

As I examine the nobby, the risk that I can see is the undulating part on the top — which could push the crockery top into the color. The good news is I can see the color bar travels around the entire nobby. The best case scenario is a free-form gem or possibly cutting two opals. My plan is to go in lightly and slowly on the finer wheel so I’m not losing color.

I’m going in!

A bit of color followed by a bit of sand and around and around we go. Although the color is looking vibrant, black spots are starting to appear. This means there could be a potch line running through the color — not what we want. However, as the potch begins to spread across the face of the gem, the color also brightens. I am willing to back myself and take this down as far as I can to see what reveals itself (after a little advice from my pal, The Rock).

The end game

The final results are in and they’re actually pretty good! We ended up with a 5.01ct Black Opal with a lot of red. Working out to be a US$5000 gem — you can’t be disappointed with that! You can check out the final opal here.