Lightning Ridge is a tiny opal-mining town about 70 kilometres south of the Queensland border in New South Wales and 700 kilometres north-west of Sydney. The city is situated on the edge of an anci...


There are many categories of opal when it comes to grading them out.Opals of all different colors are and have different values depending on the color it displays.You can categorize opals by using ...
White opal is a more common opal heavily marketed in the early days of opal trading, which is what most think about when they think of opal.White opal has a very light body tone to it giving the op...

Watch me explaining body tone chart and the brightness scale. This is only a guide to show you how the scales work.
Solid black opal is found mainly in Lightning Ridge in Australia. Black opal is a dark-bodied or a dark tint throughout the opal, making the color in the opal bright and beautiful. Solid black opal...
Australian Opal inlay is the term for opal that has been inset into precious metal. The gem is polished at the same time as the metal, and the opal flattened to the same height as the precious meta...
Australian Black Opal comes from Lightning Ridge in the outback of New South Wales, Australia. Commercially it would produce over 95% of the World’s black opal in terms of quantity and quality. Ot...

How to cut a Nobby..polishing of rough opal made to look easy…Watch master cutter Justin from Black Opal Direct polish a piece of rough ‘Nobby’ with a flat colour bar into an oval cabochon. In this...








