All of the opals you’ll find here are from Lightning Ridge, Australia. These are all natural precious opal gemstones in their original and or rubbed state, without any treatments. These are strong, stable opals that won’t easily fall apart or crumble so you can cut, sand, polish, and carve them into the shape you need for your own custom opal jewelry creation.
Opal cutters looking for parcels of rough opal can browse through this catalog to find the right parcel for your budget and needs.
The two types of rough opal you will find in these parcels will be nobby and seam opal. Both come from different opal fields in the region of Lightning Ridge. The nobby formation is unique to Lightning Ridge and comes in nodule form or rounded and peaked rocks. This type can show a matrix of white caps with the play of color showing underneath those caps.
Seam opal is a formation that is in plates or flat shapes. These are formed in fissures and cracks or cavities naturally occurring underground from the movement of the earth. How the opal can be cut will depend on which field the seam opal comes from. The majority of all opal fields in Lightning Ridge can produce top-quality opal.
Rough and Unfinished Black Opal
The opals here are completely unfinished but we may have snipped some of the pieces to give you a clear understanding of what you may find inside the nobby or seam. It’s always a bit of a surprise what mother nature dishes out, and that’s half the fun – the other half, of course, is the challenge of working with the opal to show its best face.
