Archive for the Gemstones Category

A bolder look at Boulder Opal

Posted in Gemstones on January 6, 2011 by opalmine

A bolder look at Boulder Opal

Dramatic Red Boulder Opal
Usually gemstones are associated with little things, not big things.  But the boulder opal of Western Queensland, Australia is totally different.  In its rough state it is associated with the wild west of Australia.  A land dominated by harsh conditions which can oscillate between heat and dust and rain and floods.
This dynamic gemstone which dramatizes all the colors of the spectrum in one package, gets its name from the mother rocks that have to be bulldozed and excavated out of the red Queensland dirt by tools much larger than what was used one hundred years ago when these fields were first found with a pic and shovel.
The hosts of these magnificent gems are Boulder ironstones that can come as large as meters in diameter down to as small as an almond. The brilliant gems themselves are  usually found in thin veins crisscrossing and weaving their way throughout the ironstone, presenting a huge challenge for the skilful opal cutter to slice through the brown hard material with a diamond blade, to release them gem from its traditional home.
The problem is that the opal cutter is often working blindly because, even though an indication of the opal color is often seen on the surface of the stone, there is no way of telling which direction it will go inside the stone and many a gem has been destroyed by a slice made in the wrong direction.
In the past, novice cutters, when attempting to process a boulder opal, have been tempted to cut away all the mother ironstone and just leave the color.  It didn’t take long to realise of course, that leaving the dark brown ironstone in the background of the boulder, gave the opal a great stability and served to also give it a darkness that put it in a similar category to Lightning Ridge Black Opal.
So, the ironstone in the background of the stone served the same purpose as the black unformed opal potch does to Lightning Ridge black opals.  Some feel that the colors in boulder opal are even more dramatic than Lightning Ridge, and there is a reason for this.  Anyone experienced in cutting opal doublets and triplets knows that to a point, the more you flatten the top of a doublet or triplet, the darker and brighter the stone becomes unless you cut it down too far.  This is because the foreground of the stone becomes darker and the color more intense, or ‘bold’ if you like!.
And this Is exactly why some boulder opals are more intense in color than black opals from Lightning Ridge, because the opal is thinner.  Black boulder opals are fast becoming the opal of the future, as other opal fields in Australia begin to run out of gems, whereas the boulder fields still seem to be producing enough to nearly keep up with demand.

And not only that, but boulder opals have an extensive variety of variations within the species. Depending on your pocket and your taste, you can go for a full color stone featuring reds, blues, greens, oranges, pinks, purples.  Or, you can select an opal with ironstone inclusions, sometimes featuring patterns and shapes that resemble pictures, or abstract works of art.

Boulder opals are indeed a BOLD way of expressing your personality, whether they are featured in rings, pendants, bracelets, brooches, or multiple other jewelry ornaments

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The Ordinary Bloke’s Guide to Opals: Terminology Part 6

Posted in Identifying Types, Learn How To Cut And Polish Opals, Locating Rough Opal, Opal Bloke CD for free, Opal, the gemstone on March 28, 2009 by opalmine

Terminology [see www.opalmine.com-encyclopedia]

Pale Opal: All opals that are light in color without a dark background. Crystal, is high quality pale opal.

White Opal: Pale opal that is white-ish in color, that is not translucent.

Crystal Opal: Pale opal with brighter colors that are translucent. (I.e., you can see into the stone.)
Jelly Opal: Pale opal that is like jelly. (Very see-through) It can contain various degrees of color.

Jelly Crystal: A cross between Jelly and Crystal opal.

Black Opal: Opal with a pitch-black background, thus causing the foreground of the stone to have a darker appearance.

Semi Black Opal: Same family as black opal but with a grayer background. This can range from very light Grey, almost whitish background to quite dark.    The darker the background directly beneath the color, the brighter and more defined is the foreground. -

Sunflash: Black opal that is very dark with just a hint of   color coming through, usually red. Black Crystal: - Fig 18 (right) Black opal that is slightly translucent like crystal opal. The black or dark background is right through the stone instead of just in the background like black opal.

Rough Opal: Opal in its rough or uncut form.

Potch: Unformed Opal with no color play. This can be white, grey or black.

Seam Opal From Lightning Ridge that has been rubbed so  as to expose the color.

Cutters can request this service from some dealers. This way there is a lot less risk

Seam Opal: Probably named because of the ‘flattish’ appearance of the rough. It is often found in horizontal ‘seams’ or lines in the opal dirt. It is not always flat. It often comes in lumps like ‘Knobby’ opal. (See. Fig’s 19,20)

Seam Opal: Probably named because of the ‘flattish’ appearance of the rough. It is often found in horizontal ‘seams’ or lines in the opal dirt. It is not always flat. It often comes in lumps like ‘Knobby’ opal. (See. Fig’s 19,20)

Colour Bar: A line or bar of colour going through the stone with potch on either side.  This can be either straight or bent, horizontal or vertical. (Usually used in connection with South Australian ‘Seam’ opal.)

Knobby Opal: Similar to ‘Seam’ opal, only that the stone is more random in shape and in its position in the opal dirt.  It is often lumpy in shape and can come in fossil crustaceans, called ‘Chinaman’s Hats’ (because of their shape).

Knobbies (although most are just black potch) are highly sought after by the opal miner, knowing that most famous black opals have been cut from them

.Fossil Opal: As the name implies, this type of opal can be opal replacements of bones, roots, animal claws or teeth.  Many fossils are found in the Coocoran area of the Lightning Ridge field, but they are found in most fields.

Opal Shells: - These are the most common fossils found on the fields.  Coober Pedy produced thousands of these out of the famous ‘Shell Patch’ field, but they are plentiful in the Lightning Ridge area as well.  All these sea creatures in the desert are obvious signs of either a great flood or at least large inland oceans thousands of years ago.-

Coober Pedy is famous for it’s white opal and crystal opal shells. They are well sought after by collectors and the offcuts make very bright solid opals and doublets.  Sometimes they are backed with boulder opal ironstone and look for the world like solid boulder opals, unless you know what to look for. Always be careful when buying a boulder opal to make sure that it is not really a Coober Pedy shell with a boulder back. A slight prick with a sharp needle on the side of the stone  where the ironstone meets the opal, will indicate whether or not the back has been cemented on.

Boulder Opal: name suggests, this opal comes in fine seams embedded in the boulders which are called (probably incorrectly) ironstone. (More likely hardened desert sandstone.)  These boulders can be as small as a pebble or up to a meter thick and are usually smashed into subjection with sledge hammers.  (Fig. 13) A lot of opal is often destroyed in this process.  Very large diamonds saws are sometimes used if the color is obvious. Cutting boulder opal is a very muddy experience.

Boulder opal fun stones (These are stones with ironstone showing in the opal face) can be sold from $10 each for stones with weak color and a lot of ironstone, to practically any price if the stone is exceptionally dark in the background and very bright with good patterns.  However, it would be unusual to get more than around $10 000 for a stone like this unless it was very large and red.- Fig’s 35,36 (above)

Matrix Opal: (natural) Matrix, coming from the term ‘maternal’ or ‘mother’ indicates opal that comes as a part of other material that holds it as in a ‘womb’.  There are two types of matrix opal thus: Boulder Matrix , which comprises matrix stones from all the Queensland fields such as Winton, Quilpie, Jundah,  Yowah, and Karoit.

Andamooka Matrix: (treated) A natural porous stone containing mostly opal. The color is accentuated by a process of boiling it in sugar or glucose and sulfuric acid.  The sugar soaks in to the porous rock and the acid turns the sugar into carbon, which of course turns the stone black, thus giving it a black opal appearance. Fig. 40 (top, right) a large specimen featuring a strip of orange- red standing out against the green.

Painted Lady: - Fig. 41 (left) A thin white-ish or crystal layer of opal color attached to a white or creamy colored rock found in Andamooka.  It is possible to cut stones from it in a similar fashion to Queensland boulder opal but it is usually left as a specimen.  In fact with a little imagination one could call it South Australia’s “boulder opal” without the stark colors familiar to boulder and the brown ironstone.

Pancakes: Found mainly in the Winton area.  The name again is very descriptive. They are boulder opals, very flat-ish, often with very pretty bands of ironstone, and can achieve an excellent polish, similar to some Yowah nuts.  The specimen left (Fig. 42) was cut from a Winton Pancake.

[see www.opalmine.com-encyclopedia]

Yowah Nuts: As the name implies, these are found in ‘nutlike’ formations, as small as a pea to approximately fist size.  They are really miniature boulder opals but are famous for their fascinating bands of ironstone with associated natural matrix opal. The most sought after these has a kernel of pure opal, but also in big demand by collectors is the unusual patterns and pictures    caused by the veins of opal in the ironstone.

[see www.opalmine.com-encyclopedia 'at the mines']

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What are proper values?

Posted in Gemstones with tags , , , , , , on March 2, 2009 by opalmine

Reference point valuations

Everything on our planet has a value. The trick is to recognize it. For something to have value, it must do something for us. That means that things that we cannot even see have value. Actually they are more valuable than things we can see. It’s just that we don’t think about them or recognize them. Take the air we breathe. The food we eat. Some aspects of these things such as vitamins and minerals are not obvious to the naked eye.

Animals don’t have to think of values. They just put there heads down, eat and drink and get immediate benefits from these valuable things without having to think about it. Instinct establishes there set of values.

But we humans often have to think about it. We have created this thing called money which is supposed to represent or epitomize value, and to a reasonable degree, this is true. If we had the old trading system, it would be very difficult to cart around a table and chairs to trade for something. So because everyone accepts money as a common denominator, we are willing to work hard in the heat all day. Or work in a boring office, for money. Why? Because we know we can sacrifice this paper stuff to get other things which we consider to be more valuable. Motor cars, houses, jewelry, varieties of food and clothing.

Some of us are brainwashed into thinking that the money itself is where the value is, not in the things it can buy. In this case, it’s the security of just having it that represents value to them. Like the man who rummages through rubbish bins for food so that he can leave his million dollars in the bank. Or the millionaire who refuses to change a dripping tap in the kitchen because of the plumbing expense.

Yet, what happens if money looses its value? Talk to people who lived in Germany after the last Great War. Ask them how much the DM was worth for a period of time after the war. You needed a small suitcase of them to get a bus ticket.

Such unbridled assignment of value to paper decorated with the heads of famous or infamous people is clearly nonsensical, and yet, to a degree most of us are guilty of it. How many people sacrifice kindness, human relationships, health and nervous energy, making sure they have the most beautiful house or car in the street? And the amazing part about it is that a lot of folks with lovely houses, rarely get around to living in them, because the time it takes doing 3 jobs, or running a business for 16 hours out of each day for seven days a week, means that the only time they enjoy them is when they are sleeping.

Should not our values be more closely aligned to happiness and contentment for ourselves and anyone else around us? And once we get these values sorted out, we can spoil ourselves with a bit of a splurge now and then, because we’ll probably discover that there’s money to be saved if we get our priorities right.

Art why do people love it and others hate it

A love hate relationship

Many elements make up a work of art . It’s a combination of elements that make it up. Color, size, contrast, texture. Contrast in size, color, tonal qualities. You can isolate a section of a painting. It might be elements must be organized in such a way that its pleasing to the eye. Is it all reds. Need large areas of reds. Lighter reds. Light and dark. Recognizing how all these elements can be put together . might not strike as a work of art in the beginning. But if it sits on your wall. It becomes a screen between you and the artist. For arguments sake if someone paints like a photo. There is no expression of the artist in the painting no brush strokes you might as well just have a photograph. If you like photos. Is it something interesting, or is it the artist photographer. Waits for the sun in the right position. Too create a mood. He starts composing. He’s doing the same thing as the artist. Looking for textures, design, light. Different times of the day. Better if you like photos to empty someone to do it. People think good art is how like the subject matter you make your artwork. No. this is bad art. Drafting skills do come into it. But this is only one element. Look at a painting look at its composition well thought out love color schemes. Appeals to me .. some folks buy art because an art dealer says it will be worth money time .. in this case it becomes another form of cash. Rembrandt for example. One painting shows he is really depressed. Closer you get to it you can see that only three brushstrokes for the nose. For hundreds of years never see so many self portraits. Different moods . Before photography artists were more credible Smart Chart Opal Valuation systembecause they were the only way of recording history…further later

To effectively value opals check out the Smart Chart Valuation system.This system is the best attempt to interpret the seemingly endless varieties of shapes, patterns, prices, and qualities of stones from the three major fields in Australia. The results of many years of hands on opal cutting, viewing, analyzing, promoting and marketing that most elusive of gemstones. The Australian Opal.

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‘She won’t be right’ mate! We do need an opal valuation system!

Posted in opal valuations, Opal, the gemstone on February 28, 2009 by opalmine

[“She’ll be right mate!” is a typical expression used by Australians to say, ‘near enough is good enough.’ Unfortunately this philosophy has become a part of our persona with resultant unfortunate business side effects. Just as well for us, we are starting to get a bit better organized in our way of doing things nowadays. Here is an example of that]

It must have been thirty five years ago when I first met Peter Evans. As I remember, he was sitting at an opal cutting machine somewhere in Sydney, attempting to extract the best polish for Queensland boulder opal, with its challenging matrix of ironstone. Never one to hold a secret for long, he revealed, ‘Just try using an old nylon carpet, charged with tin oxide.’ ‘That’ll bring the shine up on this stuff”

Peter has been at the forefront of the opal industry for a long time. A genial, helpful guy with a determined glint in his eye and a stack of advice, he has obviously thought long and hard about the opal stone. Set against the backdrop of how us ‘Auzzies’ do things in an ad hock sort of way, Peter is a far cry from the “She’ll be right” mentality. Always quizzing things. Always inventing. A self made man who is not afraid to put his ideas into action and challenge the status quo.

And challenge he has. Particularly when you think of tackling the problem of creating a grading system to simplify opal valuation. Such a system, if successful, would be a piece of equipment in demand by every jeweler in the world worth his metal [if you’ll excuse the pun]

The difficulty we have in arriving at a consistent opal valuation system is that opal is not like any other gem stone. Most gems have a certain consistency of color and clarity, making them not so difficult to categorize and value.

Opal however is the renegade of the gem world. Its colors and patterns challenge the imagination. You think its one color and it suddenly flashes a different color. You see a pattern on one end of the stone, and it swaps to another pattern on the other end as it is rocked to and fro. The varieties of opals are endless. It is one of the most interesting of all industries to be involved in. Once you are bitten by the opal the bug, the bite is deep and lasting.

This then is what Peter had to address. How do you get a dumb computer to analyze color, clarity, background, pattern, imperfections, and shapes? Most of us are still wondering how he did it, but he has indeed accomplished it, even though, already there have been a number of revisions of his original program.

What we already have though, is a consistent system taking into consideration the nomenclature established by the gem industry association in Australia. [see: http://www.opal.asn.au/nomenclature.htm Anyone in the world, with a computer can access what has been not so modesty but legitimately described as “The Smart Chart” Available online at www.opalmine.com Imagine, if everyone in the world starts using this system, there will be no more confusion as to whether an opal is real or not, or whether its value is right or not. Congratulations Peter, on a job well done. – Peter Brusaschi www.opalmine.com ‘Opal Ridge’ Australian outback opal fields Lightning Ridge

Peter Brusaschi is the author of the CD ‘The ordinary Bloke’s guide to opal’ and has sponsored the site http://www.opalmine.com with its opal chat forum, for the past 10 years. Peter has been visiting the Australian outback for the past 37 years and is an expert on the subject of opals and outback travel.

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History

Posted in Opal, the gemstone with tags , , , , on January 29, 2009 by opalmine

I was about ten years of age when I first set eyes on an opal. It was in a ring on my grandmother’s finger. It was love at first sight.

The next time I encountered opals was when I was about 30 years of age. I was staying with a friend who was an opal cutter. This time I looked at them through different eyes.

I remarked to my friend that a stone with such variety of unbelievable colors would be easy to sell.

My friend smiled and offered to let me take some of his opals on consignment and have a go at selling them. I think he asked $600 for a parcel of opal triplets (laminates), which was a lot of money in 1972. I decided to have a go at selling them, so I agreed on his price, took the opals, separated them carefully and priced them individually. I didn’t know a thing about selling opal…but I just felt that such beautiful stones would have to be easy to sell. Maybe it was my initial enthusiasm…but I sold the lot in just a few days..by just calling in to business as I traveled into the countryside. Not long after this I decided to learn how to cut them myself…and that was the beginning of my opal business.

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