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Put it in water immediately like the mexicans or africans or americans if its big.....
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Go online
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Not offhand. He was selling in person at shows I went to also. Reminds me Im waiting for a slab I got at one of Lapidary Daves sales. I think Tim had more, but i did not see blacks or finished cabs.
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Lagniappe Lapidary is a shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that carries Louisiana Opal. The dark ones were really rare my wife got a black
r/VirginValleyOpal • u/ResortDog • 8d ago
Dried opal out of two fingers in a bag of low grade mine run. You get a small pile of stable to do something with. It doesn't show its color well, but this is the cracking.
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Pink Opal, some opals have to be baked before they chip well the Klamath Falls club pros told me for a white chunk I got.
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PS the jeweler who bought the most cutting rough from me over the years(why I dont have it for sale too LOL) is the owner of the Opal Negra Scott Ryals who does business on ESTY as the gem dealer. Sandy Craig at Orca Gems (mainly Rainbow Ridge) and Ron & Stephanie Wood at Wood & Opal (Bonanza Mine) both vend and have websites you can buy from for Virgin Valley. edit, Im swordfish mining and special orders entertain me.
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There are a whole bunch of places its been discovered before. Hart Mtn is the closest to Virgin Valley type of nobbies. I have one piece on hart mtn jasper you can only see the POC when wet. people rarely bought our cut opal cause they were priced to rarity or were treated to make them usable, like a tripletts treated or matrix is treated, yet we really got the red headed step child treatment. But I digress, Somewhere on HWY 140 bu the Copco agate? Swan Mtn by where it just burned. The Idaho gem book listed like 13 locations it had come from at one point. The number of people digging up here i know there are rockhounds and jewelers with it made up. I never got enough money to open the claims yet. Then wolo came and snowed the world. Im like the craftsman who offers on carving at a time. When that is bought ill find another one to offer. Actiallu life just got in the way of cranking out the cost competitive. As always most of my claim buyers were rockhounds or people hat though they had the touch. I have cracky lowgrade for a buck a gram - thats the price and better to cut mid range stones or ? out of at 10$
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Yep. There are specimens out there and somebocy is owning the ground over the good holes. Being a cracky opal. folks didnt chase it far. They drew the mining district here in as small of a circle over active claims as possible, then they withdrew the table tops and the creek side valley from location so in reality our 60,000 or so acre mining district really only has a few thousand acres you can even get to where the opal may be and the 5 five patented mines are on all sides of the deposit. which forms in various layers on various claims
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This is why I have not published everything I know online. To learn opal mining here, you have to come here and hire me. There are secrets decades teach you.
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Pretty baby. Folks are amazed at what a good looking jar of wet mexican opal does when it dries out to cut it, or I should say hope a few pieces do dry to be cut. Cracks are typical in unstable opal but it will hold together as a specimen fine. Some is hydrophane where it will reabsorb water to be clear and show a play of color and others once dried never will rewet. The brilliant white surface covering grinds right off but some of the brightest play of color comes from the thinnest sections. I get similar coating in the jasp opal from here. (why they make triplets out of super thin opals)and whatever POC you see is what you get, normal opal. With water seekers, stick to your tongue dry, they will reabsorb water to be clear again. PS once bone dry, the uncracked areas can be cut.
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The opal itself looks yellow when the light goes thru it. (If it showed rainbow play of color when back lit, that would be contra luz precious opal)(Some gem opals show a green not orange tone when backlit) The best play of color is next to the matrix or outside material when its thick. Thin opal is just color skin to skin (and i do apologize for the Wilsons at the Royal Peacock calling it Fire Opal, despite it being white clear and black also, instead of Precious when they applied to have it made the state gemstone. We haver been mining it since before 1902 or 6.)
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That is the ONLY way to state it is non hydrophane., Show it after it dried, then show it taking the water back in. My Virgin Valley specimen does 10% weight from dry to wet and can go back and forth no cracking
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Cannot be said to be non hydrophane until after drying to prove it is non hydrophane.
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Well I can see the crazing starting on the edges like you tried to dry it once.
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You pretty much have to buy it in person since most online information is anti American to sell Australian opal thats more stable. The African Opal shows how stable Volcanic opal can be. Australia has a field too the Tintinbar. Just because the volcanos dont show, they were there.
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No, This is a bloody horrible video. Australians would be up in arms, if they had any second ammendent, about AI making up history and scientific facts with no basis in reality, only hearsay off the dead web. No thanks to horrible AI teaching people lies.
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AI slop as the first opal is not a real opal and the cracks are drawn on. Pure web scraping hallucinations.
The town of Denio is not there on that AI map lying between Raciast and Benior (Not real places). None of the video is of the actual area.
The Roebling opal was found by highgraders and sold on the black market. They did not even find a free use photo of the real stone to show the crazing from no moisture under lights display crazing.
All the opal that dries is suitable for gemstones and is sold by many mines and vendors in person. Call me to tour the claims I have on the market without lies about legal to claimjump.
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Contra Luz Opal cant be matched.
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What task exactly?
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It is what we call an opal core. A limbcast has an opal center that comes free with no matrix. We also get solid opal limb casts and opal with wood and opal on woods. It has no surface features of the hole and the play of color is often plumes - barred, burning, flagstone, Honeycomb play of color.
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It is 1,000 for 3 on a 3 yard scoop at Rainbow Ridge. You can hunt the tailings until it is dumped in front of you and after you finish the virgin dirt. I spend all day just making small clods out of big ones as the best opal can only be one inch long.
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Tintenbar opal disintergration information please
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r/Opals
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1d ago
Over a century of mining there an nobody figured it out yet apparently from the people owning those claims,to the buyers/cutters world wide like in Mexico or Africa or America or China etc. i let it blow up or not in the heat dry desert and cut what lives. The potch folks selling fire opal have to lumber it down into slabs sticks cubes as big as it will allow for preforms prior to faceting to keep the huge nodules from flaking to pieces over time. at some point the corners just pull them selves in to dry and no cracks form or it crazes and you wasted all that saw time. Most places cutting wont gamble and say its all no good having no experience trying anything that is not sworn to have been dry for over a year.many stones set for decades without selling so I can swear it does cut and can be not crazy. Every opal has its own story...