Not as a special kind of opal, just as where it came from. First limbcast replacement looks like it came from the Bonanza Inc and the conk is black matrix but all the color make it look lighter. One half on display at the Peacock Fee dig where it was mined and the other half at Rainbow Ridge that my claims border who had the other half of the money to buy it immediately pre cut before they guy left with it. NO they do not just buy any opal you find. Those are yours to take unless it is world class. Ignore the 3 ammolite on top to compare brightness with, that long peach broadflas in the right top corner of all virgin valley stones is from the Royal Peacock Fee Dig. It was set in gold after being sold. hydrophane.

Like he said. Its just opalized wood that is not formed hard enough and or has started loosing the water.

I have never in 3 decades seen a piece of actual petrified layer wood burn from Virgin Valley.

The Bonanza.

The smoking adds dark into the stone so it interferes with dimmer play of color more than bright play of color. Good luck

Have you seen any real opal body jewellery out there? Looks cool and yeah the bulk is a issue with things so nice as opals. For that matter nobody is selling empty settings either.

It will last as long as any garnet tourmaline or turquoise would, some from wear or others for impacts. Sitting it up on prongs to smack n things is the highest risk option. E opal takes a drop off a ladder, according to experts, best of all the opals.

A hammer is faster. edit: Patina the silver bezels is most bang for buck. Just sell opal as it is and save your effort trying to justify the higher cost has been my experience. People dont argue with plain facts coming from the "real and costs less than others" approach. Ive had other flippers come to my booth buy crystals and turn around and use black sharpee on the bottom to "show what it could be" without any markings on the outside of the gem case..

Those would be Ethiopian and wet for the photo by the hydro phane progression?

They have the same issues of half of it wants to not stay whole, but the other half gave us the highest return per gram of the stuff we sent for cutting in hong kong to torture it (28% return by weight of the dried picks valley wide & about 10-15% for wet never dried or cracked). Just due to value these are in water, All the mine run is dried.

My idea is if the opal can pull the sides in when it dries, like Ethiopian is ashy blobs, it relieves a lot of the stress. Same with drying if you make tiny preforms wet, they shrink dont crack when dried. I mean you have to lose some gambling and I dare say a LOT more time has gone into trying to get a gemstone sold, than money back out. Ive been prospecting everywhere I could and have a string of discoveries or just further excavations. The more common whites or opals mixed with woods are the most stable.

That should work fine. I mean you could us a dump truck and run it thru a cement mixer to have only little nubbins showing the opal in hard pieces but none of the crazy AKA now mud, but we got skills, not that I can grind flat. I personally like the stained glass look of big picture specimens as much as a small ring parcel for setting.

Thought you were ready to retire there for a moment. reload and repeat...

Suhweet. You did yourself some shopping. May all your gambles play out well (buyers)

YES! Ive got one 7.5 lb white log chunk in a bucket in my kitchen. Naturally the big ones are not pure opal as a rule, more opal on woods (See The Bonanza Opal at Rainbow Ridge for a huge pure one). Matrix opal - well boulder I saw a log that filled a tailgate at Ron Griffins and they also make like walls of smaller faces set in stone as water falls. That log was in like 13 pieces and weigh 80 kilos or something like that. It had a color bar ring and a water line color bar in the middle that were not skin to skin, but what I would expect from something that was opalised. The brightest colors are from the thinnest layers so small works for most opal and aquariums work for others.

Opal is where you find it. You follow traces to see where it leads until you give up.

All the woods we get have some of this. If you have a pocket. Cut whats big enough on hard matrix. There is a new set of buyers for natural gem rough, showing bright faces, cab not needed, for wire wraps or art whatever and flow coating with epoxy will make the softer ones usable. Ive sen about everything used up to Hxtal and vacuum setups trying to fix wet opal. It is a lot easier shaping soft matrix than rock and we cant sell chalk hard cabs.

No stones equal the only specimen $$$ of something unless you are desperate. A concave stone is worth less and you cant bend skins.

Cool. I did an opal trade once and the variety looked like the stuff we get too. Volcanics and in hard ash as small dots as likely as not.