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The story of the show…

Every Thursday morning, 8AM EST, we do our best to produce a show that highlights the realities of being in the opal business. This episode we go into depth with Rod about what is opal, the different types of opal and where do they all come from around Australia.

As promised in our show here are links to the different kinds of opal found around Australia:

Black Opals

Semi Black Opals

Boulder Opals

Koroit Matrix Opals

Opal Doublets

White Opals

Crystal Opals

We also touch on the subject of opal doublets and here is a video of Rod cutting some rough we purchased from Mintabie of recent. Notice the rough opal contains some nice crystal, some white and we also cut some doublets from this same parcel of rough. As Rod explains in the short video doublets are cut from crystal opal but normally a very very thin layer of opal is all that we start to work with. Rod then colours the opal in with a black marker to illustrate the contract it makes being put onto a black background as it would when it becomes a doublet. In our case our backing material is black spinel which we use on all of our doublets. A good opal doublet can fetch as much money as a good doubler opal, because at the end of the day its still expensive to buy the rough opal from Mintabie, Australia. Good rough crystal opal can fetch prices up to $2000 AUD for just 1 ounce of rough material!

Cutting Mintabie Crystal Opal into Australian Opal Doublets - Rodney Beattie from Trent Anderson on Vimeo.

Rod and I made a purchase of 12+ kilos of Koroit Matrix Boulder Opal  recently and I wanted to show you how the rough comes from our miners in Koroit during the purchase process. We normally purchase rough Koroit in slices, this way its fair for both buyer and seller as we both have an understanding of what the rough material can produce. Its a fair system for both parties.

We also mention on our episode about the new deposit of opal that has been discovered in Laveton, Western Australia. This opal is intense in color ranging from white, yellow, reds and oranges. Its extremely expensive at this point in time because production costs are very high and yield is quite low. I believe they are calling it Australian Fire Opal.

Listen to our podcast, give us your feedback and we will try to keep it as regular as possible in between our busy work schedules as possible.

People in this episode:

• Trent Anderson
• Rodney Beattie

Thanks for listening to our show! We’ll be back next Thursday morning 8AM EST.