What has attracted people to Australian opals over the centuries? Color, color and more color! Opals change their color when one looks at them from variant sides and angles. Some of the times there is little color at all but as sooner as you move your head and suddenly a beautiful breathtaking burst of brilliant array of color blinks from the stone. This factor is more in the Australian opal jewelry than the other types of opals found in other countries.

Unless one is very lucky, the higher the cost for the Australian boulder opal is, the better the quality is.  But one can still get the high blinking colors for a cheaper price if they buy doublets or triplets. These are Australian opal pieces whose reinforcement is a solid backing of no-color opal jewelry. It has a clear dome of quartz or other material on top of it.

Australian opal begins off as a silica gel which comes out through sedimentary strata gradually hardening for millions of years through a natural process. At early stages, the Australian opal is extremely soft. It has in it a lot of water up to between three and ten percent. On the Moh’s scale of hardiness it hits around 5.5 to 6.5 and which is relatively soft.

Australian opals classification is in several groups: Black Australian opals which come from the Lightning Ridge area in NSW. The second is the white opals and light opals which come from the Coober Pedy region in South of Australia. They are also available in notable areas like Mintabie and Andamooka. Boulder Australian opals on the other hand come from Queensland. There are also minor locations that have a production of some amounts of very high quality Australian opal. Black Australian opals have a dark base and white Australian opals have a white base while on the other hand the Australian boulder opal which is highly rated has an ironstone base.

The Australian opal has also various levels of blackness. One may get an Australian opal from either Coober Pedy or Lightning Ridge or Coober Pedy which comes with a grey base. That basically means that the gemstone has blinks of perhaps very bright red and blue or other colors mixed inside of a grey base color. The base might be light or almost dark. It’s basically referred to as black opal when it attains the dark color it resembles some children’s' marbles.

Lastly, the other type of opal that makes people go for Australian opal is the Crystal opal. It is transparent but the colors can still be seen from its clarity. There are different degrees of the Australian crystal opal. When we can’t have a clear vision clearly through the crystal then it would be classified as semi crystal.

How much does the Australian opal cost? The worthiness of an Australian opal is not an easy thing to tell. It can only be established by the quality. What is considered in pricing is the best pattern, brightest and most vibrant color. Red is basically the most expensive color.