"Black Opal is incredibly hard to find, so why is it so expensive?" I'm no Opal expert, but something tells me that your answer has a bit to do with the first part of that statement...
I think they meant the question was getting at more at the point of,”why is it considered valuable for a small group of people who’ve actually shown interest in a rock?” The wording wasn’t the best but I knew what they were trying to convey. Also, their show likes to present RHETORICAL questions to the viewers
@@Falicity345 Boy oh boy, I bet you are a hoot at parties... 😂 I know what they were trying to convey. I've seen plenty of their videos. I was just trying to crack a joke. That's all. 🤷♂️😂 I appreciate your explanation though!
I used to work in the wholesale jewelry industry. I still remember one day an opal dealer came into the store with loose stones. he had a lot of inventory but after awhile he said that he had one special stone that was one of the best he had ever seen. he took out the paper packet, unfolded and I swear the stone looked like viewing the earth from space. blew me away. at the time it was 10,000 dollars a carat (1987 dollars wholesale). it was about 5 or 6 carats the size of a medium marble. still sticks with me today.
My grandmother thought of getting a gift for my mother, her daughter-in-law. She found this gorgeous opal ring. But she liked it so much that she decided to keep it for herself but then said my mother would get it in her will. My grandmother was such a character.😆
I hope he makes his first million this year. Sounds like he's got his heart in it not just making the profits off of his workers he's actually doing it and leading the way when he mines and is trying so hard. Love to see it
@@Varcinius If you are so smart, you would realize that jewelers do not refine the jewels, the jewel cutters do, and the jewel cutters DON'T get paid that much (around 40k dollars). Also, your comment states that miners should become jewellers if they want to get rich, but you have to realize that not everyone can become an artisan.
My Grandmother got a lightning ridge black "fire" opal from the late 19th century. It was among the biggest and certainly best ever seen. What a shame that the jeweller accidentally broke it when cleaning it, but replaced it with a top notch piece of shite he had on hand. My poor gullible mother didn't want to cause a fuss, so never said anything, until a few years later she put it on, and the family immediately asked, "what the heck happened to your opal?" She relayed the story and how the jeweller, assured her the replacement was even better than her original. I wanted to have a quiet chat with him but was sworn to leave it alone, as though they did not have faith in my diplomatic intentions. I do so have a soft spot for businessmen that exploit the elderly, soft as lead.
For anyone curious if you have expensive jewellery INSURE IT and if you take it to be cleaned, take it to a reputable and INSURED jeweller. Have a receipt provided and always ALWAYS if you suspect anything is wrong with the service or item you must get police involved so you can claim any damages under your insurance or theirs.
I reckon he didn't break it at all and pulled it out and re-sold it for a gigantic amount of money. Jewelers have been known to do that. My father wouldn't let my mother take her jewels to regular jewelers because this had happened to his mother in the past and it really made an impact on him. I think my grandmother had a gigantic emerald, one of the last really spectacular ones to come out of a certain mine in Colombia. She asked to get it re-set in a different ring and a few weeks later the jeweler called amd said he accidentally "shattered the emerald into a heap of tiny shards" he replaced it with one of the stones in his "personal" collection. Five years later my grandfather got a picture from another friend of his asking if this looked like the stone my grandmother used to have and guess what, he had bought it from the same jeweler that had "shattered" my grandmothers stone. It's a real pity how greedy people can be.
A tip from a geologist: If you want to have black opal but doesn't have the budget, try looking for labradorite or bornite. It is much cheaper and is also colorful like a rainbow.
it really is, there are synthetic Opals, but man does Opal look really nice in person, and knowing how it came to be, and what it took to get it, it's really a stone to be admired. what they didn't mention in the video is that the layer isn't actually that big, so one wrong cut or polish and a $241k stone can turn into $0, if you look at the 241 carat stone she's holding you can see that the "precious" layer isn't through out the stone.
Diamonds are a con. They're no where near as rare as a lot of gemstones and shouldn't cost what they do. You can thank the De Beers "a diamond is forever" ad campaign. It forever changed how people think about diamonds. It could be the best ad campaign ever. They absolutely created a market that didn't exist before that campaign. Now they control almost the entire market and artificially inflate the price of diamonds.
@@mydogniko Facts. When I was a kid I remember watching a doco on the amount of diamonds that are stored in this vault storage thingy in Russia. Apparently there are so much diamonds stored there that if they were to flood the market with them it would render diamonds worthless. Crazy.
@@edgewizz862 very true. I remember reading a Clive Cussler book where theres a character that is the head of a fictional company that is essentially what De Beers is in real life. That fictional counterpart bought up all the ruby, sapphire, and other rare gem mines and then flooded the market with all their diamonds. Because they owned almost the entire market it made diamonds worthless overnight and then the gems that are actually rarer than diamonds shot up in value. Of course that was a fictional book but the premise is/could be very real. De Beers owns (as recently as early-mid 2000s) 85% of the diamond market. Theyre only as valuable as De Beers wants them to be. They've masterfully turned a semi rare gemstone into the most desired gem in the world. Quite remarkable and ludacris at the same time that a damn slogan/campaign as simple as 'diamonds are forever' created a massive demand for a gem nobody really paid much attention to before.
Just so you know diamonds are worthless and a scam. They are not rare at all, one big mafia has millions stacked in storages and control when to put more on the market.
My mother had a beautiful fossilized shell opal necklace. Sadly it was stolen a few years ago, but it's so unique that my mother says she would know that its her if she ever saw anyone else wearing it. I still hate the people who stole it. Like, I wish they had stolen the same amount in money rather than this necklace that meant so much to my mom. Don't steal people, please.
It's not actually about the size. Two opals- one the size of a loaf of bread, the other the size of a pencil cut in half were both priced at about 3 million dollars. It's about the colors reflected more than the size of the opal. That's why opal is such a weird thing to buy, you can also have opal fossils (fossils made out of opal) and that can raise the price too. But I know what you meant and I hope he gets a big sale too.
Haha, opal cant mix well with sweats. I bought 1 necklace made of opal for 1,500 aud when i was traveling to australia , it is for my aunt who raise me. She end up mad and she said this is not worth it value. For me it is boosted price jewel that does not match its value, still bought it since inexperience or i personally dont see it valuable as other gems.
The beautiful black opal has always fascinated me thank you for showing, such a gorgeous gem. My ancestors The Yuwaalayaay people of Lightning ridge have passed down Dreamtime stories about the Opal there. Literally a rainbow in a rock. I love it.
I love opal because each specimen has a wide range of unique blemishes and imperfections. But these are considered to add to its value. Just like people, a metaphor for how our imperfections make us unique and valuable. :) PS- If you have opals, try never to wear them in the pool! They are porous like pearls and will absorb chemicals from water they are exposed to.
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as a gemstone collector, i enjoy opals the most due to their color difference and vibrancy. i own 4 australian black opals with mutlple colors and sheens all around inside the stone and i love the gem deep deep down. im not rich. you too can start a gemstone collection by buying loose gemstones that are cut and sold in 50-75 caret bags for $50 or so. you never know what you will get but you will also expand your knowledge on gems and rocks, not to mention the amount of appreciation for their forms. at face value i think it's boring, but once you get into it further, it can be very neat.
I have a black opal necklace made of many different opal shards from lightning ridge, it is absolutely stunning. People always notice it when I wear it
Wish they had shown more of the actual industrial process of extracting the opal clay, loading it onto a truck for processing, and "puddling it" like the miner described. I guess it makes a more human-relatable video to show an guy chipping at a rock wall with a pickaxe.
There's a whole underground town called Coober Pedy where people live in old opal mines, and its still their main industry. They have underground churches, hotels, and their homes are actually pretty beautiful. Whenever they need a new room, they just dig one out.
this is not why i am an opal seller, im in it for the passion and beauty around the gem its self and the community along side it. australian black opal is truly the mother of all gems!
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@@nutsandbolts1264 alot of the time a jeweler will have their prices set after taking in to account fees aside from the value of the gems visual aspects, including its rarity and costs of aquirement (alot of the time the jeweller is the 5th or 6th person to buy the gem) and then the largest fee they take into acount is the overheads for the shop, EG: rent, employees, craftsmanship and material costs. this doesnt excuse the price some jewellers set, thats for sure....
Fun fact: similar effect to black opal is achieved by loading normal opals inside of the nuclear reactor core. Radiation makes it change it properties. It's commonly done inside of the NCBJ (Narodowe centrum badań jądrowych ) in Poland
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I'm less surprised at the actual opal and more surprised that trees can grow underground edit: no, this isn't a joke, i was actually confused as to why there's logs underground
I worked for a jewelry manufacturer about 35 yrs ago, a customer sent us a packet of black opal to set in several pieces, I inquired about the opal and he sent me a 3 x 5 oval stone, which I purchased, I don’t remember how much he charged me, but it was beautiful, I set it in a necklace. I miss working in jewelry, I always was buying something, but at that time gold was only 250-325 an ounce, so it was affordable.
Opals are so beautiful, and black opal are just amazing and stunning. I love opal stones so much, opals really are magical!!!! It's just a shame it really is hard to find them and it can negatively impact those who find these gems
mate, no negative impacts on those that find them in Australia, which is where the vast majority of opals are found! Try a different gem for that story!
@@mehere8038Im not really sure what youre trying to say, but what I meant was that people can get hurt trying to get to them. Such as the caves probably closing in on them, and other horrible mishaps that could take place when attaining them.
@@-Secret Very rare with opals in Australia. Opals don't lend themselves to industrial level production, so it tends to be individuals, who tend to take care of their own safety. Coober Pedy is the main opal centre of Australia (although for white opal, not black) & people literally live in the "mines" there, they have electricity & plumbing & everything a normal house would have, except they build their houses underground, so as to avoid the heat & they can afford to do so, because excavating for the house finds enough opals to pay for the construction/excavation. There's churches, pubs, hotels, everything you can imagine found underground in "mines" in Coober Pedy & people can literally dig for opals while sitting on their lounge watching tv in their living room, so again, wrong gem to be talking about that with. Lots of gems & metals put people in danger, but Australian opals are really not one of those
My husband gave me a wedding band that was inlayed all around with black opal. It was stunning. Unfortunately, it was also too fragile for everyday wear, as we eventually discovered. After a couple of years, about half the opal in it had chipped or cracked and fallen out. I’ve stuck with a gold band ever since.
Whoever sold you that band with opals in it should have told you how fragile it is! I worked at a fine jewelry store in Dallas Tx. We always warned buyers hiw sodt it was!
@@jeanetteshawredden5643 I wish I had known how fragile it was, but since I wasn’t the one who bought it, I never even spoke to a jeweler about it. Ah, well.
She probably was able to make that herself for practice. Sometimes the way a gem is cut isn't quality to get sent to someone but definitely good enough to practice on. Or it was a gift xDD
I had bought a pair of Black Opal necklace for my ex on V-day 2 years back. It was a little over 10K USD back then. But, she didn't believe the price, and refused it then asked me to return it (well, we were kinda in an argument for weeks at the time, maybe that's why she didn't take the present). Even now, I still keep it with me. LMAO
@@piink_lace bussing is AAVE its used to describe something tasting nice, you can’t eat an Opal therefore it can’t taste nice so calling it “bussin” is misuse of that word
@@mgr.chelsea Eh, probably doesn't really matter that much. Normal English probably has a bunch of misuse. Like how most people use the word irony/ironic the wrong way. But it's kind of just accepted a life of its own at this point. Same with literally, among others...
@@svampebob007 Blue opals can have green in them, Ethiopian Opals are another multicolored one, Fire opals, White Opals- There's too many varieties for that to be true x'DDD
@@thatrainbowdudeplayz2801 it had no colour. It was just the stuff they hope to find backing thin bands of crystalline opal which, with a little bit of luck, will make it a gem.
Yeah 👂 hearing the glass sound coming from the wall face when the pick scrapped over the sand stone, finding a black knobby.. (Exciting SOUND that) Woohoo 🥳 😀 Seeing no colour the woohoo 🎉 delights start fizzling away But the miner knows common black opal is not commonly found.. finding black trace without colour are still awesome signs he is in the right place 🥳🎉🎶
There is a place in Montana I think where you can pay a daily fee to dig for precious gems, and keep whatever you find. Some people have found stones worth thousands of dollars after just a short while of digging less than a foot underground. I think that would be a cool experience.
Not necessarily, only one type of Opal is considered volatile in the sense it breaks easily, Black Opal on the other hand can be cut with a saw fairly easily
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In local Indonesian, we call it"Kalimaya" and "Jarong", and it's cheaper than Australian Black Opal, but has the same beauty in my opinion. Just search "Kalimaya Banten" and you will find amazing pieces of gemstone and you can get it started in 5 USD.
its great at the annual markets when local opal miners sell off the scraps/chips. there is nothing more fun than taking home a back of cheap chips and processing them and revealing their flash
@@jeanetteshawredden5643 Good point- diamonds can be used for loads of important things such as tools, machinery, etc. When I was writing that comment, I may of had a bit of a brain fart. Maybe I meant look-wise? I'm just gonna edit my comment a bit right quick.
when we were searching for my quinceaños ring, nothing caught my attention I was 14 at the time but I was already into gems, and seen the variety that existed out there I refused to settle so easily on something more common like a diamond got to a store one day and as soon as I saw that play of color I fell in love. Mom tried to convince me maybe not an opal- asked me several times if I truly liked it, if I didn't liked any of the emerals or amethysts- don't get me wrong they were pretty! just... not an opal been 6 years, I still love my ring with all my heart also it was cheaper than the other stones 😂 so extra points for that!
Curious fact about Lightning Ridge, it’s official population is less than 2000 but it’s local supermarkets and other essential stores sell enough products for a much higher population. Presumably this is due to a large number of people living “off the grid” in the area.
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This is super fascinating! My engagement ring has a black opal instead of a diamond, which is perfect because opal is my favorite stone. And the best part of it is, it was his mom's first engagement ring before her husband bought her a new one when they renewed their vows. It also has two blue topaz on each side and thats my birth stone.....literally meant to be 🥰
These people spend their lives trying to find black opal for money and I’m just sitting here waiting for dvds to be collectors items so I can sell my massive collection for millions
Such a beautiful gem. IMO nothing else really compares to Australian Opal. Even Koriot Boulder Opal is priceless. A Diamond has nothing to compare. All it does is refract the colors. Opals make the colors.
"Black opal" refers to the fact that there is a black opaque background behind all the colors. With all other opals, the background is clear, a dull rusty brown stone, milky white, or some other color. The black opaque background makes the colors look even brighter in contrast. People *make* a kind of fake black opal by gluing ordinary opal material to a solid black stone back. They're called "doublets", and are no where near as valuable as true black opals. But they are a more affordable way to get that same look. I own one true black opal and several doublets and triplets (3 stones glued together; a top clear lay, the opal layer, and the black layer). Even better is a natural stone with opal on two sides, with black opaque material running through the middle. You can make a stone that is two-sided that way, with two different looks. They are often mounted in a ring where the stone can rotate so you can show one side or the other. They are the most valuable of all.
There is a RU-vid channel called Black Opal Direct where the guy buys and cuts (I never understood why they say cut, the process is really grind and polish - but anyway) the stones. It's mildly addictive and often interesting.
It's all so unreasonable to me, the concept of jewelry as a whole. If we're talking about sheer beauty, there's so much more of it in the most basic of arts & crafts. I mean simple glass allows for so many amazing pieces of art.
