Hello fellow Opal lovers, I am currently busy packing my mining equipment, filling my spare petrol cans and making sure everything is in order for another trip to Lightning Ridge! I wonder what I might be lucky enough to find this time......   Who wants to join me in the Outback Downunder? All through the month of July I will again be out in Lightning Ridge trying my luck mining for black opal. You are invited to join us for a few days if you'd like to visit the outback and see the whole opal mining process from the inside. It's a one of a kind experience that was very well received by eve...

What is the World’s Largest Opal Matrix? The largest Opal matrix ever found is a colossus of an Opal Matrix found in the fields of Southern Australia. It's an unbelievably huge stone of some 55,000 carats in size. Thats 11 Kilos of Opal, the same as 4 bricks or 4,500 penny's! The Opal has the mighty dimensions of 30 centimeters long, 15-20 centimeters high and 4 centimeters thick. Uncut it's worth is estimated at more than a million dollars, but once cut up and made into jewellery the total value will be far greater! The previous largest opal weighed “only” 6,100 carats and can be considere...

If you are an opal lover but not so well-off, doublets and triplets might be your first choice. As you probably know, there are three categories of opal - solid opal, doublet and triplet. Natural opal or solid opal refers to the gem that is cut from a single piece of material, while doublets and triplets contain only a thin layer of solid opal. Solid opal is the most valuable of the three and therefore the most expensive. Doublets and triplets are made to resemble the solid opal and due to that fact they are significantly cheaper. As the name suggests, doublets consist of a small amount of...