The world famous blond girl, Marilyn Monroe, performed a song “Diamonds are a girl's best friend" in the 1953 film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Clearly, she never heard of opal. Opal is listed as one the six most precious gemstones in the world. The opal stands side by side with diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls and emeralds. Word opal comes from Sanskrit word for precious stone “Upala". The history of opal in Australia goes back for many centuries. The Australian Aborigines believed that God took all the colors from the rainbow and put it into one stone. That is why they call this gem "Ra...

If you watched the Oscars this year you might have noticed that Cate Blanchett won the best actress category for her role in Blue Jasmine. A couple of things you might not have noticed is the pair of stunning Opal earrings she is wearing. The earrings consist of 62 white opals totalling 33ct set in white gold. As if that wasn't impressive enough the combined cost of the earrings, and diamond laced gown came in at an impressive £10.9 Million (~$18.5 Million AUD). Her dress was from the Armani Prive Fall 2013 Collection and cost an estimated £60,000, according to. Along with the Opal earrin...

This magnificent stone, proudly worn as jewelry for thousands of years, became globally popular after it was found in vast quantity in Australia. Up to recently there was no common method to determine the value of opals. However, the good thing is a fact that opals can be cut in many different ways to satisfy the customers with deep and the rest of us with not so deep pocket. Many factors play an important role in determining the value of this precious gemstone.   The value of an opal depends on the type, brilliance, color pattern, body tone, play of color, size, soundness and faults. The ...