The main opals that Mac deals with and creates jewellery with are from the Koroit and Yowah Opal fields. Generally on a visit out to one of these opal fields Mac will have dealings with the miners. He stays at their camps, looks at opal with them in the 'rough', and buys 'parcels'. Some of the miners come to the shop with their rough and Mac will set up chairs downstairs, a tub of water, which you dip the rough into and you hold it in the sun (hence, the chairs outside if you have ever been to the shop) and you then get an idea of what sort of colour you are chasing when you cut it. It is a 'colourful' world full of passion and full of 'colourful' characters.

eg. Fritz, from Austria, lives out of Kempsey, and lives on the field for over 6 months each year and mines. His camp is basic. He is successful and a comment from a neighbour, also a miner and originally from Germany, said that if she was ever lost in the 'bush', she would want Fritz with her. She meant that he could survive, and she wanted to survive as well.