Are Lightning Ridge opals valuable?
Are Lightning Ridge opals valuable?
Black opals, such as those from Lightning Ridge, are generally considered the most valuable because the rest of the vibrant spectrum colors and their patterns show better with the black background.
Can you find opals at Lightning Ridge?
The star of Australia’s opal mining history, Lightning Ridge is also famed for its elusive black opal. See these rare gems at the Opal Bin, where raw opals are polished into shimmering gemstones. Tour an opal mine at The Big Opal and try your luck fossicking or visit the world-class underground Australian Opal Centre.
What type of opal is Lightning Ridge?
black opal
Lightning Ridge, a small outback town in New South Wales, is the only place in Australia, and one of the few places in the world, where the highly prized black opal is found. Opals with a vivid play-of-color and a black or dark body color are classified as black opals.
What gemstones are found at Lightning Ridge?
Lightning Ridge is one of the few places in the world where the precious and highly prized black opal is found. Unlike other opal, the black opal contains carbon and iron oxide trace elements, producing a very dark stone which has hints of blue, green and red play of colour.
What’s the rarest opal?
Black opal
Black opal is the most rare and highly valued form of opal, and has what is called a black (or dark) body tone. Black opals come in every colour of the rainbow.
What is the highest quality opal?
Black opals are the most prized. These gems have a black or dark blue background and show their play of color most vividly. Prices for fine to extra fine quality gems usually range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per carat.
What to look for when fossicking for opals?
So look for the blue and grey rocks, and any pieces which look shiny in the sun – that’ll be the sun reflecting off the opal! Not all look like that, some large chalky pebbles will have thin veins of crystal opal showing – these can often have precious gems hiding inside them.
Where is the best place to find opals?
It’s clear that Nevada is the best place to find opal in the US, thanks to the world-famous Virgin Valley opal, a remote, fruitful mining district supplying some of the world’s finest black opals.
What’s the most expensive opal?
The Virgin Rainbow
The Virgin Rainbow This $1 million opal is the world’s most expensive. It was discovered in 2003 by John Dunstan (who has been featured in the Outback Opal Hunters TV show) in the same opal fields as the Fire of Australia. Another interesting fact is it formed and was found within an ancient cuttlefish skeleton.
How deep is the opal at Lightning Ridge?
between 6 and 18 metres
Most opal at the Ridge is found between 6 and 18 metres from the surface – not so deep that they are out of the reach of smaller miners, but deep enough to make their mining hard work. There is an Aboriginal explanation for the opals discovered in the Lightning Ridge area.
