Opal And A Little Bit More

[1515Art]

We had a friend come by the studio with some opal samples she brought back from a friend of hers who has an opal mine in Australia. The pieces she brought this time over to the studio were small samples of Boulder opal. The mine is a 3 day drive from Melbourne and over 200k of that drive is off road into the bush a very difficult and somewhat risky drive she says requiring careful preperation and notice to the locals to come looking for you if you fail to come back out is also a good idea.

This is a chunk of the local boulder opal,

The next question on my mind was is there any gold????? I’m thinking Australia, minerals and gee I wonder and if so, is the owner finding any gold? She didn’t know and sent him a message asking because a friend was interested to know, he’s going to be visiting the US later this month and I invited them both back for a visit when he is here if they have time I’d love to learn more about his adventures. Anyway, my friend sent over some plctures I think might be of interest, seems there is a few nuggets to be found here and there along with the other goodies in the ground.

[Northeast]

Niiiiiiiiiiiice!! 

[GB_Amateur]

4 hours ago, 1515Art said:

The next question on my mind was is there any gold?????

Good question.  Even better answer (as in ~25 tr oz).

 

[Lanny]

Gold and opal, winning combination that makes for lots of fun. 

Thanks for posting the pictures, and all the best,

Lanny

[Gravelwasher]

 Love the pics!! 

 Opals and gold look great together too.

[jasong]

That opal is truly amazing, like mini nebulae in a rock. Does your friend have a website where they sell what they mine? 

[1515Art]

43 minutes ago, jasong said:

That opal is truly amazing, like mini nebulae in a rock. Does your friend have a website where they sell what they mine? 

It’s beautiful material for sure, I don’t know yet about websites, I’ll ask and post it here if there is one. She had a bag full of little polished pieces I noticed many were already drilled with holes for stringing into jewelry, my mind was lost thinking about the yellow stuff so with the brain on yellow overload and no ability to control my arms and legs forming coherent sentences was a struggle and I wasn’t paying complete attention to the opal, but I don’t think the little pieces of polished boulder opal were very expensive? Some were in the $50 range I think, not sure if that was retail or wholesale. The big chunk in the picture was marked 45,000. In RMB that puts it retail around $6,700. And wholesale somewhere around $4k, next time over she’s going to bring the really good stuff for us to see I’m not sure yet what that’ll be but I’m guessing something nice. If you want any of this let me know I’ll see what she can do.

[beatup]

sweet; gem stones and gold does not get any better then that

[jasong]

Holy moly! I'll have to settle with just looking at what you post for now. ? 

[Nevada Brian]

The gold is fantastic, but the boulder opal is absolutely beautiful.  I would be interested in a smaller piece :)

Thanks for sharing,

Brian.