Jewelry Blog

>Use a soft dry or damp cloth to clean your opal. In fact, rub the gem periodically using a cloth moistened with olive oil to help preserve it. Do not soak your opal in chemicals or use mechanical cleaners. Avoid heat and dry conditions that could dehydrate and crack your opal. Treat it with care to prevent sharp blows and scratches. Avoid impacts. Opal is brittle, heat sensitive, and breaks and scratches easily. Some varieties self- destruct through the loss of water. Even with these drawbacks, opal still is a premier gemstone

Opal’s name evolved from the Roman word opalus from the Greek word opallios – “to see a change of color.” The Greek word was a modification of the ancient Indian Sanskrit name for opal, upala, which meant “precious stone.” If one spoke in mixed tongues, then opal would be opallios upala, “to see a change of color precious stone. “Opals are the gem world’s silvery mirrors, reflecting back every color in a flash of pastels or a streak of fire.

The value of opal lies to a degree in the size of the stone but mostly in the colors it displays. Some people are not big fans of opals, because they are familiar with opals seen only in the discount jewelry stores which look like globs of frozen milk. Those stones show almost no color beside white. Opal is a non-crystalline gem that is formed in the ground when silica is liquefied and washed into fissures in the surrounding rock where it solidifies into a hardened gel. Tiny silica spheres create a pattern in opal that causes a prism-like effect that produces flashes of color.

Natural opal occurs in several types: White opal–the most common on the market–has a transparent or white body color with vibrant pastel flashes of rainbow color. Black opal has a blue, gray or black body color that reveals a more dramatic play of color. Boulder opal is most often black opal with some of the ironstone matrix in which it occurred still intact. Crystal or water opal is transparent, colorless opal that contains brilliant flashes of color swimming within it. Fire opal is transparent or translucent opal with a yellow to orange to red body color that may have a play of color or not.

In determining value, the brilliance and pattern of the play of color on an opal are very important. Generally speaking, opal with an abundance of red fire is the most highly prized. Those strong in blue and green are equally beautiful but not as rare, so they’re priced less. Opal is not a common gem, although non-precious varieties abound. White opal, the most prevalent, may sell for a few dollars to several hundred per carat. On the other hand, fine black opal, which is the loveliest and rarest, therefore most expensive of the opal varieties, can command more than $1,000 per carat. The value of opal also lies in the size of the gem. Opal is very rare in large sizes, especially in black opal. Most opal is not faceted (except fire opal). It is usually cut into rounded or freeform cabochons that enhance color play.

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