opal

I’m an October baby, so my attention and reverence for opals have been lifelong. I recently connected with an opal dealer, whose collection of Australian Opals was irresistible to me. 

My purchases were only limited by my available funds. I couldn’t wait to share them with you!

Opals were the first most valued and revered gemstone, according to history. That was (and is) because of the explosion of color trapped within them. 

They also have many different healing properties, such as helping to bring repressed negative feelings to the surface and helping to purge them. 

They are also associated with hope, luck, love, happiness, innocence, creativity and optimism.

Each type is associated with a specific Chakra.

They are mined in USA, Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Australia. 

So let me first introduce you to a small part of my new acquisition, Australian doublets.  Most of them are actually boulder opals, formed naturally on ironstone rock. 

These boulder opals (mostly Australian) are layers of opal material surrounded by ironstone rock.                          

opals

Australian Doublets

Boulder Opals

Boulder Opals

Mexican opals are like boulder opals, but from Mexico.  They are set in a matrix (rhyolite rock), but the colors dancing within are brilliant.

The more orange-red ones are fire opals.

Mexican Fire Opals

Mexican Fire Opals

Then there are “Common Opals”.  They generally don’t have the “fire” in them, but are beautiful in their own right. 

Some pictured are various blue opals, Peruvian blue, pink, purple, dendritic and green.

Common Opals

Common Opals

Ethiopian Opals

Ethiopian Opals

And last, but not at all least, Ethiopian Opals, came onto the gemstone market around 2008. 

Their fire is amazing and is even more brilliant on a black background (though I couldn’t capture it as well with my camera).

I tried to keep the verbiage down, so you could just enjoy the “view”. These are just a small number from my opal collection.  If you’d like to see them in person or if one of them “speaks to you”, let me know!

Until next month,

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