Insiders Guide to Buying Black Opals

Insiders Guide to Buying Black Opals: Buying Black Opals, a Minefield

Buying Black Opals can be a minefield if you will excuse the pun. To start with, what IS a black opal? Bien, it’s not BLACK as you would incorrectly but understandably assume. Bien, at least it’s not black in the foreground of the opal. Rather, in the background.

Before Black Opals, All Opals Were White or Light Colored

Until early in the last century, the only opals that had been found were of the white, or crystal variety. Meaning that the background of the opal was a light shade and not dark.

When you get a translucent light colored crystal or jelly opal and put it on a piece of black cardboard, vous constaterez que la couleur du premier plan devient plus dense et plus vibrante. Les bijoutiers placent souvent les pierres sur un fond sombre pour obtenir cet effet..

Des opales noires découvertes en Australie Tout a changé quand opales noires ont été découverts dans la ville de l'arrière-pays de l'ouest de la Nouvelle-Galles du Sud. Crête de Foudre, lequel, à l'époque, il n'y avait certainement pas de ville du tout. Les aventuriers de cette région ont découvert les opales gisant sur le sol et il n'a pas fallu longtemps avant que les mineurs d'opales creusent dans la région et qu'une ville soit créée.. Plus tard, des opales noires ont été découvertes dans des endroits comme Coober Pedy, Mintabie, et d'autres, mais la principale source d'approvisionnement reste Crête de Foudre.

Que rechercher lors de l'achat d'une opale noire

D'abord, c'est une bonne idée de regarder un noir et un opale blanche les unes à côté des autres ou par rapport à d'autres opales. You can do this online at the Opalmine site where there is a special section devoted to picture comparisons and explanations in the opal encyclopedia.

You must first make sure that what you are seeing is REALLY a opale noire and not a synthetic as there are some very good imitations around nowadays. This can be quite a difficult assignment if you don’t know what you are doing, so the best advice is to just stick to reputable dealers who have a long history of reliable online service.

Buying online is probably the best way of doing it because, particularly on blog sites like Opalmine, you are able to ask questions and compare notes before you commit. Here are some examples of black opal set in jewelry. Keep in mind that some of these settings are cristal and not black opals. The darker ones are either Lightning Ridge Black Opal or Black Boulder Opals.

Insiders Guide to Buying Black Opals: What color is the best?

Black opals from Lightning Ridge Lighter colored black boulders from Qld fields

Bien, the rarest color in opal is Rouge but stones with this color are often too expensive, and truthfully, the color of opal is very much a preference thing just the same as the color you select for your car.

So your color choice might have a lot to do with the color of your eyes, or the color of your favorite outfit, or just the color you prefer. The thing about buying black opals is that you can match the stone to your personality, parce que, just like people, opals are all unique and this makes them even more attractive as we all like to be our own selves.

How about Modèles d'opale?

This is a completely separate issue to the color of the opal. Not only do opals come in multitudes of colors and color combinations, but they also feature different patterns. Some of the names of the patterns, with explanations are as follows:

1. Pinfire Opal – As the name suggests, the face of the opal is made up of multitudes of little pins of color looking at you.
   
2. Broad Pattern Opal – As opposed to Pinfire, the pattern is wider and broader
   
3. Broad Flash Opal– The pattern is very wide and broad and flashes to and from across the stone as it is manipulated
   
4. Harlequin Pattern Opal – The name is derived from the description of a clown’s outfit which is often made up of squares or mosaics. This opal comes with natural delineations with a squarish feature. There are many opals with different shaped patterns that have features like the harlequin. You can do some research on this in the Opalmine encyclopedia.
   

   

   Arlequin Insiders Guide to Buying Black Opals
   

   This Lightning Ridge Black opal has some harlequin features but combines a rolling flash with a very broad pattern on one side of the stone and a mingled pattern on the other
   

5. Picture Opal – This phenomenon appears when, as a result of either inclusions, or miracles of nature, certain pictures appear in the stone. Bien sûr, you have to use your imagination a little to see them at times, a bit like looking at the shapes of clouds, but they certainly have a fascination that rarely appears in any other gemstone.
   

   Black boulder picture stone Classic Abstract Opal from Winton L. Ridge. Black opal ‘cartwheel’

6. Abstract Opal – This term is of our own originality as far as I know. We have chosen to use it on opal patterns and shapes that are much like abstract modern art, which has no particular pattern or shape but holds a strong appeal to the observer.
   

Insiders Guide to Buying Black Opals: Many Opal Patterns

There are many other opal patterns but the above will at least give you a guideline. The rest is up to your eye, as the saying goes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

So basically, you have to make sure that you are buying a black opal first, then just look for a stone that ‘looks at YOU’ instead of YOU having to look at IT, if you can understand what we mean.

Autrement dit, look for something bright with strong color that appeals to you as a person, and then check your purse to make sure you don’t overspend, parce que opales noires can be very appealing and the economics of it can get out of hand. (sourire)