Part-3 Types Of Opals
OPAL CREATION
It is important to know the different types of opal in order to determine the value, quality and the price. There are three distinct types of opals we will learn about: natural opals, composite or enhanced opals and man-made or synthetic opals. The four natural types of opal found are Black opal, Boulder opal, Crystal opal and White opal.
Black Opal
The queen of gems, black opal is the most popular, widely known opal coming from the town famous for its rich, rare and highly valuable opals, Lightning Ridge.
- The opal forms in Iron Oxide called “potch” which can be black or grey.The potch is a non-precious form of opal exhibiting no play of colour. This is where the name Black opal comes from but an opal such as this with no colour is worth very little.
- The rarest black opals are known and loved for their vibrant colours often with all the colours of the rainbow and the colour is generally found as a colour bar (or bars) of various colours.
- Black opal and Boulder opal are the rarest of all opals found, amounting to only 10% of all opal mined.
- When black and boulder opal are cut the yield is only 5% which means a loss factor of 95%.
- In comparison to white opal which has a 50% loss factor you can see how this adds to the value of black opal.
