Colorplay

[Largosmom]

Hi, I have a new stone from Dan Stair at www.customgemstones.com

It''s one of his Ethiopian hydrophane opal. I inquired about one of the square barion cut opals on his website, not realizing it was already sold. The video of that opal though, wow! I had also never seen a faceted opal before. I had that you even could facet an opal. Anyway...I asked Dan if he had any more similar stones and a couple of weeks later, he contacted me and had two to offer...one in the square cut I really liked, and another round one that had wonderful color. I chose the round one for its obvious beauty and I am not disappointed! I love opals, and the more fiery the better. Hydrophane opal has an interesting quality to it...it is porous! If you wet it with water, it apparently becomes somewhat transluscent and loses its fire. After 3-4 days, it will dry back out and resume its original beauty. It''s not suitable for rings, unfortunately, as a result of this characteristic (darn it!), so I''ll be setting this into some sort of pendant. I hope you will forgive the number of photos, I think it''s lovely and wanted you to see the facets as well...it was so hard to photograph clearly!

 

[Largosmom]

Another showing off the faceting.

 

[Largosmom]

Dan told me that the faceted opal tends to pick up some orange flashes.

 

[Largosmom]

This one shows a bit of the orange flash.

 

[Largosmom]

One more of the fire...

 

[Largosmom]

And one just for fun...laser pointer!

 

[FrekeChild]

Oh! It''s gorgeous!

 

[blithesome71]

Such a nice colorplay

 

[LD]

I adore Opals. They''re such a marvel of nature aren''t they? You have a stunning one there and I love the laser point photo!!!!

What are your plans?

 

[Fly Girl]

Very, very pretty stone. I hope you get lots of enjoyment out of it.

I love opals. I wore an opal necklace at my wedding that was a gift from my husband. Whenever the opal guy is in town (a travelling opal vendor), I''m there drooling at his beauties. The main reason I don''t own more of them is they are such a delicate stone and I hesitate to spend money on them. But, nothing else has quite the colorplay!

 

[Largosmom]

You have an "opal guy"...how cool! I have a couple of other opals, including one my dad brought me from a trip to Australia. It is also set as a pendant. I need to shoot some photos of those.

And thanks for all the lovely comments. I am so happy that Dan let this one go...he mentioned that he was considering keeping it for his own collection if I didn't choose it.

I bought a new LED flashlight that for some reason had a laser pointer in it so was playing with the flashlight to see if I could get a bit of refraction from the stone...mostly it washed it out, so I decided to try the laser pointer too..it made a cool photo.

 

[kas baby]

ooh....ahhh....

it''s absolutely lovely!

 

[Arcadian]

Very pretty!

-A

 

[Arkteia]

Ditto

 

[Largosmom]

Thank You (and Dan!)...I forgot the specifics...it''s 7.57mm and 1.11 carats. As my local gemologist said when I showed it to him...Opals are "fluffy"! He was also very impressed with the cut and quality of the stone.

 

[RevolutionGems]

Funny you should post this. I JUST NOW stepped away from my faceting machine. On the dop? A rather large Ethiopian Welo opal with fabulous colorplay.

This material does cut an incredible stone. I have a small parcel of the material and I am hoping to get my hands on more. Unlike the chocolate Ethiopian opal, this material is quite stable and not nearly as brittle. As a bonus, there is a good portion of the material that is actually clear enough to facet yet retains spectacular colorplay.

You have a nice stone the Largos. Would I be totally out of line if I asked what you paid for it?

 

[ma re]

A lovely stone! Opals are among my favorites.

 

[Nomsdeplume]

PRETTY!

 

[chrono]

Cool pics, especially the last one with the laser pointer.

 

[Largosmom]

Jeff, I don''t mind...mine was $220. If you check his website out, you can see the range of prices on these opals. The barion square on his front page was the one that originally caught my eye, though I got to it through the opal page, so did not see it was sold already at first. He has a couple of videos on there too, which show the fire very nicely and that was what hooked me! I think mine is a bit more fiery even than the square, but that is just my opinion.

Regardless, I am very happy with my purchase and the value.

Laura

 

[Laila619]

That''s so cool...such beautiful hues!

 

[Stone Hunter]

VERY VERY cool. I think it will make a lovely pendant! Congrats and TFS

 

[gingersnap]

Wow! I''ve never seen a facated opal before. That has a truly amazing look to it.

 

[Largosmom]

Thanks, glad you enjoy the photos too! I had never seen one before either...pretty cool, I think!

Laura

 

[brandy_z28]

Date: 2/1/2010 5:53:10 PM
Author: Largosmom
Thanks, glad you enjoy the photos too! I had never seen one before either...pretty cool, I think!

Laura

Beautiful stone!!

That opal makes me proud to be an October baby!

 

[D&T]

Nice! what will you do with it?

 

[Largosmom]

I''m going to set it as a pendant...probably bezel to protect it...any ideas? I''m going to have my local goldsmith do something custom, and am open to ideas!

Laura

 

[icekid]

Pretty stone and great photos! I wish opals were not so soft! It was the first gem I fell in love with when i was a kid... maybe 10 or 11

 

[jstarfireb]

WOW! I love opals, and that one is a stunner!

 

[Dreamer_D]

WoW! What ana amazing stone!