This translucent quality would create an interesting effect in a pair of earrings with how they look outside in sunlight compared to how those same Australian crystal opal earrings would look in the evening or indoors. If you hold it up to the light you can see through it. Crystal opals differ from their black opal and white opal siblings in that light can travel all the way through the stone. That stronger quality makes them easier for jewelers to work with when making your custom jewelry designs. Since these are Australian crystal opal they are all stronger than opals from other parts of the world.

Crystal Opal Within this online catalog you’ll find a wide selection of precious gemstones from Lightning Ridge, Australia.

dark opals are a great way to own a larger impressive stone in carat weight and display a lighter bodytone of between N5 and N6 on the bodytone scale.

Dark Opal Dark opal is just a few shades lighter than black opal and can have just as much brightness without the price tag.

Many of our opals are sold within days of being posted… Gorgeous Black Opals from Lightning Ridge, Australia The black opal gemstones in our catalog change every week or so as we get new gemstones from the mine in Lightning Ridge here in Australia. Simply seeing photos of black opals isn’t good enough to make an opal buying decision, which is why every one of our opals has a short video to show the play of color that becomes the centerpiece of your opal jewelry. Because black opals can be found in a wide variety of patterns and colors, you might search a long time before you find the perfect opal gemstone, and you will know it as soon as you see it. Finding the right opal to use in your jewelry is really a love affair… Love at first sight in fact. Since black opals come in unique shapes and sizes there’s no way to exactly custom design your opal jewelry until you find the perfect opal.

Black Opal The black opals you’ll find on this website are perfect for making that extra special opal ring, opal pendant, black opal earrings, and even as part of a bracelet with mounted opals.

This is called a black crystal opal and is considered very rare and valuable. Side Note: A black opal can also have no potch on it at all and instead has a very dark tint to it, almost like tinted glass, where you can still see through it when held up to the light.

Some other areas that have produced black opal are Mintabie and Andamooka.

Most opal fields produce common potch but black potch is predominantly found in Lightning Ridge with gem play of color. Potch, also known as common opal, which is opal silica, has no real value unless there is play of color. However, the potch in a black opal usually found on the back of the gem can help the overall body tone to become darker, as long as the potch sits directly behind the color bar naturally helping the play of color to become darker.īlack Potch is the main reason why black opal is so rare. The body tone of an opal should never be determined by the back of the gem. The body tone is guaged by the face or top of the gem and should not be confused with play of color. On the body tone scale, black opal will sit between N1 to N4. What makes a black opal so rare is the phenomenon of dark to black underlying body tone or potch, which helps to intensify the brightness of the color bar. Australian black opals are the rarest type of opal ever found and can fetch the highest price per carat than any other opal in the world.

Types of opal