What is the rarest opal color?

Additionally, black opals are considered to be the rarest (white opals are more common). An opal with a translucent to opaque white and other light color backgrounds (bodycolor) with play-of-color is called white opal. Fire opal is transparent to translucent with a bodycolor that is usually yellow, orange or red.

What color opal is most valuable?

Black opal is the most rare and highly valued form of opal, and has what is called a black (or dark) body tone. Black opals come in every colour of the rainbow. Their dark body tone makes the colours on the face of the opal appear rich and intense.

What is the best colour opal?

Black opal is the most prized opal and may realise prices over AUD $15,000 a carat. Boulder opals also have a dark body tone. White opals have a light body tone and are generally the least valuable form of opal.

What is the rarest opal ever found?

The “Olympic Australis” is reported to be the largest and most valuable gem opal ever found. It was found in 1956 at the famous “Eight Mile” opal field in Coober Pedy, South Australia.

What is the most common color of opal?

To answer that, we have to look at the body color (body tone) of the gem. Based on body tone, white opal is the most common opal color, followed by gray opal and green opal.

The rarest opal pattern on the planet

Are black opals rare?

Black opals are exceptionally rare in that they are known to form in only one place: Australia. In fact, most of the opals found on the continent are from the town of Lightning Ridge. To put this into perspective, Vatican City has a population of 1,000 and Lightning Ridge has just over double that.

Are there red opals?

Some of the most beautiful common opals are red, orange, pink, green,or blue. The play-of-color of precious opal displays spectral colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

What is the prettiest opal?

Considered to be one of the world's most beautiful opals, "The Virgin Rainbow" is a 63.3mm Black Crystal Opal Belemnite Fossil in a 'pipe' shape. It Features gem quality colour, and is also said to glow in the dark.

What are pineapple opals?

One of the rarest and most fascinating types of opal comes in the shape of a palm-sized cluster of radiating points that resembles a pineapple. These "Opal Pineapples" are found only in the Cretaceous sediments of the White Cliffs in Australia.

How much is a pineapple opal worth?

These precious finds can fetch up to $US500,000 ($A700,000) in the premier US market.

Why is red opal rare?

Fire Opal is rare compared to other colors because of its chemical structure and depositional environment. To illustrate, opal stones reflect a red color when white light refracts upon sections of larger silica spheres.

Is opal rarer than diamonds?

On the whole, opals are rarer than diamonds because there are less high-quality opals available than there are diamonds. The good news is that you can find a gem-quality opal for a great price, especially compared to a diamond.

What do the best opals look like?

The cut of a fine opal should be symmetrical. If it's a cabochon, the dome should be well rounded. Domed surfaces give the best play-of-color, and make the stone appear vivid from most viewing angles. If the cabochon is flat, it might be vulnerable to breakage, especially during setting into jewelry.

Are there blue opals?

Peruvian opal (also called blue opal) is a semi-opaque to opaque blue-green stone found in Peru, which is often cut to include the matrix in the more opaque stones. It does not display a play of color. Blue opal also comes from Oregon and Idaho in the Owyhee region, as well as from Nevada around the Virgin Valley.

Why are Ethiopian opals so cheap?

It might seem a tad bit odd, but Ethiopian opals are cheap because they don't control the market. Sure, they are a bit rarer than Australian, but they have to compete with opal royalty. The only way Ethiopian opal sellers can turn a profit is if they offer their gems at a lower price point.

Is opal worth more than gold?

Is Opal Worth More than Gold? Opal is more expensive than gold, for sure. Today, the gold price is around $60 per gram, which is $12 per carat. At the same time, opal can be purchased from $10 to thousands of dollars per carat, and in exceptional cases, the material of the best quality reaches $6,000 per carat.

Does opal glow in the dark?

"That opal actually glows in the dark - the darker the light, the more colour comes out of it, it's unbelievable." John Dunstan told ABC. Opals are a form of amorphous hydrated silica with up to 20% water locked within the silica structure.

How big is the Virgin Rainbow opal?

This irregular, monster jewel is 11 inches long and over 4 inches thick, containing just 1 percent, not opal stone clinging to the stone. The Olympic Australis has been said to be worth over $250 million.

How old are Ethiopian opals?

While the Ethiopian opal boom seems relatively new, archeology shows that opals may have played a part in East African trade as early as 4000 B.C. A 1939 discovery by archeologist Louis Leakey places opals in the hands of humans in Kenya nearly 6000 years before contemporary Ethiopian opal discoveries.

What is Aurora Opal?

Aurora Opal is a homogeneously crystalized, synthetic, impregnated opal. Roy Goldberg, at Aurora Opals, describes this material as irregular and fine crystalline, with nondirectional, multicolor swirls, with green, orange, blue and red being the dominant colors in the spectrum.

How can you tell a real opal from a fake?

Most genuine solid opals have an irregularity in this area – curved or bumpy due to their natural formation – whereas a man-made stone will be perfectly flat because the two sections are flattened so they can be glued together. Be especially wary if the opal is set in jewellery and you cannot see its back or side.

How much is the Virgin rainbow opal?

The Virgin Rainbow Opal is worth over $1 million and is now owned by the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

Is blue fire opal real?

A popular (but unofficial) way to describe a blue opal crystal with a play of color like fire opal (except ranging from purple to green), is “Blue Fire Opal.” While there may or may not be splashes of red or other warm hues present, it is easy to see how the name blue-fire applies to this type of opal.

What is Jelly opal?

Jelly opal is an opal that has a jelly look to it. It is just like crystal opal but the opal color is a little bit faint so you can see through the opal pretty easily. Jelly opal can come in nobby opal and seam opal. The different grades of jelly opal can be from light to dark opal.

What are fire opals?

Formed in the depths of ancient volcanoes, fire opal is created when water seeps into silica-rich lava, filling its seams and hollows. Under this incredible heat and pressure, the lava traps water within itself, forming these magical, sun-bright droplets.