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@@lillianfatt7321 Thanks Lillian! It’s a beauty hey!

@@lillianfatt7321 Thank you! We were very blessed to find this one in a pillar on Donna’s Rush. Not very often you get one this nice!

@@Amilf_Titler Hey mate! Sorry I missed your message, I hope you had a chance to at least see some of the tourist mines in town, almost as good as the real thing!

@@BrianM-44041 wow, what a dream, many search for decades ‘ahem, shuffles awkwardly’ and never see such an astonishing find. We will just have to keep looking! Thanks for sharing and for watching mate, it’s nice to hear stories like this!

@@Opaldigger I would wager there is plenty more out in the ground it's just a matter of digging til you stumble across it. Fossil opal fascinates me and I've found shells, bone, and wood opalised in various places. Australia is a trove of treasures including gold, but the climate and local fauna is very unforgiving. That and some people are unscrupulous no matter where you go. I've known miners to be down in their mine shafts and have their vehicles and such stolen before they came back up, along with whatever they had mined prior. One even had his cables cut and the shaft sealed behind him! Working the jewelry circuit we met a lady who claimed to be the biggest opal seller of all time, named Bianca, who later turned out to be an opal thief that had screwed over more than a few miners and skipped town to America. I had the pleasure of meeting one of those miners when he travelled to Florida with the authorities to arrest her lol Lucky for us my father became friends with a gentleman named Paul downing, a famous opal miner and cutter, and he educated us on how to avoid such things. Two to 3 miners, working in shifts, well armed and equipped in two vehicles on every dig. Unfortunately, he had very few tips on avoiding the spiders! It seems like everything in Australia wants to kill you. It reminds me of the old West in the US. 😆 We visited coober pedy, andamooka, lightning ridge, mintabie, and a few other places and found some outstanding opals. Sadly he passed in 99 and I haven't been back since. I got to visit between the ages of 17 and 28 on multiple occasions when I was in the shape to do that kind of thing. The memories are as precious if not more than the stones. Keep at it , you'll find the that pile of fire.

@@KeithDee-pu8kz I love Ethiopian material as it has launched opal into the stratosphere in terms of public awareness. It makes huge cabs but the hydrophane (porosity) absorbs oils and contaminants often leading to yellowing over time that is irreversible, to date it resists treatment to prevent this. Australian opal displays a much denser, tighter, often brighter play of colour that suits smaller jewelry, is non hydrophane and is for the best part, stable for the long term with many fields offering rare heirloom, investment opal unsurpassed in quality and beauty. Thanks for watching!

@@Opaldigger Resists treatment? I clean mine in acetone. Never had a issue. Plus there's a method to treating Crystal opal so it doesn't shatter once it's dried out and being cut. It's an excepted treatment in GIA's eyes like emeralds being treated with oils. But the epoxy resin is expensive so you'd want to follow the instructions step by step and hope you get it the first time because you'll sure be discouraged from doing it again. Especially if you lose a pretty expensive specimen to start along with the time and material. I like all kinds of opal but I cut and polish them and Ethiopian are just easier to work with for me and cheaper in the long run when you're living in the US I'm not going to pay out of the a$$ for something that I'm taking a chance on. Although I would boulder opal. I love that stuff. Anyway to each his own I guess.

@@KeithDee-pu8kz Thanks mate, that’s interesting to know. I would have cut more Welo material I reckon but I’m an old school dry sander which of course is fatal to hydrophane as it heats the stone up and cracks it immediately. I do agree a lot of Australian opal is overrated, that’s why we try to focus on actual wearable beauty, not just brand. Although we love the brand Aussie opal! I hope Welo continues to increase in value and esteem too, the annual global spend on jewelry is around 12 billion at the minute, I reckon that’s enough for opal from all over the world to keep ticking!

Thanks! It's sooo much fun! Gotta do it again! 🤞🙏

@@lesliecrowther7004 Thanks for watching Les! We don’t get a lot of black on the Coober Pedy fields but our mission is to show that light, white and crystal IS the new black! Haha..

Haha, cheers mate! Hope we can do a lot more juicy opal in the wall vids before we’re finished!

Haha, yep Shannons favourite line. Hope we make a LOT more ‘good telly’ lol.

@@Ifyouarehurtnointentwasapplied once you’ve got the bug its a never ending itch that needs scratching. Lol. Thanks for watching Bro!

Thanks for watching mate! We are taking offers at opalauctions.com/stores/graceopal on some nice parcels. We’ve had quite a drought of mining videos lately but hopefully some new adventures with the warmer weather!

@@Opaldigger maybe you can do an educational video on my block before I develop it . Thanks for the link I will check it out

@@darrenunderwood2799 Haha, yep! Hey at least we aren’t pretending to push the missus car into a cut ‘accidentally’ now THAT’s hype! 🤣

@@ThatOpalGuy Haha! Yes! Most of these are clips from existing videos on our channel that go into some of the detail you mentioned, only even a long video rarely touches on the many, many YEARS of struggle, disappointment and failure, literally decades of learning and studying the fields and mining methods. Not to over egg it! 😅

@@Opaldigger Thanks for all your efforts. without you guys I wouldnt get to cut the opals I do cut(though nothing quite as nice as most of that stuff. eventually.)

See you there! 😅

Yes mate, most all long gone now, keeps us frothing to keep scratching!

🤣 Cheers mate!

Some nice gear hey!

Cheers!

Under the dark light of the turquoise moon(hypernova sun) the subtle fire shines as bright uranium glass.. It's hypernova season. Good luck to you bro. May the grace of the MightyApisBullUndyingSun Protect you.. Rock on.

Hey mate! Yes it’s from the red pocket in the video, there was maybe 7-8 stones in a little patch about the size of a hand palm. I promote the pieces from this pocket and some from other small pockets nearby to help show where we actually source the material. Thanks as always for the watch!

It's definitely a Doublet! About one tenth the price of an identical natural black or boulder Opal.

Thanks for watching mate! I have a permit and pegged the gound in accordance with the regulations, none of the ground was currently pegged or occupied by other permit holders and was all within the Coober Pedy Precious stones field. We can peg anywhere that is unclaimed within the fields and have 48 hours to give ‘notice of pegging’ which means I can peg a claim and put the days date on the pegs, I must take a survey relative to a datum peg and notify the mines dept within 2 business days or pull my pegs. If I notify, I then have a further 14 business days to decide whether i want to pay for a three month registration of the claim, if I still want it after that, I must pay for 12 months rego at a time. In this video I was jumping around with a valid set of pegs chucked around the ground with the days date on them, never stayed anywhere long enough to need more than that.

Oh yeah, the 4 inch auger was specially made many years ago by the late great Coober Pedy engineer Ross Chatfield, they are very hard to get now days with the brazed tungsten carbide tips but could me made to order in a big engineering workshop in the cities these days I'd say.

Thank you!

Thanks for watching! And for your feedback, we are always looking to improve!

100👍

We will be listing one very similar at worldclassopal.net soon!

@@Opaldigger how can I contact you guys?

@@Uknown-Driveryou should be able to open a chat via our website and we can answer any questions you have there! Cheers!

Yes ir, We are allowed to peg a claim and have 48 hours to investigate with just the date of pegging displayed. After this time we must notify with a geolocation survey and we then have 14 days to decide to register or pull pegs.

Thank you so much 😊

Unfortunately it’s not all that great. I struggled to fit the tools, I think it may be good for some simpler jobs in the short term. I completely destroyed this halo but this was my first try. Will try again!