January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
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 Post subject: Your take on Ethiopian crystal opal?
PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:12 pm 
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Anyone seen the crystal opals from Gondar and Wello in Ethiopia? From what I heard, there was quite a lot of it available on this year's Tuscon fair. What do you think of it? Is it attractive and useful enough to become a hit like Tanzanite?

I've seen some of it on other fairs and think it is really stunning in good quality, and doesn't cost anything compared to similar Australian opals, but haven't heard it spoken of or seen anyone write very much about it here on Gemologyonline for instance. Is it something wrong with the stone or is it just unknown to people?

Also, to those who might remember me; Hi! Sorry for my long absences, I hope I'm still welcome here!

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:46 pm 
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Welcome back. I saw some really beautiful stuff from a booth for Ethiopian opal. www.opalinda.com
Stunning material, but my take was that it was not inexpensive. Supposed to be new find of crystal that is not crackey but I for one will wait a bit. [/url]

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:16 pm 
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The Ethiopian opal has a higher water content and more likely to crack. Brazilian is better, but won't replace Aussie.

Like the Secrets of the gem trade quotes, Tanzanite looks like sapphire wish it could.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:44 pm 
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I agree John,

I'd gotten some of this volcanic "hydrophane" opal from Ethiopia a couple of years ago. The samples did not waste too much time before they crazed. Evidently the stuff is laying all over the place as thunder eggs in the fields out there. A lot of unrest in the area to harvesting is dangerous.

Possibly could stabalize the material though? Perhaps using a polymer like done with jade.

Oh no, another treatment... it can be cool looking stuff though, but will need to sell less expensively. Be careful of buying big lots as prospective business.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 1:24 am 
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Interesting photos of Ethiopian opal here.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:31 am 
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Welcome back, Jung Kee :D .

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:17 pm 
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Does anybody know about the price range for cut opal and rough?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:08 pm 
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OHHHH, of all the stones out there, I would say opal is the worst for pricing in generalites.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:52 pm 
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Thanks a lot for the input and the welcome everybody :)

Thing is that I might have a source for opals from the areas mentioned, one that will deliver both the hydrophane kind and another, stable kind. Question is whether it is worth to bother with it? Will it be possible to overcome the established distrust against Ethiopian opal? The opal is really stunning when faceted, but if I can't sell enough of it to make a profit, it won't be worth it as the running expenses will be high.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:59 pm 
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Ratnamahal: The price range is pretty simple: Starting at zero, you'll get the crap for free if you want it, going through all price categories imaginable until you stop at the infinitely high. At least that seems to be the case with Australian opal.

Ethiopian opals on the other hand seems to never be free, but quite expensive in any quality, although that might be because almost all Ethiopian opal do show very good play of colour if showing any. They don't reach more than middle level in prices compared to Australian opals though.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:03 am 
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Hello Jung Kee,

I have only seen rough Ethiopian opal and have only second hand info on the good stuff. I have quite a pile of the brown nodules of gorgeous colour play heavily crazed stuff that is essentially worthless that was abandoned by dissapointed customers.

I did have one customer that lives in Ethiopia, that didn't bring me opal, who showed me pictures of very attractive solid crystal. He said that less than 5 percent of the finds are stable. This particular customer however had far more interesting Ethiopian gems.

Tony.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:07 pm 
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Hi Tony!

Indeed there is a lot of gorgeous gems coming from Ethiopia, but it is not that easy to get a steady supply from, mostly it is quick, not always legal, swaps of cash4stones. Did he show you anything really good in particular? Personally, I think that the peridots and garnets are really nice, as well as some of the tourmalines and topazes.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:42 pm 
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Hello Jung Kee,

Yup, Nice Peridot and Garnet, but he had samples only and wasn't parting with any. He had some ruby, rather small and not the right colour but I managed to wrangle this one from him for the princely sum of $20. I couldn't resist the triangle etching. It's just a flat tablet and the reverse has a triangle that is upside down but it is only 2 1/2 mm thick.

Image

He claimed to have found some emeralds too but didn't have any with him.

Tony.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:41 am 
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Nice crystal specimen! And that is about how good it gets. There is indeed some okay emeralds coming from the southern part of Ethiopia. They have a peculiar formation though, as they are found in polycrystaline nodules which make them cut as hazy, somewhat mixed colour stones. In colour comparable with medium quality zambian or brasilian emeralds for the most part, even if there is some better quality as well.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:31 pm 
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I just got in from a small show in Albuquerque and talked to an aquaintance of mine there. He's been in and around the opal trade for a long time and usually does OK in his purchases.
He had some Ethiopian opal that showed very nice color play, but was so completely unstable as to be useless. He showed it to me a week ago at another show... I told him it was beautiful crystal opal, but jokingly asked him if it was crazing yet. He sort of grinned and said yes, it was. One week later, it was all tiny little pieces of opal chips...maybe useful for inlay work, but too small even for assembled stones, IMO. The scary part is, he bought it dry thinking that it would be ok. He's gotten back everything he sold from the parcel so far, and plans to return it to whoever he got it from. It's a pity, the one finished cab he had was probably 1k/ct material.

Unfortunately, this also sums up my limited experience with the stuff. I don't think I'll gamble with any more until I actually see some stable material. I desperately want to facet some....

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