Can fire opal come from ethiopia? I have a specimen of precious fire opal with rainbow play of color, it is quite large, 75 cts, clear and surely orange. Can it be called a precious fire opal? It was a great specimen, unfortunately, i cut it out of the host rock. Lost its cool looking raw state... n revealed all the cracks. Kinda sad..But it is interesting.
Orange opal of various shades are very common from Ethiopia. Since the definition of fire opal is the red/orange/yellow body color, I guess it can be called that.
Welo produces some stable oranges, but Shewa was famous for its large, richly colored and complwtely unstable orange opal nodules, found alongside the mpre stable browns. Darn shame as they are stunning.
Thanks! Yes shewa googled it. Looks like those. Im suprised i havent seen any cut material at all, just a bunch of specimens from there. Its like the stayish mine black opal. Ive seen 1 kg pieces of rough with good fire but not a single decent cut piece. Hows that possible?
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:20 am Posts: 2756 Location: Southern California, U.S.A.
Fire Opal can come from anywhere. Known producers (to me) are Mexico, Australia, Ethiopia, Brazil, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada U.S.A. I'm sure there are other sources. When Fire Opal exhibits play of color it's simply considered Precious Opal. It most commonly comes from Mexico.
I know of one cutter who's had middling success with Shewa opal. He's produced quite a number of beautiful stones that survived the lapidary process but many have fractured months or years after processing.
Theres huge rocks ive been seeing more regulary. Giant ones with good color. Seems like dealers got buckets full. I was thinking of buying some rough but no idea where to start. Or prices for this stuff, they r huge some of them. No idea about it tho. Probably all gonna crumble. I tried 3 pieces. They all crumbled. Any idea about prices for this kinda material? I was quoted 2000 usd per kilo... seems high isnt it? Just looking at the buckets it seems like it should be much cheaper than 2000. Im sure there is a lot more too it to price this stuff, just kinda thinking atm.
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These have to be kept in water or they craze. I don't think they're Shewa material, but they're also not the classic Welo material (I think it's from a nearby deposit though). They're really nice in an immersed display though.
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