Hi, I thought I might update your information in regards to South Australian opal. Firstly let me introduce myself, my name is Mike and I am a professional opal cutter who has lived in Coober Pedy from 1986 to 2005.
I am one of the very few large scale commercial cutters still working in commercial quantities of opal.
I can tell you that the commentary surrounding Australian opal prices going up rapidly is correct. In terms of Coober Pedy, traditionally the worlds largest opal field, production is at an all time low. I was there last week and had dinner with the head of the mines department up there who confirmed to me that the number of full time mining companies is now below 30.
Prices for rough have sky-rocketed, particularly in the lower grades, and milky material which we call 'grey' material. To give an example, opal that I used to pay 150 oz for 3 to 4 years ago to cut C- C+ opal triplets is now going at up to $600 oz. Potch and colour, and even potch is fetching big money also, I mean crazy money!
This is not all bad news. Opal prices for many many years went nowhere. When I started buying parcels of rough in 1986, right up to about 4 years ago, prices went up and down, but never up very far. Meanwhile mining costs soared, legislation made mining more difficult and expensive also. Opal mining started to steadily decline, not for lack of opal, or lack of claims, but simply because the price of rough was too low.
I have never been frightened of buying opal. Indeed I just paid 14K for a little under 3 oz of material. Yes it is very good quality crystal, and yes it was expensive, but not really. Not when you compare the amount of high quality jewelry pieces we will end up making out if it.
The flip side of higher prices, particularly for the lower grade material is that digging the stuff out of the ground may once again become an attractive proposition. To give you an example of how hard it is to find, consider this. A good friend of mine is a large scale miner, who uses excavators, Calwell drill, and other big machinery. They work hard and long hours and have not found any opal at all for almost 2 years. meanwhile their mining expenses run at about 10K a month.
90 % of all the opal dug out is either 'grey' (milky) material, or worse, with lots and lots of potch and 'potch and colour' in between. For these larger scale miners, the low grade material of which they find heaps is not really worth stopping to dig out....until now!
The rapid rise in prices is due to Indian buyers entering the market and creating markets for very low grade opal (potch or white coloured stones). This is good news actually. I anticipate that mining activity will slowly start to pick up again, and from just yesterday, another retired mining friend of mine is heading back to Coober Pedy for one week every month to do some prospect drilling.
Recent changes to the mining act now allows miners to peg claims and work them when they want. Prior to the changes it was a requirement to work opal claims for a minimum of 20 hours per week, making it hard for part time miners, or people from far way to come in their breaks and have a crack.
My advice to all of you looking to buy opal. Keep buying Australian opal, but make sure you buy from a reliable source who knows exactly where the opal is from. Every field produces good, and bad opal, and speaking of Coober Pedy, opal can vary dramatically from claim to claim and even from level to level within the one claim. But, Australian opal when you buy right, is healthy, and very good quality.
This last point is pretty important if you are planning on putting your stone into jewelry. Gold is very expensive, so whatever you put in it needs to be stable!
I may be biased, but nothing can be more rewarding than cutting an opal (Australian), and after cutting hundreds of thousands of them, I still get surprised, and excited when I take them off the sticks!
I am not going to make comment about non-Australian opal, I can't afford to touch it as I guarantee all of my stones!
Anyway, I hope this is useful..
Cheers,
Mike
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Topic: Where to get your fix (rough suppliers) (Read 9579 times)