the monster company Opex Opal
I ran into Dagbjorn Johnson at the Tucson show. I'm a nobody and didnt realize Opex was considered a monster company. I noticed an opal seller and wanted to take a look at the opals and see if he was offering any rough for cutters and check out the quality and price of rough and cabs. Dagbjorn was working his booth and I chatted with him for a bit. He was a really nice guy and I got the impression he was just an old miner from Australia who's been in the opal business for awhile. He had some nice material in cabs but I didn't inquire on the prices. The very small supply of rough he had was a pass for quality for me so I also didnt get prices. Looked like the show he was in was more dedicated to cut stuff for bench jewelers and finished pieces for wholesale to retail. I didn't see much rough in Tucson gem and mineral show but was a bit of a side project with a main mission of giving someone who needed a ride so basically just along for the ride and following them around with what they where looking to accomplish rather then focusing on studying the rough and cab opal market there.
I did pick up a small parcel of Welo from a guy running a small booth of almost all rough stuff at one of the hotels. Not sure what show or what hotel since they all look the same brown stucco with a pool. Real good cheap stuff compared to the one welo I've purchased off of Ebay from an Indian seller. The ebay stuff looked good in a pic but looked like potch when it arrived beyond a brief glimpse of flash when you held at just the right angle and stood on one leg. Versus what I got in from Tucson having relatively stable play of color/better color but difficult to cut due to small pieces, odd shapes and harder to remove areas of rhyolite intrusion. The low priced stuff probably deemed uncuttable or not worth cutting with either very small or no calibrated opals discernible. Which is the right priced stuff for me for practice and experience attempting to cut. Almost too good of quality or a perfect challenge to increase skill.
For the price of attending tucson and the dry air increasing risk of crazing. I'm not thinking it's a viable option of sourcing rough for at least welo but seems a good place for networking your connections for purchases. It would have made sense to at least put a wet napkin as a type of humidifier in with what I got there as the biggest finest piece crazed at some point from purchase to pulling it out to work. Still got a few pieces for cutting off the crazed piece but did lose a good bit as shard too small to do anything with after fracturing it along the crazed lines, and definitely Tucson's harsh conditions test the opal to verify it's stability.
From my limited experience with Ebay I'm left a bit salty from my one experience and cant say I'm enthusiastic to go back in for more there. But understand how mileage may vary from seller to seller and especially price point. Looks to be a bit dominated for rough welo there with my poor experience tho. I'd prefer a video vs. still picture to judge quality there and a bit harder to judge things like crazing or depth of intrusion of stuff like rhyolite without personal examination vs. pictures or video over the internet. That's gotta be a bit tougher to pull the trigger on the higher the price runs.
Dagbjorn did mention opening up mining in Brazil, I believe but I just assumed Australia is a bit played out as far as the common places associated with fine opal in Australia and Brazil seems to be a nicer environment as far as hostile environments to explore mining in my mind beyond crime rate. Citation with all of this needed that I am a nobody and have no idea what Im talking about.
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Topic: Where to get your fix (rough suppliers) (Read 9575 times)