Opals are stunning stones that produce bright colours and shimmers. Listed below are spectacular opals that most people love to look at.
Opals Overview
As said earlier, opals are awesomely beautiful natural stones, and there are several reasons why. These gemstones are famous for aiding in rain formation. Although there is no consent regarding how they are formed, most people believe these precious stones and minerals are formed by rain. Click here to learn much more about the history of opals.
In general, the rainwater leaks into rocks’ cracks. After water evaporation, the left silica dries out after a period and solidifies into stunning opals. In ancient times, the Greeks referred to opals as ‘Opallios’, which translates to colour change, and they alleged these natural stones were moulded from Zeus’ happy tears after conquering the Titans.
Still, they believed these stones imparted prophetic powers and gifts, which is why people see it as a lucky natural stone. The fact that you cannot resist looking at this stone means it’s one of the most precious gemstones worldwide. The stone incorporates millions of silica scopes in different sizes and colours.
These silica scopes usually deflect the lovely colour spectator, which is why you cannot get enough of the stone. What’s more, opals are available in different types, and each shows its distinctive beauty. In this article, you will find the top six opals worth an investment.
Top 6 Opals
Flame Queen Opal
Since its discovery in 1915, the flame queen opal is one of the most superb and rarest precious natural stones globally. The unique thing about this stone is that its appearance resembles a fried egg. Finished as a pear-shaped and broad informal top cabochon, its flares change from vivid red to fiery bronze when you view it in a different light and from different angles.
It contains a highly spectacular shape and cuts, which boost the stone’s natural formation. Under different angles and lights, the stone reflects various colour combinations uniquely and remarkably. Flame Queen is a unique stone with rich history, and it was first unveiled in London in 1937 during King George VI coronation.
Black Opals
These opals are opaque, and they are often available in mass form. This characteristic makes them perfect for cutting into carvings, jewellery, and palm stones. Other colours, such as white, brown, beige, and grey, are also present in large quantities in black opals.
Black opals are famous for giving total protection to people’s emotional aura and body. This will provide you with etheric protection against emotional toxicity. What’s more, it helps you stay calm in uncomfortable scenarios. The simple act of wearing this stone often will help you reduce anxiety and increase confidence.
It can push you to handle new thrilling escapades and act on impulsive ideas. Another notable thing about black opals is that they are amongst the strongest stones and minerals that help people manage emotional fear. Generally, it gives you the much-desired strength to take on things that shock you.
The fear it can help you encounter include:
- Swimming phobia.
- Watching a scary movie.
- Jumping from high heights.
- Riding a roller coaster.
Black opals also help people to meditate. When meditating, it’s advisable to place it in front of your closed eyes and take deep breaths.
White Opals
Also known as milky or milk opals, you can easily recognise these stones through their light body and pale white tone. Like other opals, these gemstones can beautifully display multiple colours of the spectrum. It is worth noting they are common and more plentiful than different types of opals. Although most of them will contain a white pouch on the left side of the stone, a large part of the gemstone will be colourful.
The stone’s pale body nature gives them a less vibrant colour than the black and boulder opals. They don’t incorporate a black or dark background that boosts the stone and make the opal’s colour stick out. All in all, despite their paleness, these stones are exceedingly beautiful and will catch your eye’s attention.
Boulder Opals
These are among the most valuable, thanks to their dark body tone. You can easily distinguish this precious metal from other opals by checking its left side for brown ironstone. These stones are created through an ironstone mixture, which is why they are extracted from ironstone boulders.
During the stone’s formation, thin creases start to form on the stone’s cracks. These veins form in stunning colours, and they can all spread across the stone to give it a distinct look. The fact that ironstone gives a dark-shaded back to these opals means this gemstone boasts a vibrant dark look. Most boulder opals are available in Queensland, a great state in Australia.
Crystal Opals
As the name suggests, these opals are transparent or semi-translucent, and their play-of-colour originates from the stone as it interacts with light that comes its way. The crystal opals cabochons make striking stones.
Although crystal opals give people lithotherapy effects, designing them is challenging because designers should create them to allow light to pass through in multiple ways. In any design, these stones need to give users a colourful display.
Crystal opal’s translucence gives it a more incredible vibrancy of colour and clarity than opaque stones. Also, pale coloured crystal stones are valuable and more spectacular than black opaque opals.
Burning of Troy Opals
The burning of troy opals gets their name from the legendary flashing fire blaze, which is alleged to have brightly burned within its belly. While there is no contest regarding the existence of this well-known stone, its journey to being one of the best in the world is surrounded by mystery.
One thing about these opals is that little is known about them due to their scarcity. Until the 20th century, most historiographers believed these stones originated from Hungary’s Czerwenitz Mines, which is home to most opals in Europe. Whatever the case, these opals are worth your purchase.
Opals can be Delicate
Opals are valuable stones for manufacturing brooches, pendants, and earrings. These jewellery items don’t encounter substantial impact and abrasion during wear. Indeed, this stone is softer and easily chipped than other famous stones. In Mohs hardness scale, opals’ hardness range between 5.5 and 6.0.
The leading designs contain a bezel that ultimately secures the stone against abrasion and impacts if used in ring manufacturing. Although ring opals are stunning, it is advisable to remove them when undertaking tasks where abrasion and effect might happen.
Opals Physical Properties
Opal’s composition includes sodium dioxide, but its physical properties differ from quartz’s. All in all, the presence of water in the stones gives them a low hardness, decreases gravity, and gives it a brittle characteristic.
Other opals contain internal structures comprising regularly packed scopes that allow them to act as deflection grating. Also, they can easily separate light into component colours, which is similar to what prism does. This feature is known as ‘play-of-colour’.
What Causes ‘Play-of-Colour’ in Opals?
The sections of opals that generates play-of-colour is created with millions of microscopic silica scopes organised in a systematic network. These scopes act as diffraction grating, and their size is roughly ½ micron. The light is diffracted into the spectrum colours as it passes through. Remember that the scopes’ size and geometric packing determine the diffracted light’s quality and colour.
Which are the Top Sources of Opals?
In the late 1800s, Australia was a valuable source. After several findings in the early 1900s, the country became the leading producer, and it remained that way for more than a century. The famous mining regions in Australia include Andamooka, Mintabie, Coober Pedy, Yowah, Lighting Ridge, Quilpie, Jundah, and Koroit.
The production of this precious metal kick-started in the late 1800s in Mexico. Currently, Mexico is popular for producing fire opals in red, orange and bright yellow colours. Multiple series of discoveries undertaken in Ethiopia in the 1990s made it one the finest producer of fire opals.
Other countries where you can find exceptional varieties of opals include Indonesia, Hungary, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Slovakia, Nicaragua, and the Czech Republic. A couple of states in the US, such as California, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Louisiana, produce opals in small quantities.
Beautiful Names for Describing Opals
Several types of opals, and various names communicate much about them. If you are new to opals, you might be amazed by the wide variety of beautiful terms that describe these stones. For example, some names, such as Andamooka opal, fire, boulder, black, Coober Pedy, and matrix opals mintabae opals, triplet opals, doublet opals, and precious opals, have hidden meanings.
Wrap Up
In conclusion, while there are numerous types of opals in the market, the above mentioned represents a list of the best you cannot resist loving. However, when buying opals, remember to buy a gemstone that meets your demands, gives the desired brilliance, and above all, suits your budget.
