48 carat Australian Jelly Opal!

Thanks! I just cut another one. This one a little smaller than the others and with the green fire mixed in with the blue (but not the patch of just minty green). This one is very clean and crystally. I wish the photos showed it off better.......because this doesn't really show how the blue, purple, and green dance throughout the stone. I made another attempt at making a little video of this 48 carat jelly opal and it's taken in direct sunlight and gives a little more perspective on this stone.

The auctions for the other three opals end tomorrow evening and there's a number of watchers and they've received a lot of views, so I'm hopeful to do well with them. I just finished a weekend of having an open studio as one of 100 artist in the Portland Open Studios tour and these stones got a lot of attention! Thanks for looking!

Australian Jelly Opal Focal Bead Pendants

Howdy Folks! Well I LOVE cutting opals but I seldom can find affordable rough to cut to do the kind of cutting that I want to do. Luckily I have a well to do, rock hound, big brother, who likes to get me opal rough for my birthday! In August he sent me a 3/4 POUND chunk of Australian jelly opal rough as a birthday present! Jelly opal is precious opal that is transparent or mostly transparent with a bluish iridescence. This piece would also be considered crystal opal because it is mostly transparent and has play of color in the blue, purple, and green colors.

My big bro was at a rock and gem show in Northern California and some old timer was selling off his collection and only charging what he paid for the items 30 to 40 years ago, so my brother got a really good deal on the rough. Here's a pic of the rough as I got it.... and from this piece of rough, I was able to cut the following focal bead pendants....

THis freeform measures 57x20mm by 8mm thick with a 3mm drill hole and weighs in at 59 carats....

and this teardrop shaped bead is 53x20mm by 8mm thick, 3mm drill hole, and weighs in at 63 carats...

and the biggest one I cut so far is this one, a long rounded oval, that measures in at 72x17mm by 11mm thick, 3mm drill hole, and weighs a total of 82 carats...

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Opals are very hard to photograph as they don't really show the play of color. I have an old camera that takes good macro photos and it is able to take little 30 second videos so I decided to try my hand at making little short videos of the opals moving around in the light. The focus isn't the greatest but they really help see the optical phenomena within the gemstone. Here are the links to the videos on youtube of the above stones if you want to get a better look....

59 carat freeform jelly opal video

63 carat teardrop jelly opal video

82 carat long oval Jelly Opal video

I've already sold two other beads I made out of this rough. There's enough to make one more BIG bead (which I may keep for myself!), two smaller ones (well, small for me, not small for jelly opal beads!) and some smaller pieces that I will probably inlay into my jet mourning beads as they look so good against a black background. If you're interested in any of these beads, they're all in my DVHdesigns eBay store, up at auction closing on Monday.

Thanks for looking and I'll post more pics as I finish the rest of the opals.