get yourself a drink strap yourself in and get ready for one of the most beautiful gems
alive [Music] g'day and welcome to Black Opal direct my name's Justin well today we're in for
a real treat where I've got a crystal opal that I bought from lightning Ridge and it is has the
most top gem color but there is something about it that I think could be even better
and there's sand spots on the back of the stone that don't show what the color looks like on the
back and what I want to do is take approximately one carat off that back get rid of all that sand
and see what color shows up underneath because the color underneath looks like to me is showing
hints that it could be twice as good as the front side so I really want to find that out so
come along for the journey and let's get on that wheel and see what happens when I take that sand
off the back before you get to the end of this video and say hey I can do this it looks easy
think again it takes many many years of experience to understand opal really well
and nobody gets it right every time so here we are we have absolutely beautiful color on
the top it's five carats as it is and there's so much 3D play of color and color and color
but what I'm guessing is that underneath you can see some of that color there it just looks
ridiculous and if we clean this up and all that sand off it I have a feeling that it could be
could be really really nice color like even better than that side and if that's the case
we're losing about a carrot but we're going to gain so much more value in um and carrot price
so it's a really scary one to cut because I'm wasting so many carrots and as it is I could cut
a five carat stone out of it now and I'm going to risk a carrot to get a bit of stone so let's hope
it is a very high-risk move doing what I'm about to do
because I'm losing carrots every time I touch the wheel I lose value from the stone
weight is really important when it comes to pricing a very nice gemstone because the more
carrots you have the more money you make price per carat so I'm taking a really big risk by losing a
whole carrot which is could be up to around three or four thousand dollars to hopefully find out or
find something better underneath and from what I can see the color's starting to look really nice
taking it bit by bit shaving by shaving trying to save as much weight as possible is nerve-wracking
and you can see that I'm a bit tentative on the wheel because I don't want to take too much off
but that color is looking ridiculous
concentration is intense and my hair is falling out of my head
I think we're on a winner
[Music]
and while things are looking good they're not quite as they seem unfortunately
I've just dried this Stone out and I can see that there's some decent sand spots that are
going to cause some Havoc with this Stone so it's not turning out as good as I had
hoped we're going to get a beautiful gem no problem about that but we are going to have
to lose a little bit more carat weight so what I'm going to do is get on this
wheel but I'm going to do it dry so that I don't lose the sand spots in the water
the most important thing
the real fear here is how far do these sand spots go in and how many more carrots am I going to lose
because this is getting now to the pointy end and if I lose too many carrots I start to lose money
[Music]
I need to cut this opal dry because when the water gets on the stone the sand spots and
inclusions seem to disappear and are very hard to see but while it's dry I can see them as plain as
day and they're not coming out very quickly but I can't stop now because I've seen that
color and that color is so bright it matches or is even better than any stone in my collection
come on these sand spots got to come out soon it's like they're going on forever
foreign
[Music]
s were so stubborn but finally, I think I just got them out and now I really all I need to do
is shape the stone, unfortunately, lost a fair bit of weight but I'm still feeling positive
I do believe that this is one rare gem so I gotta make it perfect to get top dollar
[Music]
so I'm being ever so gentle here to make sure that I don't lose too much
color because it's all color but I need these domes to be nice and even again
but I'm happy to say that I have not lost that really bright color
[Music]
the pressure is off and I can enjoy cutting a beautiful gemstone
and this gemstone is one of the special ones that I'll never forget
it has a brightness of six out of five if there was such a thing I've never seen a stone so
bright with color so strong and a flash of red through that green like no other gem [Music]
it's just another one of those gems that I wish I could walk to my father and say Dad
check this out this is unreal and for him to get goosebumps and go oh son that's a keeper
[Music]
well this was an amazing journey this place the crystal opal that I originally bought it for was
was one of the nicest crystals I've cut now there was a video a few videos ago that I thought would
be probably the best Crystal and it's up there and it's probably as good a few more carrots
heavier too this one was 5.15 and I had to cut it back to 3.73 to uh to get that back clean but
by getting that back clean I have now got a double-sided Stone where all the beautiful Reds
orange greens and pinks were on the front side of the stone and now we have a stone
that's even brighter on the back different pattern dip different depth and the the red
that goes across the back of that stone is wild it's unbelievable so it really brings
the price up per carat on the stone even though I've lost a few carrots to do it so
it's probably evened itself out but I really really think the world needed to see the color
and brightness on that back so what an amazing Stone and we're looking at around about an
eighteen thousand dollar gem crystal as it is because of that that brightness is so bright
it's so rare I've never seen a stone with two sides with that much difference and that much
brightness they're so so different Stones so the hardest part for you is going to be choosing if
someone buys it or I stick it in my collection the hardest part is choosing what side you'd
want because both are Sublime hope you enjoyed that thanks for watching I'll see you next time