I'm justin and this is black opal direct my family have been teaching and exploring opal since 1961.
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g'day and welcome to black opal direct my name is justin well today we have a knobby
which you've seen before but this is a very very cool example of a witch's hat knobby and
the reason why we call it a witch's hat knobby is because of its um cone shape or its pointed
shape that it's formed like that underground and it really does look like a little bit of a hat
lucky for us there is a magic color bar coming right through that stone and
from the research I've done with lots of light I think it's pretty clean so fingers crossed
this piece could turn out magnificent so let's get ourselves on the wheel and let's expose this guy
okay well here is our beautiful witch's hat knobby and you can see that that point very
clearly in this one it's a very pronounced piece now a lot of the time when these points come up
usually something comes up from the bottom into the color so that's the that's the scary part
about this piece is that that could happen so we don't want that to happen we want this color
bar to be nice and clean and you can see on this side that there is some color showing up so it's
telling me that the color bar does go across how clean it is when it goes across is a good question
so let's uh let's get on the wheel clean up this side a little bit more to see how far we can see
the color bar goes so let's get the wheel going
she
so there's a little bit of black there but I don't
believe that that black will touch the color it's too much crotch in between
wow and for now there is absolutely nothing showing up just yet
wow nothing
okay we just started a little bit of color there it's still not too bad
but we can get rid of all of this because that is all sand and inclusions
all right i might stop there even though there's sand or I can take it a little bit further oh boy
oh no that sand's really going in
don't do this to me
okay you can see a big sand block that you can see just here it seems to go fairway in
that's a bit painful let's start working on other areas of the piece as we can see
there is no color showing up there either
another big sand block wow
so let's hope that sand does disappear further in
it doesn't feel like it goes too much further in which is good
leave that side to the other side
okay so the colors started on that edge
so we have a chance of something cutting out of this piece I do believe this sand travels in
so there may be something stone just there instead
wow baby
shhh
yep that sand's going in a lot further than i thought
man
oh wow oh well anyway are you ready
I'm going in
oh wow
so sometimes you can see color can bubble up on the on the tip
and it has gone right up into the peak of that piece wow wow wow
so that's partly a good sign um but this sand here is going a long way in
so if I clean up a little bit more
of that color i mean that's beautiful color check that out that's a gorgeous color
all right
shhh
so
shhh
oh boy
so I know I've got at least I've definitely got a stone in there it's quite a pretty color
but it might just sit on this side
so I don't think we've got as big as stone as I hoped but uh if we roll that sand out on that
edge and roll the top down a little bit we may get a bigger stone than what it looks like there so
um crazy
wasn't imagining that much sand at all
is
so I just weighed it and um surprisingly it's 7.35 carats as it is still so it's not as bad as uh I
pessimistically uh thought but um yeah we're going to keep it that free-form shape
and I don't usually cut free forms a lot of people call it the jt cut which is an oval
but we're going to do a free form today just because I think I want to keep as much color
as I can and I had no choice I had to get the sand out so let's start cutting the stone
if all rough opal was perfect it wouldn't make it fun anymore just like fishing you don't
always catch a big one but when you do it's pretty special a memorable moment that would make me say
I wish my dad was here but he's not so I get to share my opal with you and I say let's do this and
while I'm enjoying what I do i'm clowning around as well because life's too short to be serious all
the time so while I take my opal really serious I don't take life serious it's too short whether I'm
at home or I'm at work I'm always going to crack a joke make life light it's important to have a
good laugh without laughing life's too serious and you know I've realized that people who love opal
love jokes love creativity love the quirky side of life and if you are you're my type of person
all right let's see what this puppy weighs
it's actually not that bad it's quite good stone what have we got
6.19 carats so I was thinking I was hoping for 10
and I thought i'd only get four to five and so we're in the middle
6.19 around about the middle don't miss me don't knock me on my math because I'm not the best
6.19
now it's not an oval so the symmetrical shape price per carat won't be as high as a freeform
in my opinion anyway so 6.19 we're looking at probably 500 a carat
so we're looking at a three thousand dollar gym three thousand dollars
for a gem I was expecting maybe a little bit more but still, i am very happy with it
can't complain nice blue-green gem um and it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts as a freeform
so yes I hope you enjoyed that one and we'll see you next time thanks for watching
you