we've got a nobby that looks kind of like nothing special at the moment and I have a
hunch that this one is going to cut deep inside it a beautiful beautiful gem
g'day and welcome to Black Opal direct my name's Justin well today we've got a knobby
that doesn't really look like much at the moment it comes from the Wyoming field and
not Wyoming America but Wyoming lightning Ridge it's about 30 to 40 kilometers north
of the lightning Ridge Town itself and this guy came from around about 15 to 20 foot down
these types of nobby's are really really well known for um for looking not so good on the
outside and possibly cutting really beautiful color on the inside so today I'm going to
be trying to get right into the center of this piece and some of you are going to say
why don't you slice the top off because I am going to grind a fair bit off that top
and the reason is because the pattern and the color on the top is really not worth risking
slicing through some better pattern inside now this is all he say I don't know if this
is going to cut a great Stone inside but from experience it's telling me that it could do
so we've got probably got a 50 50 chance of it cutting so we'll get on the wheel but before
we get on the wheel I want to talk to you about opal fever and what people can go through
dealing with having opal fever [Music]
I cut my first opal I think when I was eight with my father and from then I grew a really
unbalanced Obsession for this gym I would cuddle up to this gym every so often you know
but my dad wasn't too concerned after a few years my obsession with opal grew to such
an unhealthy way that I would carry it around in my pocket and I would bring it out and
look at it probably a little bit too much and I'd play with it a little bit too much
kind of like a baby boy when he's first found his it was then that I thought that I had
some kind of an obsession around this Gem and maybe I needed some help so I went to
the doctor and there was a whole heap of specialists doing tests on me for about 30 minutes and
figured out really what was wrong with me and it was at that moment that I was told
I have an incurable addiction of opal fever it took a long time to come to terms with
this diagnosed addiction and it realized I needed some help so I started going to opalholics
Anonymous where we would talk about our feelings and our issues around this rock and one of
the guys don't tell anyone um always kept on licking his rock all the time just and
I thought that was weird and I didn't want to be that type of person so I really needed
to find out and get some help so I figured a solution and I started a business called
Black Opal direct where I could share this obsession with everyone and everyone could
get opal fever with me so I didn't feel quite alone now I couldn't be happier I get to play
with opal every day and I've been keeping my rock clicking down to a minimum I've got
it under control I think so my life wasn't fun enough so I decided to take on five women
to work with me in the opal business so that I could definitely have no say whatsoever
but you know what there was a moment where I was really special and I got the masculinity
award for maintaining masculinity in the office and that's a proud moment
alrighty well you can see this piece has blue color but no real pattern to it so one of
my plans is and I'm hoping that there is some pattern going on deeper inside closer to that
Potch and I'm also hoping that potch turns really dark inside so we won't know until
we get on there and um get inside it let's go
thank you
[Music]
as usual, I'll go around the edges first just to see how that color bar looks inside
and you can see here that the black has started so that's a good sign already
it's very much like the black has started here all right so all this blue milky
non-play of color it's got purple in it but it doesn't really have anything is what I'm
really not worried about losing because it's um it's just lacking pattern I dare say that
the pattern will be better down so what I'm going to do is take this take this top off
down to hopefully down into this area here so I'm praying that there is a good Stone
deep inside a little bit more [Music] water and I'm going in
see that purple really isn't anything spectacular at the moment
it still isn't
it
now you can see about the color has slightly started to look a little bit better
foreign [Music]
[Music]
color is really not that great and looks like there's a blue there's a blue kernel in the
middle and then there's green around the edges so a lot of Potch sitting right here
which tells me I have to go further down I've got to risk it for the biscuits
[Music]
ER pattern now possibly showing through and if this cleans up which it kind of doesn't
look like a wheel there's Potch in there [Music] I'm just not sure if that will clean up but
I'm hoping that there is a stone sitting here that is worthy worthy of this knobby
see that color starting to come through closer to that watch I really can't go too much further
down now because the pot's showing up
[Music]
there you go it does look a lot better than it did look the pattern has really shown up
a lot more than what was on top and all of that stuff on top really didn't have a lot
of value to it so uh my hunch was kind of right I don't think this stone is as amazing
as it could have been especially from that field because the Wyoming field has been known
very well to be full of surprises I'm showing you some pretty nice stuff when you get right
into the knobbies
so I'm just going to go through the process now of shaping it up to getting it to that
right
squeezing shape where the best color sits
[Music] Firehouse
[Music]
foreign
[Music] you know I only showed you the winners or the best pieces that I cut you'd get an
unrealistic view of how Opal turns out most of the time this piece is not a top gem but
it's not low quality either it's called a commercial opal because it has nice color
and is more affordable for more people [Music] luckily for this gym my hunch was kinda right
that it would cut a little bit better than it looked from the outside no matter the value
of the opal I will give it the love and care as much as I can just like any gem I cut which
is kind of a good metaphor for life if you're going to give something a go give it your
best and if you fail get back up and try again because I know in my life it's the failures
that taught me what I know today
[Music]
[Music] [Music]
[Music]
[Music] we finished the stone um the knobby didn't turn out quite as well as I thought
it would um the brightness of the color deeper down didn't really work out but still I mean
it's still just weigh it up for a second it's still 4.87 carats it's worth around about
the Thousand to twelve hundred dollars so it could have been a four or five thousand
dollar gem you just don't know until you get inside there but the good thing about this
piece is it came in a parcel of a whole heap of other pieces so when you average it out
over the whole parcel it still adds money to the whole value so I'm still happy that
it cuts something and not anything at all because that can happen quite often so I hope
you enjoyed that and a little bit of opal fever and we'll see you next time