opalfireinfo

A few new opals recently sold

mikelley — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:59:08 +0000

Lightning Ridge black pear shape with blue green fire

Hi there,

Here are a few new opals which have recently found happy homes:

A recent parcel

Lightning Ridge Green crystal oval

Lightning Ridge flagstone pattern. The other half lights up with a slight tilt. Blue green gem fire on black body

A bit of the rough I’m cutting these days

Bright little LR multicolor, this is a vintage stone from my antique collection, approx 75 years old

Lightning Ridge Green fire crystal

: one in a million, a natural picture stone from Lightning Ridge-

The color rolls up and down the sail, the boat stays white with red running lights. I haven’t let this one go yet, I may clean up the edges just a bit…. Red Sails in the Sunset

: rolling flash with red multicolor

These streamers of color roll across the face to meet each other

I’ll have more to post in a few days….

Mike Kelley

www.opalfire.info

my current opals for sale are all on;

http://www.opalauctions.com/seller-auctions.php?seller_id=9838

along with 50,000 other opal auctions from opal cutters and wholesalers all around the world.

Some real eye candy there on that site. I hope you enjoy the show and it’s a good place to source your opals too.

Thanks for looking,

Mike Kelley

$1 NR Opal Auctions - Have a look!

mikelley — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:32:07 +0000

Hello there friends,

Today’s post is about opal auctions.

I’ve been posting opals for sale on an excellent site, www.opalauctions.com for a couple of months now. There are usually about 45,000 opal auctions posted there at any time. There is a $1 NR section which is full of loss leaders posted by opal dealers to get some attention for the rest of their auctions.

Here are a couple of mine which are active now:

Coober Pedy Cat's Eye effect

Here’s another:

LR Orange multicolor

See these and more of my opal auctions here:

http://www.opalauctions.com/seller-auctions.php?id=9838

And all my colleagues here:

http://www.opalauctions.com

Enjoy the show!

Mike Kelley

Opal Patterns and Color

mikelley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:07:29 +0000

Lightning Ridge Bowtie Rolling Flash

This opal has a combination of bowtie, ribbon and flagstone in a rainbow rolling flash display.

Patterns and Color in Precious Opal

Play of color (or fire) may come in many patterns. Pattern refers to the physical structure and form of the play of color. There are a dozen or so patterns, some of them common and some are very rare. The most common patterns are pinfire and flake fire which look as they are described, like tiny pinpoints or small flakes of color. Think of black pepper, which may be finely ground or coarsely ground, thus making different size flakes. Medium to large flakes are also fairly common. Flake fire generally has individual flakes clearly separate from each other, floating in the white or dark body of the opal, so it is easy to identify the body color or body tone as it is sometimes called. Sometimes the amount and intensity of the fire is so great as to mask the body color and all you will see is the play of color. The opal pictured below is a good example of such closely packed flake fire.

: Allan

Less common are the broadflash and the flagstone. An opal with larger flakes of color may form a pattern know as flagstone if the flakes touch each other, looking like flagstones in a garden path or patio. If the flakes are so large as to cover most of the opal face with one flake, that is called broadflash. Both flagstone and broadflash may be either rolling or static.

Lightning Ridge flagstone

Rolling flash means that the play of color moves across the flake of fire, either filling it up like a glass of water or moving across the flake but not filling up the entire flake, much like a cat’s eye or tiger eye stone.

Static means that the color is either there or not and appears to fill up the flake or not be there at all, producing a flash of fire color which flashes off and on. Sometimes the color may be only one per flag, or sometimes an individual flag or flake may display more than one color, which may be either close to each other in the spectrum, such as blue to green or green to orange or orange to red. This gives the flake a subtle (or extreme) change of shade or hue as the stone is moved and your angle of vision changes. Other opals may display the full rainbow of color through an individual flake, causing what’s called a rainbow rolling flash. This is the rarest of rolling flash patterns and is most prized generally. The opal pictured at the top of this post is an example of that pattern.

The shape of the flakes is also important. The rarest and most expensive flagstone is called harlequin. This is often claimed but very very seldom seen. I keep a daily search alert on eBay for harlequin stones and see a true harlequin once a year at most. True harlequin is a flagstone pattern of perfect squares exactly the same size, like a checkerboard. Old timers in Aus called it tartan, but that term has died out and is seldom heard anymore.

Other more common but still rare flag shapes are bowtie, Bandera and ribbon. Ribbon is a stripe pattern, bowtie has flared ends and Bandera is like a flapping flag, rectangular but wavy.

Opals are also classified as to the number of colors which show. Most opals show only one or two colors in their display. Some show three or more and are referred to as multicolor. The predominant color is used to describe the multicolor phenomenon, such as red multicolor or green multicolor. This is important because reds are the rarest and most prized color, so a red multicolor will be more prized than a green multicolor.

I will post other examples of patterns such as pinfire and broadflash in later posts.

Recently Sold Opals and opal parcels from MK

mikelley — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:52:05 +0000

Hello there,

These are a few of the opals and opal parcels I’ve recently sold.

I cut and polished everything except the opal parcels from the 1930’s. A long story, that one, I’ll post it sometime.

I welcome comments and questions…

Mike Kelley

www.opalfire.info

OpalFire Info Blog open for discussion

mikelley — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:03:30 +0000

Hello there,

Many thanks to the wizards at Ganoksin for developing this forum for Orchid members.

I am an opal cutter and wholesale dealer of opals and other fine gemstones. My specialty is gem quality opals from Australia and Brazil. I’ll be posting occasional pictures and comments on the opal which passes through my hands, primarily as a photo guide to opal terminology. I invite questions and discussion here of opal and opal myth, lore, rumors. Pictures or a link to opal jewelry you’ve created and a note about setting techniques, prongs, bezels, etc. are welcome too.

I started cutting opal in the mid 1970’s and had a retail jewelry store in Austin TX. then. I remain fascinated by opal in its endless variety. I have a website, www.opalfire.info, and I invite you to check it out. It’s in beginning stages, and I have much more info and opal pics to post there as time permits.

I have a ME page on eBay, my seller ID there is arthursonn (long story). Search eBay for arthursonn and you will find a set of three guides I wrote for eBay members, concerning evaluation and grading of opal rough parcels. I also have links to hundreds of close-up pics of opal internal structure, pattern and color, taken with a microscope camera, magnifying at 60x and 200x, all on my ME page on eBay. Here is an example, a close-up of black opal meeting white opal in the same stone, only the body tone has changed. The play of fire structure continues from black body into white body, unchanged.

I hope all Orchid members will enjoy this as a spot for opal talk and pictures.

Thanks,

Mike Kelley

Hello world!

mikelley — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:02:39 +0000