My First Black Opal

When I first started cutting stones, I always watched someone who cut gorgeous black opals and I fell in love with these stones. They are very rare and very expensive and I knew that someday I would have one. in January 2025, I purchased a 1000 carat parcel of rough opals from Lightning Ridge (where black opals are mined) and it was the most expensive rough rocks I’ve bought to that point. I was so excited to get the stones cut with dreams of have several beautiful stones when I was done. Unfortunately, This was the only stone of value that came out of that whole parcel. It’s a little less than 1 carat; a 0.1% return on the whole parcel. I wasn’t even mad because the novelty and beauty of this stone was better than I could have hoped for.