BS: Outback Opal Hunters

Subject: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 01:45 PM

I've done business with opal dealers in Australia and worldwide by mail for 20 years.
The price is now too high to afford. Some sold potch and some sold the real deal. With 2 million holes in the ground and dangerous tunnels longer than the roman catacombs, has anyone here ever seen these desert destinations of the now dry shallow sea in Australia?
I've seen every episode of Outback Opal hunters and equate it with Deadliest Catch. The tons of dust, rock, hardship and disappointment for the miners they don't feature, is monumental.
I love the picture opals. I decided to make an opal picture by combining hundreds of them to make a 3D picture made entirely of opals.

I've done the same with computer components and parts of a mass spectrograph that was thrown away.

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Helen
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 04:14 PM

Hi Donuel,

One of the memorable places in my travels was a short stay-over at Coober Pedy in South Australia.

It is so hot that a lot of the homes are underground, using old mine shafts and tunnels. (Check out the Accommodation section of that website.) I only saw one child there. It's very similar to the wild west towns I have seen on TV shows, in my opinion, but it was an amazing place to visit.

Opalised fossils are interesting too

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 04:48 PM

I included 5 different opalized fossils in my opal seascape.
Some desert homes in America are called Earth ships since they can do anything a suburban home can do but they are off the grid.
I will show pictures when I can use a friend's facebook site.

Lightning Ridge is awesome in a thunderstorm. Real Mad Max stuff.
That nature can paint pictures of pacific islands with ships off-shore or cosmic nebulas with stars amazes me. Crystal white, black or clear opals are nice but not worth the price of a million dollars.
The run up in price hundreds of times beyond diamonds reminds me of beanie babies.

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Helen
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 05:50 PM

I have briefly visited Lightning Ridge but I was just passing through.

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 08:44 AM

So you use Aussie opals. That's un-American!

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 09:21 AM

I once remarked that Coober Pedy Folk Club was underground - to which the reply came "Everything's underground there"

I have seen a couple of episodes of Opal Hunters, but it gets a bit samey after a while.

Same with Aussie Gold Diggers, Trucking Down Under, Ice Road Truckers, etc. Two episodes do it to death for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 10:25 AM

Yeah, Mike, Idaho but they cant even spell quartz. Quarts is a volume not a stone. (My brother picked up some chert interleaved with opal on a geology field trip to Eastern Washington, so I guess that opal field must overlap the states' borders. He gave me a piece that I have somewhere around here sitting collecting dust.)

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 12:24 PM

Even Mars has opal but precious colorful opal is from OZ.
Sure Ethiopia has nice opal but owners complain it gradually turns urine yellow. Koroit Opal has a fractal quality I like.
At 10 times the price of gold and opal prices that makes diamonds look as cheap as zirconia is possibly an indication, there are too many billionaires.

I got a huge slab of aqua opal from Peru that looked like a shallow sea and an underwater seafloor 25 years ago and drove me to collect opals that would make it look like a carefree aquarium. Everything came by mail. The last added piece is also from Peru and is a large carving of two blue dolphins amid seaweed. The flashing color stuff I put on the back side as if to hide it.

There are a million paintings but only one of these so I am asking an Art price and not a gemologist price. For some time, Sotheby's has been inching into the primary market by selling works directly from artists' studios. Now, the auction house is firming up those moves, launching a new primary market sales channel for artists and their galleries. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/09/08/sothebys-launches-primary-market-channel-selling-works-directly-from-artists-studios

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: Helen
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 02:18 PM

Mr Red, I don't watch any of those shows. I know I will tire of them too quickly so I don't even start.

Rapparee, I AM Un-American because I am an Aussie. Does that count? LOL

I saw a bit of Antiques Roadshow - I don't know which year that episode was made - and a piece of jewellery with an opal was being reviewed. As I recall there was mostly a lack of knowledge about opals among the owner, antiques reviewer and audience. I was surprised by that.

Subject: RE: BS: Outback Opal Hunters
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 05:37 PM

Further to Helen's first post, in 1989, after seeing Uluru, etc., on my way down by coach to Adelaide from Darwin, I stayed in an underground backpackers.