As October is now here, here's a tale about an Opal, which is of course, October's birthstone. The huge gem in the photos was purchased by Adam from a lady called Linda (second from left), who was working with Adam's buddy Avon (third from left), mining for opals in Queensland's outback.
Linda started work on her opal as a bit of a personal project, but due to the formation and different levels of the stone, the gem had to be worked on manually by hand. Linda lost countless hours in the pursuit of polishing this massive Opal to perfection, but in the end, sold it to Adam half-finished.
A mere (!) 5 years later, and Adam has finished the Opal, which now sits in an opulent setting of sand-casted sterling silver and 18ct recycled gold, with 2 carats worth of companion recycled Diamonds and Sri Lankan Sapphires - a real labour of love! You might have also noticed Adam's 'hat' in the first photo - the story goes that he misplaced his own hat and rather than face the searing 45C heat unprotected, decided he'd go 'hat couture' with a handy lampshade. Not sure why it didn't catch on - those dangly tassles helped keep the flies off!
Now for a tale of a Monstrous Opal of another sort!
With Halloween on the way, it's a great time to have a look at the spooky side of Opals! Have you heard that it is bad luck to buy yourself an opal, or that you shouldn't wear one if it isn't your birthstone? There's a lot of superstition surrounding Opal, and you've probably heard at least one negative connotation.
In fact, Opal had actually always been considered a good luck gemstone throughout most of history. The ancient Romans considered Opal one of the luckiest gemstones to own. The word opal derived its name from “opalus”, which means “to see a change in colour”. The Roman scholar Pliny wrote this of opal: “There is in them a softer fire than the ruby, there is the brilliant purple of the amethyst, and the sea green of the emerald - all shining together in incredible union.”