Rainbowrock Opals in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | Commercial and industrial

Rainbowrock Opals

Locality: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Phone: +61 3 9738 0033

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Tags

• Commercial and industrial
• Jewellery & watches shop
• Jewellery/watches
• Jewellery wholesaler
• Manufacturer/supplier

24.01.2022 These exceptional 12 mm Round bad boys are destined for 14ct Yellow & White Gold Men's Rings :)

21.01.2022 Quite a handful The smaller oval at the bottom measures 18x13mm.

16.01.2022 Next lot of Free Forms, my workers are both exhausted, both put in a couple of hours today ..

10.01.2022 I normally don't editorialize much on my listings, just give the basic facts, dimensions , quality , price ect but this case is a total exception to the rule. A...pproximately 100 Million years ago, when a vast area of Australia was an inland sea, a shell fish not unlike a present day Pippie, died & sank into the silt & sand at the bottom of the sea. Over many years the remnants of the shell, mainly the outer casing was covered by layer upon layer of sedimentary deposits. It got to the point where even the skin shell of the pippie disintegrated, leaving behind a perfect molded cavity of the shells shape & size. Over a few more Millennia this cavity was gradually filled with a Silica Gel which hardened & solidified into an exact replica of the original Pippie. The only difference to the millions of other shell fish that had gone through this process, was that this one in a million freak of nature, developed into a magnificent display of colour & pattern, rarely seen , that is nowadays referred to as precious Opal!! Fast forward a tad over 100 million years. In a location, now known as the 12 Mile field in Coober Pedy South Australia, a mining team was putting down an open cut trench, with a huge Caterpillar bulldozer. The year was approximately 1990. They were approaching the Opal Level which is the depth of the sedimentary layers that relate to the 100 million year old time frame, where most of today's precious Opal is found.. At this point a couple of checkers or spotters , follow the tracks of the dozer, supposedly closely watching in case a pocket of Opal is exposed as the dozer pushes the over burden up the ramp into the ever growing mullock heap. I don't know if the boy's were distracted, not paying close enough attention or perhaps they had had a few too many stubbies the night before but they totally missed an exposed pocket of brilliant Opalized sea shells. The next push up the ramp by the dozer, totally buried them all again, after having been exposed to the light of day for less than 5 minutes!! Fast forward again another 30 years, when an associate of mine was putting the entire mullock heap, through his noddling plant & discovered what the previous miners had missed. The shell in the following images was one of the best of them & I managed to secure it. It weighted almost 100 carats & was a magnificent example of Cobber Pedy's best, multi coloured crystal. Normally a piece like this is cut into a Solid stone with an approx value of $50,000 but I had other plans. Most in the trade regard me as a bit crazy but despite that I went ahead & put the shell through the slicing machine, to cut it into what I predicted would be the best Triplets on the planet. After eight & a half hours on the slicing machine, the beauty that had been locked up inside the shell for 100 million years was finally exposed. I have posted a number of images over the last couple of weeks which can be seen. A number of the first Free Forms are already having CAD's generated for Free Form Pendants & in a couple of weeks the first finished pieces will be available. Anyone interested in securing one of these pieces will be able to do so from one of my websites, the only downside is that there are limited numbers & none of us will be around when the next batch is unearthed. Cheers Geoff.

02.01.2022 Magnificent parcel of custom cut Free Forms from the big shell. One of my loyal, long term , high end Triplet buyers in the States will work his magic on these. Can't wait to see what John creates :)