After 5 weeks at the literal grindstone (opal cutting and jewellery making) I manage to tootle up to Coobs for a quick mission. While still half asleep my mind wandered to an area of the Old 15 Mile that I realised we had never been down. This is significant in that there is almost nowhere we haven’t thoroughly searched on this field since discovering how beautiful the opal can be here about 30 years ago. As is often the case, anticipation quickly turns to frustration, not helped by precipitously dangerous ground with opal traces that is ready to collapse with a sneezing mouse. We do however escape the deadly red back spider and find some stunning crystal opal shells. 

 

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We mined some beautiful opal on the Farm opal field of Coober Pedy a few years back and made some of it into these stunning earrings! They sold pretty quickly for about a grand. Several years later I came across the very same earrings on wish.com for a few bucks!! CHECK IT OUT!!🤣

4 days and about 30 odd hours of pillarbashing our claim with a jackpick produces copious amounts of potch (coloruless, low value opal) with a few surprises.. Just enough to keep us digging, who knows if it's good or bad until we exhaust the area.. Not an easy job, but hopefully rewarding in the end..

If quality opal was abundant and cheap to obtain and filled the jewellery market with beautiful top quality material, every one could get a showstopper for ten bucks a piece.. but that’s probably not happening any time soon..