A couple of years ago the Grace Opal brothers were pillarbashing on the Dead Horse Gully field about 35km north West of Coober Pedy.
It was getting late and being the ‘ol fulla’(Lochy from World Class Opal) was tired and hungry but the young fulla (Shannon from Kimberley Opal), was champing at the bit to go and check an old abandoned claim on 15 Mile.
Lochy wanted to go back to town for food but Shannon convinced him with “nah we’ll just jump down that old cave in claim and there’ll be another cave in and it will be full of shells!” Given the distances involved, they decided to travel the 20k’s to 15 Mile for a quick ‘bash’
They arrived and descended the old claim where they had found 30k over a couple of months of work about 20 years back. Armed with the new, lightweight and powerful battery powered UV torches, the hungry opal hunters started checking over the old workings afresh. There was quite a bit of interesting trace and they had probably found a few hundred bucks worth of skin shells after half an hour of searching..
This mine is enormous, it spans 300 metres long by about 70 metres wide and the main level has been removed to a spine chilling degree.. At one end of the claim, there is a gargantuan cave in the size of a very, very large house. This happened while the miners with the tunnelling machine that did most of the work were still IN the mine!

According to a first hand account from one of the partners, they were tunnelling away as normal when they noticed dirt falling from the ceiling indicating major movement above. They promptly backed the machine out of the affected area thinking some of the roof may collapse. Shortly afterwards, a cave in of horrific proportions sunk maybe 20% of the entire claim a whole 20 feet with a deafening crash, crushing the pillars beneath like toothpicks and plunging them into darkness and horror as the mine filled with thick dust.
That was the last day those miners spent underground, the fear it struck into their hearts seemed to cure them of opal fever. God save the opal hunter from such a horrible fate.. Although it could certainly have been much worse.
At any rate, Lochy was at one end of the claim chipping away when Shannon came scurrying excitedly from a couple of hundred metres away down the labyrinth of caverns, “Oi! We’re effin rich man… seriously… There’s heaps of these and it’s a massive pocket! “ pulling a handful of stunning fully opalised shells with beautiful dark crystal bars from his pocket.
Lochy quickly left his bit of trace to lend his pick to the situation.

It was uncanny, exactly as Shannon had said at Dead Horse Gully a hour or so before, they went down and found a newly collapsed area and there was a massive bed of shells exposed in the roof. They didn’t need a shovel, just several hours of picking from the roof and picking up and breaking level lumps on the floor.
Lochy went up to see what they could use to carry all of the opal out and all he could find was an old sleeping bag, they filled it up along with several other makeshift containers. Pulling the bag full of opal level to the surface late that night proved a dangerous job due to the belled out shaft and extreme fatigue from the extraction work, but it got done without casualties.
Back in Adelaide and a full week of clipping and cleaning later, some stunning gems were emerging.

Graceopal.pty.ltd eventually donated a 170k fossil opal collection, mostly from the Old 15 Mile find, to the South Australian Museum under the Cultural Gifts tax offset scheme. The brothers have dedicated these items their late Dad Kevin who introduced them to the fascinating world of the outback opal hunter. 

Most of this opal has been sold rough or set into precious metals at worldclassopal.net and kimberleyopal.com where some is still available.
Here’s hoping for another strike like this or better for the company. It certainly makes life in the desert more exciting and rewarding.
Thanks for reading, watching and for being interested in the amazing phenomenon that is Australian opal!

It’s early December 2021 and the Grace Opal brothers (Lochy and Shannon) AKA World Class Opal and Kimberley Opal respectively, try out the smallest mass manufactured cutting head on the market. With no idea whether it will work or be effective, we take it down our East Pacific claim. It seems to work well, and we noodle a few nice stones in the old mullock and pick a few scrappy shell bits out in between. What we don’t show is all the digging in between where there is nothing. But that would be very boring.. A week goes by like lighting and the days feel like minutes in such engrossing work. We found good shells a couple of years ago in the top level and have been picking around trying for more for months to no avail. Towards the end of the trip however, a chunk of sandstone in a pillar above where Shannon has been operating the cutter has a crack in it, I decide to lever it down to make it safe. In the video you can see the small pocket of shells that was immediately behind the chunk of loose ground, and in the middle, a full shell! Watch to the end to witness what many opal purists would consider sacrilege (slicing up a full shell) but man oh man, just wait to see the jewelry we make from it if all goes well…

In early December 2020, our mining company was prospecting on the Donna's Rush opal field about 50 kilometres north of Coober Pedy Australia. 

Donna's Rush is a field named in honor of John and Yoka Dunstan's late daughter. I knew her a little personally and can attest to what an amazing person she was, she certainly brightened the day of anyone she interacted with and is very much missed by all who knew her, not least her family. 

So with that in mind, it is fitting that some of the most beautiful opal we have ever found has been from the relatively small field of Donna's Rush.

This particular day we winched into a mine that had been dug recently with a tunelling machine with little trace left behind. I tried out a battery powered drill we spent over a thousand dollars trying to see if it was feasible, you can see in the video the small holes it made before the battery overloaded and cut out. Turns out it's too soon for that tech, we will have to stick with 240 volts and elbow grease for the time being. 

 Just as we had almost finished checking the entire claim, i found some small 'feeders' of trace in a patch of beautiful opal level (the chocolatey weathered sandstone around the opal in the video), and as I was cutting them out, it was very fortunate that a few crumbly chips fell away from the pipe, exposing the end as seen in the video. This piece will be for sale at our mining companies accounts following: 

Below is a conversation we had via email with a client about the origins, nature, manufacturing and classing specifics that are relevant to most of our pieces. Their excellent, comprehensive questions deserved thorough answers. Please see below for some FAQ & A about some of our products and processes....

Q:    So, I do have a few more questions sorry. I was doing some more research because I am trying to understand the price differences between the pieces and to make sure I understand what I am getting. To be honest, I was a little disappointed to read that a "doublet" is actually just a thin slice of opal adhered to a black backing to give the appearance of a solid vibrant black opal. So just to clarify, are the opals you use, white or black? And are the pieces that are referred to as "inlaid doublet" more valuable / higher quality than the ones that are just called "doublets"? I’m I thinking they are because then one can't really tell they are doublets, but I want to confirm :). And lastly, what drives the difference in the price per carat of opal that you list in the ad? I've seen them range from $350-$500-$900 (per carat up at the top you usually put this)?

A:  We use Coober Pedy opal that we mostly mine ourselves, the opal for the most part starts out as either ‘light based, white based or crystal opal and occasionally dark or ‘semi black’ opal rough.

Often we use crystal ‘shell skins’ as this is one of the most common forms of opal that I have found for years mining in Coober Pedy because they are something I can hunt for that has been missed (less obvious to previous miners) and they often have the most stunning colour of all, an example is E17, 

this was made from a dark crystal opalised shell skin (ancient opal replaced Cretaceous sea shell fossil) we mined on the Old 15 Mile, it is a bit too thin to make a solid opal from so we clean it right up to make a doublet. The result is as you say, giving the appearance of a stunning natural black opal, the thing is with doublets they are typically accepted in the opal industry as being valued at about 10% of what a natural solid black opal would be valued at, so say E17 was a natural black at 5 carats or would be around $1000 - $2000 per carat or more (sorry I’m not an expert in black opal valuation) but safe to say it would be 5k upwards.

Also, when we value ‘per carat’ we are only referring to the estimated weight of the light, or crystal etc opal layer, not the whole piece with the backing, Whereas a black or boulder opal ‘carat price’ applies to the whole stone. So as you say, it is a pity they’re not solid blacks or boulders, but it affords us and our clients the opportunity to deal with identically stunning opal at a fraction of the price, suffice to say we love doublets! But of course we want to be very clear about exactly what we are selling.

An ‘inlaid doublet’ is similar to a doublet in that it has a boulder backing but is not a solid Queensland boulder opal, but it is superior in that it is inlaid, and fully encased in gold making it relatively impervious to moisture and grease etc.

A pre cut doublet is set differently, with a rubbed over bezel or claws.

Below is a classically set solid opal with a rubbed over bezel.

Q:  My husband’s vote is to take you up on your offer of leaving E17 alone and not worrying about it not being encased in gold. Would you say you sell many that way… not inlaid in gold? And people are happy with them? Or more that are inlaid in gold and thus avoiding the seal issue and the sort of odd look of a stone on the back of the pendant?

A:   With the doublets, our quality processes are very strict and they are very durable without the gold bezel, it’s really just a matter of personal taste, but we have had hundreds of happy customers with just drill set doublets, the only issue arises when someone assumed it was gold wrapped and then found it wasn’t. As you said, educating the consumer is valuable! 

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