boulder opals are my favorite! THANK YOU for explaining the structure of opals -- so cool!

I knew about white, black, and fire, but those boulder opals are just fantastic!

Opals are probably my favorite gemstone. I have always wondered how they were defined since there are so many varieties. Unfortunately, I have never thought of buying an opal because they are so soft and volatile compared to diamond or sapphire. This video was very helpful. Thank you.

My mom had a treasured white opal pendant and ring set. That's what I think of first when I think of opal. Great video.

I'd only ever heard of white opal before. Very cool to learn about black opal. It's gorgeous!

Until recently I associate the white opal as what an opal is. Over the last couple years I have taken up rockhounding and watch rockhounding videos here on KZfaq. That exposed me to several of the types of opals. I live in Oregon and different types of opal can be found here. I will say that my current favorite are the boulder opals.

Your videos are chock full of information. When I have a question about stones now, I come straight to you.

This was such an awesome video!! Thank you for being so thorough with explaining each Opal. Jelly opals are my favorite 🤩

I really appreciate the images you show to help us know what the gems look like.

International Women's Day here in Brazil is a time for receiving an extra gift. I now have an opal pendant. If I hadn't watched this video I would have imagined all opals to look like the one I received. I loved learning about the differences.Thank you!

There is nothing so beautiful as a really good Black Opal, but I'm biased being Australian.

Boulder opal makes gread beads for bracelets and necklaces. I made a tie bar with a nice cabochon

This is very interesting and educational to know about how the opals structured and the colors are formed. Thanks

Thank you! Great video! My boyfriends parents own a rock shop and they do alot of rock shows through out the year, since him and I have been together I have been starting to help them out at shows, we also frequently go rockhounding. Ofcourse opal caught my eye and I have invested in some pieces. I want to learn about them as much as I can! This was super helpful! Thank you! I also before meeting my bf and his family always associated white opal to opal! 💜

Great explanation! Love your mission and what you're doing with your channel.

Some of the Boulder opal examples looked like abalone shell to me. I have some white opal ear rings that I just love. I always get amused when people whose birthday is in October tell me that if it is not your birthstone then wearing it is bad luck. They’re just jealous of my ear rings!

Fascinating! Would love to hear your take on labradorite, thanks!

White opal was all I ever knew until 10 years ago. I love them especially the fiery ones. Now I too love black opal 🖤 🖤 🖤

I've always loved opal, and obviously knew why they're so unique, but I still learned quite a bit! I think it's sorry interesting that most people have an automatic idea of what opal is

I always thought white opal was the only one. I now own jelly opal thanks to your tutorial. Thank you.

agreed. ive seen all the ones you showed. we had a mineral exhibit 20 years ago. thanks for sharing

You are very good at what you do. Keep up your great work and thank you very much for sharing your knowledge in a very easy to understand jargon free (technical) language.

White opal is classic, I think. I had heard of black and fire but your information really clarified it. 🙂

I love my boulder opal ring it is so light refective sometimes neon blue sometimes green sometimes goldie green cast and is mostly mostly turqoise it almost looks florescent

Really informative content! Thank you!😊

I have a raw white opal I picked up during a hike in Alaska. It doesn’t look like much but there’s translucent stone under a thin surface layer of opaque white. Might be worth getting it cut one day.

I enjoyed your show. You are very knowledgeable. Before I watched it, I thought opals have only one color, egg white color, because opal’s Chinese names is “egg white stone”.

Thank you. Very informative, from the beginning

Love fire opal particularly from Mexico.

I bought a batch of stones for tumbling that included a stone marketed as "green opal", which is supposedly a type of common opal. I was hoping to learn more about it. My actually take-away from the video is Wow, boulder opal is pretty! Thank you for adding to my wish list.

Love watching the films and the education I’m getting from watching them . I was looking at some of your films and was hoping to fine something on sapphires and star sapphires.

Thank you so much my friend

Oh great .. I just ordered a $$$ Ethiopian fire opal from India and the seller didn't tell me anything about keeping it from getting wet, etc. So does that mean every time I go to wash my hands or even just rinse them I have to take the ring off? Also, I've now seen videos that mention the "water soak" test to determine whether they are genuine Welo opals, and they say in those videos to not worry, that after a few hours of being "transparent" w/o colors the colors (and white) will return as before. True or false?

Awesome video. I like ofcourse black opals but altso crystal opals from Ligthing Ridge.

Thank you Andrew.

What do you know about Peruvian opal or “opalized” stones?

Always thought of opal as white opal. As a geologist, did not know about these five types of opal!

I carve opals as a hobby. I've noticed that a lot of my friends have bought white opals for engagement rings etc. I think the soft white colours lend the gems to this. That said black opals are my favourite.

I love opal so much it’s so stunning

What were the beautiful stones marketed in ‘70s as opals? Blue-green with fire. where the hey a source gone now, or a composite?

And here I thought I was supposed to store my opals in water to keep them from fading. (But I only have one opal, so I'm not worried about it.)

@Your Average Jeweler Your description of the reason is sadly completely wrong :( . The angle is not what creates the color, the color creates the angle. This is extremely important when discussing the reasons for why opal creates its color. The color of each sphere is determined via its size as they are on the order of the wavelength of light so we get photonic interactions as some spheres interact with specific frequencies while others are too small to do so. This is one of the reasons why Reds are relatively hard to find as the Opal spheres would need to be rather long else the larger longer wavelengths of Red light will simply "Go Around" the sphere while shorter Blues are diffracted by them. With Opal flashes what you are seeing with each color is clusters of specific sized spheres arranged in a semi ordered pattern such that the interact with a very specific frequency of light while allowing other frequencies to pass by. To learn more about such effect research Meta-materials and Photonics because as we get better at nano-scale constructions we are able to create objects which do this exact effect Its kinda like the diffraction of a CD grating but round and specific for one frequency which is determined by size of the sphere.

What is the blue/green opal? Is it lab created or under one of the other opal colors?

Since Opal is my birthstone I probably own an example of each kind you talked about with the exception of fire opal. I have some synthetic opal I have some doublets.I don't know if I have one that's just three layer opal but I have white ones and I have black ones and I have Ethiopian opals. I thought that all opals were white until I traveled to Australia. I saw the most amazing opals in Australia, and decided that it was like Iowa beef: They keep the good stuff in Iowa and export the bad. But now I'm going to have to go find some fire opal. Thank you.

Choose the gem you love...their all unique and Lovely

Love the info at the end!!!

I have some lovely Ethopian opals I would like to have set into jewelry/pendants. They are many years old, so I think they're pretty "stable". I guess they can only be set in gold, because you don't want to have to clean the metal (need a metal that doesn't oxidize much)? Or do you have any other suggestions? Thanks!

I am familiar with these opals you mentioned. I own Ethiopian Opals. They have a very bright play of color and is cheap compared to an Australian Opal with the same level of play of color. That being said, I take care when I wear it as it is more delicate. Black Opals with top quality of brightness and color are very very expensive. Besides doublets and triplets, some white opals are smoked, or treated to blacken them. Smoked opals are also a good option for those who wants Black Opals at a fraction of the price. Most opals that are smoked are Ethiopian ones (I own one). But Australian matrix opals can be smoked too. In my personal opinion, smoked matrix opals from the Andamooka mines in Australia closely mimics the look of the black opals from Lightning Ridge.

In my minds eye I was aware of both White and Black opal though I was ignorant of their names but the Boulder opal I was totally unaware of.

man really I want to say thank you so so so so much you doing very great job with explaining really you're 1# with explaining gemstones and I'll support you as much as I can sadly nobody know you as expert person even I was trying to find videos in youtube or information in google really nobody can explain anything I can't understand any single word but after I came here I'm new here I see you're really insane thanks a lot man maybe you know website or youtuber maybe person in instagram that where we can find more information and trusted person with right information ? that's will help a lot and I hope you upload more videos gemstones is very big world and need explaning and I hope you can do more videos

Have you seen treated matrix opal stones? Some of them look like concrete but some look like jewels once they've been treated.

I wish rainbow lattice sunstone was related to opal

Ethi-opals? Awesome

I have white and black opal. Black opal is expensive per carat especially if it has beautiful colors shining when light strikes

I am happy to have learned that an opal is an aggregate of spheres. What is “opalescence”?

What do you call those look like jelly yellow (like fire opal) but contains play of colour?

White opals with lots of fire. But looking at the jelly opals ooooooo :)

Hi, fantastic . Thank you so much , was wondering if you can do Amythest , it's from Bolivia my home country, it was almost considered precious stone like Dimond but it just missed out? Is this true?

I bought what looked like a black opal from and on line jewelry store and it was expensive. Now I am so disappointed because half of the stone broke and fell off. It must have been an assembled opal like you said which they did not explain.

I had an unset Opal that just cracked. Opals need special care.

Thank you

I love a man that corrects his errors. That's very sexy!

To my good luck I came across this video. I had three opal stones, I sent one for cut and received 119 lobes, I want to know how to preserve them. Can I send you photos?

Honestly i never thought of opals!

Some Black opal is also found in some American petrified woods

You can have a black CRYSTAL Opal~ Lightning Ridge is a mining reserve and not just one claim…just to clarify! As Small scale miners we do find lots of black crystal…nice job 😄

I cut Australian opal as a hobby. Black, white and boulder. I mess around some with the Ethiopian hydrophane Welo opals. I cut mostly little stones because who can afford larger ones???

What about Matrix opal?

You missed fern opal of which I have one.

Good.

I identify white and black and white opals. My parents actually managed to buy a real white opal from Australia set in a ring. They have purchased more fakes than real pieces so I learn what I can.

Opals are my birthstones. I love black opals.

I love opal, it's my favorite stone. I bought a 2oz mixed parcel of Australian opal from a dealer years ago. I still haven't cut it all. I've tried Ethiopian opal, it's too unstable, hard pass.

White opal and Andean opal (like pink or blue)

i have black opal lots of it

Hello I recently bought a 30 carat black opal. Would like to know if it's real. Thx

At gem shows meny tactics for sale prices are getting ot of control as all things today

Indonesian Opal are beautiful too ,sadly underrated

I usually identify the white opal

Fun fact: The only other place in the world to find black opal is Northern Nevada.. 😊✌️

Being an older American, I identify more with white opal.

You forgot about tree opal.

သင်၏လှပသောရတနာများမျဝေပေးလိုက်သည်

I WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO A VIDEO ON JEWELRY DAMAGE AND PARFUM, HAIR SPRAY, AFTERSHAVE, ETC. I INHERITED A STRAND OF PEARLS THE WOMAN WORE THAN OFTEN BUT, SHE ALSO SPRAYED THEM WITH PARFUM, CONSTANLTY . RUINED THE STRING! AND MANY OF THE PEARLS HAVE THE NACRE DESTROYED FROM THE PERFUEM!

Oregon Opal?

Opal has NO Variety Calls according to the G.I.A. As a Graduate Gemologist, I read the G.I.A. Gem Identification Lab Manual cover to cover once a year. If he had this book and read it, he would have known better. So I say to the author of this video: study harder, Padawan.

The rainbow gods peace with Mankind All for our Joy

Fire Opals used to be called Mexican Fire Opals.

According to the G.I.A. Gem Identification Lab Manual, there are NO VARIETIES of Opal. A rookie mistake

The rainbow gods peace with Mankind

8i

Ethiopian Opal

Hyalite Opal!!!!!

Excuse me the Opals I have are Ethiopian

i can't subscribe sorry