Things you might want to know.
Opal is Fragile…
Opal is around the same hardness as glass, so it is very important you are careful with your opal, if it is dropped or banged against something it may well crack and fracture…
so please be careful!
Doublets, Triplets and Jewellery.
Many people ask us if we make and sell jewellery as well, unfortunately we do not. Jewellery making is a whole separate craft. At Precious Time Opals we focus on perfecting the art of opal and revealing its hidden beauty. If you want your piece set in a ring, earing or pendant like most of our customers do, you will have to take it to a local jeweller and have a piece made that is uniquely yours. You can also reach out to a local jewellery making workshop and make a piece of jewellery yourself. All the more unique...
Some customers also ask us about doublets and triplet opals, if you do not know what they are, a doublet is a very thin piece of genuine opal that has been glued onto a synthetic or sometimes natural surface, and a triplet is the same but with a glass or clear quartz dome glued on top (hence triplet, three layers) for added colour effect….
None of our opals are doublets or triplets. We do not recommend them, nor make them, for quality and longevity reasons. All our opals are %100 solid Australian opal… meaning there is no glue, resins or adhesives involved. They are as they were when dug up from the earth.
Types of opal and Pricing Guide.
Generally speaking when it comes to Australian opal, there are 5 types. The world famous Black Opal, Queensland Boulder Opal, White opal, Dark (or ‘semi black’) opal and Crystal opal. These names are all relatively self explanatory and refer to the body tone colour of the opal or in crystal opals case, its transparency when held up to light…
Black Opal tends to be the most expensive as it produces the best play of colour, but really the price can vary greatly depending on the various qualities of the opal.
The pricing of opal is a multi faceted process. Generally speaking, opal is priced based on what type it is, combined with the brightness (brightness is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the brightest) of the colour, what colour it is displaying (red is the rarest, which means it fetches a higher value) its size and carat weight (there are 5 carats in 1 gram, in other words 1 carat is 0.2 of a gram) and whether there are structural or visible inclusion or irregularities on the opal. It does get more complicated than that when discussing types of colour patterns, of which there are many, and the rarity of these patterns, but that’s for the elite cutters and collectors…
Refunds and wholesale
We do offer refunds within a 2 week period of you having received your opal, if you are unsatisfied with your product. However opal is easily damaged, so if it is longer then 2 weeks, we would still consider giving a refund however we may request photo evidence of the quality of the opal before we agree to a refund.
If you are a jeweller, collector or have a case of opal fever we do offer wholesale pricing for bulk purchases. Please do not hesitate to get in contact with us if this is of interest to you.