Genuine Semi-Black Opal Pendant - P209 Price: Aud. SOLD !! This is a Gem Semi-Black Opal Pendant with a difference; carved, unusual and quite beautiful. The main Gem Opal is dark based semi-black Gem Crystal Opal with beautiful very bright colors of red, red-orange, orange, gold and brilliant sky-blues. At the beginning, in it's original rough state, this began it's life as a promising looking piece of semi-black opal attached to it's host sandstone rock.* (* This is how this opal was formed many many millions of years ago; in the sedimentary layers that once made up our great inland seabeds that existed within Australia - at the same time that dinosaurs walked the earth.) Only a small part of the gem semi-black opal was showing, the rest of the Gem was covered top and bottom with the sandstone. I cut the bottom layer of host sandstone away from the semi-black base and gem - this left a clean and flat base with which to work. Using my special compound, I then bonded the opal to a base of jet black leadlight glass. This special type of glass has the MOHS hardness of 6.5 identical to the opal bonded to it and which takes a brilliant mirror polish finish. The next step was to carve away the remaining sandstone and excess dark opal potch to reveal all of the semi-black gem opal crystal that was lying underneath, waiting to be revealed ! Once this step was completed and the gentle carved flowing lines of the face of the Gem had taken on it's final contours, the whole piece was shaped, cut and polished to a mirror finish. A hole was then drilled to receive the spirtal stem of the 14ct. solid yellow gold bail. In this form of opal, it is quite common for a tiny pinpoint or two of sand to run through the opal, but this does not detract from the beauty of the color in any way whatsoever. There is such a speck at the top/side of this piece. Looking at the picture, the top right side of the opal exhibits lines and patches of black and semi-black opal potch with points of color showing. Dimensions:
|
