Opal Rough specimens are ideal for display or may be cut for
stones. if the opal rough has natural cracks we also call the opal a specimen.
So always check if the Ethiopian opal specimen has cracks or
not.
Sellers will list many single pieces of rough opal and use
black background for first image so always view with neutral background and the
rough opal held in hand.
If the opal has cracks and you prefer to cut the opal its
best to fracture test first so that you cut out the natural cracklings to
produce an opal that is clean with no cracks. Note, sometime most of the opal
is cut away to cut clean opal so please be aware of this when buying if you
want to cut the opal.
Many sellers will dry the rough first. So we recommend you
ask the sellers how long the specimen has been dried or if in water?
From our experience we have found some buyers do very well
with Ethiopian specimens but other do not, even if buying from same parcel of
rough.
This we presume is that Ethiopian opal is hydrophane, that
is it absorbs water, the faster it absorbs water the more porous the specimen
is.
Our buyers have purchased nearly 10,000 pieces and many have
done well.
We recommend new opal cutters start with less expensive
Ethiopian opal rough first.
