Mintabie Opal Stones

Buy Mintabie Opal Stones

Buy Mintabie opal stones direct from opal miners and opal wholesalers .This opal filed is one of the smallest in Australia with only few opal miners working and most small family operations After the second ww 11 lot miners worked this area as the heavy machinery was needed to break thru the sandstone potch and it is hard to polish these Mintabie opals in the rough as the sandstone is hard and even lot bulldozer blades wore out quickly working this opal field . The potch sandstone is older Ordovician than, the host rock of other opal fields is from the Cretaceous period. There is not lot opal available form this opal field and they do vary from crystal opal to black opal Only small percentage could be graded black as most are more dark opal N5 to n7 As colour bars are thick they do make good ring stones and can be classed as White opal, Crystal opal ,black opal or general term Mintabie opal Many rough parcels were taken from Mintabie and sold in lightning ridge as black opals but closer examination and you can see the distinctive formation in this opal field which is more semi grey to semi black than dark black colour. These opals will also increase in price a s black opals get expensive at Lighting ridge so w e expect semi black opals to increase also Mintabie s population is floating and ranges to few hundred and most leave during the hot summer months