Ethiopian Rough Opal Auctions

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.