Please read all of the below before buying any of our opal rough.

•  When opal arrives, and you are not 100% happy, you can return for a refund.
• But if you alter or cut the rough, it is yours, and we cannot exchange
• However, if you touch any piece, you are accepting ownership, and Negative or neutral feedback cannot be left
• Please study carefully before cutting.
• Images of the rough opals are taking with water.

We grade our opal in ten different categories as per the table below. The grade of this parcel is in the Auction Title.

Grade

Description

#1

Top Grade-Mostly Reds/Pinks- Dark/ Patterns -Expert Cutters

#2

Very Bright- Clean- Mostly Red/Orange/Yellow -Expert Cutters

#3

Gamble- Red/Orange/Yellow -Nice Blue/Green --Expert Cutters

#4

Very Thin or Carving material- Intermediate/Expert cutters

#5

Large Single Gamble piece - from Beginner to Expert cutters

#6

Mid Grade Easy cutters - Intermediate cutters

#7

Mid Grade Gamble Rough- Intermediate cutters

#8

Beginners Cutting Rough- Beginning cutters

#9

Craft Material- Not Appropriate for cutting cabs

#10

No Colour Potch- Not Appropriate for cutting cabs

Opal rough from Lightning Ridge is notoriously hard to read and even harder to cut. Years ago, as a young cutter, I wanted to learn how to work with this material but found it difficult to find smaller parcels that I could afford that wasn't just a bunch of potch. This material comes from a commercial parcel that I have broken up into smaller lots and have posted them here for you. We spend a lot of time and effort grading this material, so you can pick the opal rough that is most appropriate for your skill level and budget. Please, Please don't buy cheap beginners rough from us and then give us negative feedback because you haven't cut precious zillion-dollar gems. It doesn't work that way. I've cut tens of thousands of LR opals, and although I won't get it right every time, I think my grading is pretty accurate. I take the time to do this so that your cutting experience will be fun and allow you to progress in difficulty, and reward you over time without making some of the very costly beginners' mistakes.

Here is a brief description of the criteria we use when grading the opal rough:

#9 "Craft Material" is not opal that is appropriate for cutting cabochons. This rough is best for Chipping and putting into floating pendants, craftwork etc. If you want some cheap material to set into your concrete front yard cats eyes or have a mosaic in the bathroom, you want to spice up; this might work for you :)

#8 "Beginners Cutting Rough" is excellent for beginners to get used to cutting this material without worrying about destroying great opals. It is a mix of Nobby and Seam opal. It will cut lots of picture stones and low-value opals. You'll learn to cut open nobbies, chase colour bars, deal with sand and get a general understanding of what it feels like to cut opals. Great material for practising cutting lovely shapes and bringing that talent sharp before attacking more expensive colour. We sort out everything with no colour in it, so 97% of this material shows colour, and 3% will be a Nobby opal that may or may not have colour inside.

#7 "Mid Grade Gamble Rough" is excellent to hone your skills and learn to read trickier opals. This material is full of thin colour bars, colour bars that run diagonally through rough, wavy colour bars, tricky sand spots, and blind stones where I can see that there is colour in the rough but have no idea how deep it goes. Very challenging, sometimes very rewarding rough. Sometimes you cry.

#6 "Intermediate Easy Cutters"- exactly that, with an intermediate skill level, you should be able to cut lovely medium brightness sellable opals from this material. They are generally clean, and you should have a pretty good idea about the kind and size of finished opals you will cut from watching the videos.

#5 "Large Single Gamble Pieces" Pretty much what it says on the tin. These can range from beginners to expert level. Cutting big stones like this is a very different skill from cutting small "pointers" or standard 1ct-3ct opals. These are great fun to cut and can be very rewarding if you get lucky.

#4 "Very Thin/Carving" Most of this material is super thin and appropriate for making doublets.

#3 "Gamble Expert Cutters" these look very bright/colourful and show good promise, but I can't see that they will cut a clean opal. The best blue/green material I find in the parcel also goes into this bucket.

#2 "Expert Cutters Clean" will generally give you precious bright sellable stones. They appear very clear to the eye. It looks like the colour bar covers most of the stone.

#1 "Top Grade" this material represents only a small fraction of our inventory. It is the very best material we find. Red on Black, Deep pinks, lovely patterns, strong black opals all ends up in this category. If I yell, "WOW, I want to cut this one!" it goes in this tiny dish.

 All opal cutting is a gamble, and classifying is just my opinion based on my opal cutting journey and current skill level.

When you get your rough please look it over carefully, both wet and dry.

With rough opal, we are happy to offer no-hassle returns as long as the opal has not been ground/snippet/altered. You cover the shipping costs.

 Payment required within 48 hours of auction end. If you select Standard Shipping, we are not responsible for any lost or damaged items.

Payment via PayPal or credit card via PayPal.

We ship all items within 48 hours of payment unless it's a holiday we will ship on the next working day.

Standard Shipping Time: ETA 5-21 working days

The buyer is responsible for any customs/import Duty or taxes levied in the buyers country.

Guarantee: Your satisfaction is guaranteed, and you can select a no-hassle return as long as the material is in original condition. If you are not satisfied for any reason, send back (unaltered)the item/s within seven days after you received it. It will take 2-3 days for us to check the items carefully. A full refund for your purchase, minus the shipping cost, will be given as soon as the items are confirmed to be in their original condition.