Report by ICA Ambassador to Australia

For those of you who've been involved with opals and gemstones for many years, here you can chat with your peers.

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PinkDiamond
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Report by ICA Ambassador to Australia

Post by PinkDiamond »

From the ICA, this one gives information on all the mining areas in Oz. 8-)

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Report by ICA Ambassador to Australia

Report by Terry Coldham

"A presentation on behalf of the Australian Opal Industry was made at the GILC meeting in Tucson 2019 on a proposed revised classification system for opal. (InColor Winter 2019, Benjamin-Thomas). It is the culmination of considerable thought and discussion by a cross-section of those involved in the Australian opal industry. A similar presentation was made at the last CIBJO meeting. It is proposed that this revised classification be used as the basis for an internationally accepted classification of opal and form a model for the classification of other gemstones.

FIELD REPORTS

Australian Opal

Lightning Ridge New South Wales:
Production from the Lighting Ridge fields has been consistent over the last three years. Demand for both rough and cut has steadily increased giving rise to the perception that production has decreased, which is not the case. It has remained steady. Miners are increasingly processing their better stones and this, as well as selling through Internet channels, is reducing the quantities of rough marketed on the fields.

**The whole Lighting Ridge opal reserve encompasses some 5000 square kilometers of which some 3000 square kilometers are potentially opal-bearing. Less than 1% has ever been placed under mining title and 50% remains unexplored. Currently, there are some 3200 mineral claims, however, they are being operated by only 100 full-time and 150 part-time miners with perhaps a further 200 hobby miners. It is very difficult for any estimates of total production to be made, although rough estimates indicate that the field produces some 40 to 45 million dollars of opal annually based on field prices.

**Tourism is up and playing a very important role in the economics of “The Ridge.” It is estimated some 100,000 visited the fields during the last year. The increased interest can be put down to the efforts of the Lightning Ridge Tourism Association and TV shows such as “Out Back Opal Hunters,” “Back Roads” featuring life on The Ridge. Another important factor is the activity of The Australian Opal Centre encouraging interest in a variety of ways including educational activities such as their very popular “Fossil Dig” (InColor Winter 2019, Brammall). The Australian Opal Centre has been promised $9.5M from Federal, $7.5M from State, and $2M from governments. Along with funds promised by the founders and the local community, this means that $20M is now available to complete stage one of this iconic project.

White Cliffs New South Wales: These fields are ... "

https://www.gemstone.org/about-us/45-am ... -australia
PinkDiamond
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Re: Report by ICA Ambassador to Australia

Post by SwordfishMining »

Nice report. thanks for sharing. Exceedingly positive.
I'd be more interested in the amount of opal actually mined than the price of opals that were sold as old stock is included along with fresh from the ground now that the prices have climbed back some from the African pressure. Well cut gemstones still and always will command a premium over low quality faceted goods. Then again demand is directly related to prices.
I'm disappointed they did not say what the proposed reclassification system was in their report but personally I hate the idea of turning the brightness scale on its head to match the blackness scale. All old certificates would have to be re-bought for current descriptions when the change is unnecessary to cloud up the simple 5 step process from commercial to gem grade.
There are not that many divisions needed like the old 7 shades of black instead of "black", "grey" and "white" and they never had a "clear". What is needed is a transparency scale instead of more steps to the existing or rewriting the existing scales, in my opinion, but then again, we are the competition and not to be concerned with what the big boys do, just like DeBeers does no ask opinion of their sales tactics...
I'll jump over my shadow. https://www.virginvalleyopal.com"
Opals & more at my ESTY store https://swordfishmining.etsy.com"
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