Opals

Hello, I hope you are well and are coping through these most testing times.

Very fortunately, jewellery making at PIKE’s has been very busy with many commissions involving setting customer’s existing gems, in particular coloured stones including October’s gemstone, opal.

Whether you like them or not opal is an amazing gemstone, totally reliant on light refracting into spectrum colours from the structure and surface of the stone. There are black opals, semi-black opals, boulder opals, crystal opals, white opals and fossil opals.

They are a relatively soft stone, approximately the same hardness as glass and the wearability is good as long as they are looked after. The surface will scratch, and they can crack and break, but then this applies to many gemstones. As with other jewellery, it’s best to avoid them coming into contact with metal surfaces, and extreme or rapid changes in temperature.

Importantly cleaning of opal jewellery is best left to the experts, so if you are in doubt, call in to our studio, or give us a call and we can assist you.

I always enjoy creating successful designs for opal so I would like you to enjoy some of the latest designs from our workshop: