Opal Part Two- White Man In A Hole

We are ready for part two on Opals. In this episode, we head to the south, the southeast of South- Australia! We talk about opal types, miners, markets, and kangaroos. So, grab your breaky (as any Aussie would say) and join us!

Listen to the episode

Brecken: That was hilarious Livy. I called him boo. I said, “You got it boo.” And Livy, our little two year old, goes, “You got it boo!”

Do you need to sneeze? You’re freaking me out with your face. What do you need to do?

Jonathan: So… I hate saying so.

Brecken: I got this, boo.

Hi, it’s Brecken

Jonathan: and Jonathan

Brecken: from Gem Junkies and we’re back!

Jonathan: Welcome to episode three.

Brecken: Australian opal.

Jonathan: Part two of opal

Brecken: part two of the opal series. Last week, we talked about the world of opal. This week we’re gonna delve a little bit further into Australian opal.

We did have a question that came up about opal care.

Jonathan: Yes. opal care, which is a very common question that we didn’t talk about as a durability. And so opal care and durability go hand in hand. And so opal care, one of the first questions that we always get asked is, “Should you oil your opals?” And

Brecken: Please don’t oil your opal.

Jonathan: Do not oil your opals, all oil does is it attaches to the surface of opal. And then it attracts dust and dust is the same hardness as quartz, which is harder than the opal.

Brecken: It’s a seven. Opal’s five and a half to six and a half. You can see where this is going.

Jonathan: It scratches and abrades the surface of your opal and will make it look ugly. So the only time you’d ever store opal in oil as if you were to store it like in a safety deposit box, Loose.

So anytime it’s a finished piece, you shouldn’t store it in anything, but just in air. And then also care of an opal the best way to clean an opal, a piece of opal jewelry is with,

Brecken: Warm, soapy water

Jonathan: and a toothbrush.

Brecken: Yep. Soft, soft bristle toothbrush,

Jonathan: soft bristled toothbrush.

This week has been very busy for us.

Brecken: We are getting ready for the JCK luxury show. It starts next week. So we’ve been busy bees.

Jonathan: Yep. Busy bees, getting everything organized, all of our beautiful pieces finished. And so it’s been very, very busy.

Brecken: Ready for what? Eight hot days in the desert sun.

Jonathan: Something like that.

Brecken: Except we never leave the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Jonathan: That’s very true. We never get to see the light of day.

Brecken: No, it’s through the big windows.

Jonathan: Okay. Through windows.

Brecken: Yeah. There you go.

Jonathan: We do have one correction. I said last time that there were only two places that black opal was found,

Brecken: Jonathan misspoke,

Jonathan: which was Nevada and Australia. But there are some black opals from Ethiopia that are not died.

Brecken: Thank you, Jonathan.

Jonathan: So let’s talk first about the different types of opal that come out of Australia. And along with each of those, we can talk about where they come from. So where do you wanna start? You wanna start with your traditional light opal or do you wanna start with black opal?

Where do you wanna start?

Brecken: I wanna start with, black opal.

Jonathan: Okay. The most expensive of all. Black opal is called black opal, not because it’s black, but because the base color is dark versus the base color being light.

Brecken: And why is the base color black?

Jonathan: The base color is dark due to an addition of iron as a trace element. And that’s what gives black opal it’s dark base color. But black opal isn’t just black. It’s a continuum from light opal all the way to black with all the different grays in between.

Brecken: So doesn’t iron also color Mexican? It gives it the orange and red color.

Jonathan: Correct.

Brecken: And it also colors the black, correct? Oh, Iron is a tricky thing.

Jonathan: Iron is a tricky thing. It’s a lot more iron, which is why it’s black. Maybe if it was less iron, it would be more like Mexican maybe, but it’s also a different formation. Australia is all sedimentary, whereas we talked about Mexican being volcanic. So I think it also has a little bit to do with that.

Brecken: So where does black opal come from?

Jonathan: Black opal comes from Lightning Ridge, Australia.

Brecken: I knew that answer.

Jonathan: Of course you did. And where is Lightning Ridge in Australia?

Brecken: New South Wales.

Jonathan: That’s correct. New South Wales.

Brecken: It is a short airplane ride from Sydney, Australia. What about an eight hour car drive from Sydney?

Jonathan: Yeah, probably something like that.

Brecken: Jonathan and I flew a plane there. I flew a plane there with the assist of a pilot, but

Jonathan: So you rode in a plane to Lightning Ridge?

Brecken: No, he let me fly in the air. I got to kind of tilt the wings and turn the plane. And when we were landing in lightning Ridge, it was the most beautiful epic scene landing a plane in the Outback. There was the cutest little kangaroo that jumped in front of the plane on the landing strip. And I thought this was just the most magical thing. And the pilot, like almost crapped himself, because it could have been really bad if we hit the kangaroo.

Jonathan: Yeah, there was a bunch of kangaroos and wallabies that jump alongside the airplanes as they land and take off. So it’s kind of very picturesque.

Brecken: It is, but also very dangerous. Don’t hit, don’t hit a kangaroo with an airplane.

Jonathan: Or a car.

Brecken: Or a car, both dude. They’re dumb animals.

Jonathan: Yeah. They’re not bright. They’re a lot like deer here.

Brecken: No, but they’re worse than deer because I don’t think deer run towards headlights. I feel like kangaroos do. They just- remember when we were on that island? Phillips Island, they just came out of nowhere. Yeah. And we’re like, “Cars coming. Let’s let’s check it out.”

Jonathan: They’re more curious I think.

Brecken: But they’re so cute.

Jonathan: Very cute. And they are kinda like dogs. Like we went to an animal park there and they would lay down, they’d be laying down sunning themselves and you’d come and scratch their bellies, just like a dog. And they’d, it was they’re pretty cute.

Brecken: Happiest day of my life.

Jonathan: It was pretty, pretty fun.

Brecken: Cuddling with kangaroos and koalas.

Jonathan: Koalas are also quite cuddly.

Brecken: All right. We digress go back to black opal. Jonathan,

Jonathan: What else is there to talk about? So it was first discovered the field in Lightning Ridge was first discovered in 1905 by kangaroo shooters.

Brecken: Ooh.

Jonathan: So we link right back.

Brecken: So the Ridge full circle.

Jonathan: Yeah. So that’s where the best black opals come from. There are a few black opals that come from other places in Australia, but it’s the primary source.

Brecken: What, Mintabie has blacks or is it Winton?

Jonathan: Yeah. So Mintabie definitely has some black opal as well. And there’s a little bit that comes out of Coober Pedy once in a while as well, but mostly from Lightning Ridge.

Brecken: Okay. One thing I thought was super interesting about Lightning Ridge in general was it’s just full of crazy people.

Jonathan: I mean, you have to be crazy to live in the middle of the desert eight hours from the next major city.

Brecken: But there was this miner who made himself teeth out of opal. Do you remember that? That was insane.

Jonathan: That was pretty cool. He had dentures that were opal dentures. Yeah. I don’t think they’d be very good for eating.

Brecken: No, probably not.

Jonathan: They would break pretty teeth.

Brecken: I don’t know how hard are teeth?

Jonathan: Teeth are pretty hard.

Brecken: Are they?

Jonathan: Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll have to look up. “On the Mohs scale what are teeth?”

Next let’s talk about the more traditional light opal, which is a large, there’s a large area in Australia that you can find light opal everywhere from Andamooka and Coober Pedy, Mintabie, Lambina, which are all in South Australia, north of Adelaide. And then you also get over to like White Cliffs and that way more into New South Wales. It also has light opal.

The bulk of light opal is found in Coober Pedy. And Coober Pedy in Aborigini means,

Brecken: “white man in a hole.”

Jonathan: Right. And that’s what it is. There’s a bunch of holes and the miners actually live underground because the summer temperatures can get so crazy, crazy hot there that nobody wants to live out there.

Brecken: Oddly enough, I have watched a house Hunter’s international, where they were looking. At homes underground in Coober Pedy. It was crazy. He was a miner. There you go. He moved his whole family there. Yeah.

Jonathan: So there’s quite a region that covers light opal, which is the more traditional.

Brecken: And we kind of talked about it last week, but Australia is an ancient seabed. So that’s how a lot of the opal in Australia formed. The silica, rich water percolating down and forming those bands of opal.

Jonathan: So you get a lot of, especially outta Coober Pedy, you get a lot of shell opal as we call it. Which is where the organic material of the shell disintegrates and the opal replaces it. So you get actual sea shells and opal fossils. So that’s something that’s kind of cool.

Brecken: We have belamite tubes, which are the internal structure of a squid that have been opalized that we’ve made little bar necklaces out of.

Jonathan: The Belamites are really cool and very popular right now.

Brecken: We also had the most amazing fivefold clam specimen that Jonathan sold.

Jonathan: I’m good at selling.

Brecken: Broke my heart. It was so beautiful. Did they make that into a piece of jewelry or keep it as a specimen?

Jonathan: Made it into a piece of jewelry. She made it into a beautiful pendant, beautiful.

Brecken: Talking about light opal. We really got heavy in Australian light opal in what, the 70’s or 80’s. Frank went over to Hong Kong to purchase it.

Jonathan: He just didn’t know anyone in Hong Kong, had never been to China. He flew over to Hong Kong, opened up the yellow pages and started going through opal cutters. And that’s how he got into the Australian opal business.

Brecken: I think it’s an interesting story. Why most of the Australian opal was being cut in Hong Kong at the time. They were extremely good at cutting Jade.

Jonathan: Yeah. They were great Jade cutters and had a lot of practice.

Brecken: Jade is mostly cut into cabochons just like opal is. So it made sense that the material would be cut there with the skilled labor that was there.

We talked a lot last week about kind of the Roman views on opal, but we didn’t talk about the Aboriginal Australian views on opal and their stories about it because the English were not the first people to discover opal in Australia. Correct?

Jonathan: Right. The Aboriginals also discovered opal and they have their own stories about opal and how it came about is they believe that the Maker came down to Earth. And where he landed,

Brecken: where he walked, everywhere he walked it turned to opal. There’s also a story that what opals are rainbows trapped in the soil, the Maker threw rainbows down and trapped them in the soil. And, and that’s what opals are.

Jonathan: So one of the, one of the Australian Aboriginal dream time stories as told by June Barker of lightning Ridge,

voice over: In the Aurelia country, the dream time creator came down to earth in a giant rainbow. He gathered together all the tribes and said he would return when he thought they were wise enough to carry out his plan to have peace on earth. On the Stony ridges, where the rainbow had rested, there was a great area of rocks and pebbles. Next morning, when the sun rose and shine his light on that spot, the rocks and pebbles flashed and glittered in the sun, all the color of the rainbow that had given them birth. Red, orange, green, yellow, blue, violet. These were the first opals.

Brecken: So beautiful Jonathan. The Australians love their opal. They’re opal crazy over there.

Jonathan: Opal crazy.

Brecken: So we have talked about black opal where it’s mined, light or white opal and where that is mined. And also there is boulder opal.

Jonathan: Yeah. Boulder opal, which is my favorite. And boulder opal is found in Queensland in quite a large area right in the center of the Great Artesian Basin.

Brecken: And boulder opal is opal that is still connected with its host rock. Its host rock is an ironstone. So it’s a really hard material, and it’s really hard to remove that opal to get a solid band of opal. So you’re left with opal and ironstone.

Jonathan: Right. You have very thin seams of opal and they’re still attached to ironstone, which is like a petrified sandstone. It’s usually brown in color, brown to light brown. And it really helps just like, black opal the color really stand out. So boulder opal has great play of color and really strong, vibrant colors.

Brecken: Yeah. I remember the first time I saw boulder opal, I thought, “What the heck is this stuff?” I don’t even know what this is. And you, when you see, sometimes it’s more of an opal matrix. Which is just very little opal material and mostly a brown stone.

Jonathan: And which also can be interesting. It’s small veins of opal all throughout the ironstone. And so it looks like little lightning bolts, or you could sometimes see pictures in it. So those are much less expensive than with the full opal face, but they make really fun jewelry.

Brecken: Yeah. When that comes from Yowah

Jonathan: and that’s where you have

Brecken: A little like pocket yeah of silica.

Jonathan: A little pocket of opal. And so when it comes out, it comes out looking almost like an egg, or a nut. And then when you crack it, when you cut it apart, it’s got a, just a perfect little round pocket of opal in the center of the brown ironstone. So you call it a Yowah nut.

Brecken: A Yowah nut looks like a little nut that you cracked open, almost like a geode, right? Kinda same idea, but full of opal instead of amethyst or quarts.

My favorite boulder opal material is Koroit as the, Aussie’s say “cr-oye-t.” yeah. It comes from a place called Koroit or “Cuh-row-it” is how we would say it in American English. You see pictures and patterns in the stone. It’s almost like a painting, like an artist took it and painted a picture. It’s really beautiful.

Jonathan: Yeah. It’s awesome.

Brecken: The only word I can say in Aussie English is “bolduh.” “Boulduh” for boulder opal. Oh, I can’t even say opal it’s like,

Jonathan: Yeah, we’re definitely not Aussies.

Brecken: We’re not Aussies. And I practice every time we meet with our suppliers, I always say, “Okay, say boulder for me.” And they’ll say “bolduh.” and so I’ll have to repeat it like 15 times so I can say it until the next time I meet them. “Throw some shrimp on the barbie.” No, I didn’t get it.

Jonathan: Just stop. You’re you’re

Brecken: “I’ll have a tinny.”

Jonathan: I think you’re too California girl for an Aussie accent.

Brecken: Maybe I just can’t get it. I don’t know what it is. They shorten everything though. So my name’s Brecken as most of you know, and growing up, my siblings would call me Brecky and that is the exact word the Australians use for breakfast. “Let’s have some Brecky.”

Jonathan: So the first time we went everywhere, she thought the signs were all,

Brecken: they were all for me!

Jonathan: They were all for you.

Brecken: “Brecky served here.”

Jonathan: She was welcomed in Australia every morning. and the interesting thing about Australia is they set up opal mining to be artisanal forever. And so there isn’t these huge, large mines like there is for like diamonds or for tanzanite, or anything like that is that you only get a small plot.

Brecken: You only get a small claim.

Jonathan: That, that small claim. And so the only times that you really get a whole lot more then that is like, if a bunch of miners get together and work a plot together, but that’s pretty much it. And so they’re all pretty artisanal and small mines. And that’s why you don’t find a lot of opal miners anymore.

Brecken: It’s hard work.

Jonathan: It’s hard work. And corporations can’t go in there and mine the opal. And so it’s kind of a dying breed.

Brecken: Yeah. We, we can’t buy opal from just one person. We don’t have one source of opal. We probably buy our opal from over a hundred different miners.

Jonathan: Probably off and on and over the years, definitely around a hundred. And the majority of it from the Chinese because the Chinese do more buying of opal rough than anyone else, and cutting and all that kind of stuff. So we buy a lot in Hong Kong and China of opal.

Brecken: Most of our boulder is not being cut in Hong Kong. Most of that’s being cut in Australia.

Jonathan: Yeah. That’s the exception is the boulder, which

Brecken: They actually keep a lot of the nicer stones in Australia and cut them in Australia. Especially in boulder. And also I think some of your bigger light and your bigger blacks, and then they send more calibrated, maybe more commercial pieces to be cut in China.

The opal market has changed drastically, I would say in the last 30 years. It used to be extremely profitable to mine, opal, and then it got much harder to do. There was more and more prospecting and not as much material available. And I think in the early two thousand’s, when gold prices went like through the roof, remember during the recession and so did oil. A lot of your opal miners retired or moved to mining gold and oil.

Jonathan: And their kids saw how hard work it was or they didn’t have kids. And so you don’t have really that second and third generation doesn’t exist so much. And so you’re left with not only of it being more difficult to find, because they’re having to go deeper. And most of the easy stuff I think has already been found. But you also just don’t have as many people mining.

Brecken: When we were in Lightning Ridge, there was an opal mine that I, I would not go in. I stayed up with the kangaroos.

Jonathan: It wasn’t scary.

Brecken: It was! So I am one: extremely afraid of Heights and it is just like a pit. How many yards or feet would you say Jonathan, down to the bottom of that pit?

Jonathan: I think it was like 20 to 30 meters, which is three feet, three inches per meter.

Brecken: So 60, 70. I’m gonna round up and say a hundred feet down into this hole.

Jonathan: Yeah. And there’s no ocean in Australia. So it’s like, you’ve got like this metal culvert. So like a metal pipe that is at the top of the thing. And then they had these sections, like six foot sections of swinging ladders. So they weren’t like strapped together.

Brecken: No, they were all joint. And just like, hang like. Picture metal clothes hangers just dangling off of each other. And that’s what you’re climbing down.

Jonathan: And no ropes, no gear.

Brecken: No. You had a hard hat though.

Jonathan: Yeah. Hard hat. So if you fell,

Brecken: I wasn’t going down the hole. So I just stayed up there all by myself. It was really peaceful. I had a moment in the Outback.

Jonathan: It was, it was pretty cool though. Underneath us they showed us around and showed us where, you know, they had taken this much out of this part of the mine and that much out of that. And this was a major find. And then showed us how they worked the mine with, you know, small equipment underground. And then they have like a bucket that pulls it back up to the surface.

Brecken: They had all these timber logs right. Holding up the ceiling. I didn’t go down, but I saw amazing pictures.

Jonathan: So they have all these just big timbers that were, that hold up the ceiling and keep the mine from collapsing in.

Brecken: Good thing. And they prospect by drilling holes everywhere. So they’ll just kind of go in to an area that they think might have opal and they’ll just drill down and take a core sample out, look at the core sample and see how much material is actually there. And if it’s worth digging a hole and actually mining that material out.

That was almost as bad as the drunk Brazilian guy.

Jonathan: No, the drunk Brazilian guy was way worse. Drunker. I didn’t even go down that line because they told me I could rip my feet off. So the emerald mines in Brazil are much scarier than the Australian opal mines.

And we did talk a little bit about opal triplets from Idaho, but there’s also a lot of opal doublets and triplets out of Australia. Sometimes the seams of opal are too thin to make solids. And so that’s when you take the thin piece of opal and you glue it together with ironstone and that makes your opal doublets. Or when you add a glass, or quartz, or a Sapphire top, that’s when you get a triplet.

Brecken: We do a lot in opal doublet. It’s become a really popular stone for designers to work with.

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s a great, it’s definitely the best bang for your buck in opal is opal doublet, you get so much more color and so much more vibrancy.

Brecken: It gives you almost the, it gives you the color of a black opal, really. That’s because it gives you that really dark base behind the light opal and it really makes the stones pop and you can get a pretty large size of it for not very much money. A few hundred dollars a carat where your finest black would be. Thousands and thousands of dollars a carat. I think the most expensive black opal I saw was $200,000 for the stone. Yeah, there was, and it was red pattern with Harlequin, like your picture-perfect black opal.

Jonathan: But there’s definitely even more expensive ones than that.

Brecken: I’m sure. Yeah. stones with a little more provenance. Bigger stones.

Jonathan: Bigger. Yeah. And that’s the thing about opal is that, you know, you can, they come from tiny, tiny to very, very large. I mean, we’ve seen ones as, you know, as big as my arm, especially in Boulder opal, and then, you know, in light opal, I’ve seen as big as my fist. And so all solid light opals, that’s kind of a cool thing about opal is you do get some very large pieces.

Brecken: A little bit showier than your other gemstones. Cause you can’t, I mean, what’s the biggest Sapphire you could get. I mean, you can get like 20, 30, 40 carat stones, but they’re not as big as like a hundred carat opal and you can find a hundred carat opals out there fairly easily compared to a 40 carat Sapphire.

Jonathan: Correct.

Brecken: All right. I think this wraps up our opal series.

Jonathan: Yep. Our two part opal series.

Brecken: If you have any more questions on opal, give us a shout out at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Jonathan: So, what are we gonna talk about next week?

Brecken: Ruby.

Jonathan: Ruby the King of all gemstones.

Brecken: The King of gemstones! We’re leaving the queen and going to the king.

Jonathan: Yeah, go to the king first. And so we’ll be talking about Ruby. So if you have any questions about Ruby, feel free to leave a comment or shoot us an email. And let us know your questions ahead of time, or if there’s any other topics that you want to hear, definitely let us know so that we can put those on plan.

Brecken: We can plan into the future. I think we’re also planning on doing one in Vegas.

Jonathan: Yeah. We’ll definitely do a recording in Vegas. And so that will be not next week, but the week after we’ll be releasing the one that we do in Vegas.

Brecken: It’s just a party.

Jonathan: It’s just a party.

Brecken: It’s just a bunch of jewelers getting together, having a laugh.

Jonathan: Thank you for listening to our third episode of Gem Junkies.

Brecken: Gem-Gem-Gem Junkies!

I’ve gotta give some content!

If you like what you heard today or any of the other episodes, make sure you subscribe to Gem Junkies on SoundCloud, iTunes, or Google play and make sure you rate us if you like us.

Jonathan: Anything you put on there, she records. It has a chance of getting on the air. It does after last week, anything can be on there.

Brecken: Anything goes.

The Finest American Gemstone – Montana Sapphire

Back to talking about gemstones!! Explore the wonders of Montana Sapphire. Jonathan and Brecken discuss the early beginnings and the lore behind America’s finest gemstone.

Transcription of the podcast.

Listen Here!

[00:00:00] Brecken: I don’t know, like what I do for Parlé, did I answer that okay?

[00:00:04] Jonathan: Yeah. I thought that was one of the best answers.

[00:00:06] Brecken: Oh, I just made up my title.

[00:00:11] Jonathan: Yeah, but you make fun of me and my title. You totally called me out. “I think on your business card, it says Vice President, I guess when you’re the owner, you can make up your own.” I was like, all right.

[00:00:40] Brecken: Welcome back to another episode of Gem Junkies. I’m Brecken,

[00:00:44] Jonathan: and I’m Jonathan,

[00:00:45] Brecken: and we are in the throngs of Tucson right now.

[00:00:48] Jonathan: Yeah.

[00:00:49] Brecken: So it’s super exciting. So we are at a AGTA right now. Super excited. If you are in Tucson, come on down to booth 417 in the AGTA gem hall, and you can come meet us.

[00:01:04] Jonathan: And we’ve got pins.

[00:01:05] Brecken: We’ve got swag! Yeah.

[00:01:08] So today we thought it would be super fun to talk about

[00:01:12] Jonathan: Montana Sapphire.

[00:01:14] Brecken: Montana Sapphire, which I’m crazy about it.

[00:01:16] Jonathan: Yeah, it’s awesome, and it’s very close to us. It’s only a four, four and a half hour drive.

[00:01:21] Brecken: It is, and it’s something that last year we decided to start carrying again.

[00:01:27] Jonathan: Right.

[00:01:28] Brecken: We used to carry it way back when. Mostly Yogo.

[00:01:31] Jonathan: Mostly Yogo, but now we’re more towards Rock Creek. So, 1865, that’s the original finding of sapphires in Montana by gold prospectors.

[00:01:44] Brecken: Right, they were going up the rivers trying to find gold and discovered gold and sapphires. A lot of the gold miners hated Sapphire because it would clog their sleuth box when they were trying to reclaim the gold. Out of the rivers. Yeah. And they just would throw it, they would just chuck it, chuck it, chuck it, chuck it. They didn’t know what it was. Yeah. And they thought, and then once they did discover what it was. They thought it wasn’t very valuable because it was pale color, right.

[00:02:16] Like pale in color. And so they just would chuck it away, throw it away and they’d get angry, it would clog all their equipment. And who knew.

[00:02:26] Jonathan: Those darn sapphires.

[00:02:28] Brecken: But it really, so the gold rush in Missouri happened 19 or 1870s to about 1890s is when a ton of gold was pulled out of the Missouri river in Montana.

[00:02:43] Jonathan: Yeah. Um, and then in the 1890s, there was a discovery in the Rock Creek area.

[00:02:52] Brecken: Mm-hmm .

[00:02:53] And so the funny thing is the gold rush sent, miners up every little river in Montana, trying to find gold and the Rock Creek find, they found absolutely no gold, but they found Sapphire and they found sapphires in all spectrum of colors.

[00:03:15] So yellows, greens, oranges, purples, blues, even red.

[00:03:21] Jonathan: Yeah, and the mining was really prevalent from about 1890 to the 1930s and they estimate there were 65 tons of Sapphire were recovered and it supplied the Swiss watchmakers until synthetics came about in the 1930s.

[00:03:41] Brecken: So it was sent by the ton to Switzerland. Used as for watch bearings.

[00:03:47] Jonathan: The first mention about Rock Creek and literature was mentioned in 1901 by George Kunz. And he had seen the gemstones in jewelry at the Paris expo that was made by Tiffany and Company in 1900. And he said, quote, “that it was of unusual brilliancy and at no other known locality has so great a variety of rich colors in corundum gems as in Rock Creek Sapphire.” And that’s the great thing about Rock Creek compared to the other sources in Montana is, it has a huge variety of colors. It has pinks and greens and yellows and oranges and blues.

[00:04:26] Brecken: Most start out their life pale in color

[00:04:29] Jonathan: pale or green

[00:04:29] Brecken: Or green. And that is why heat treatment is so important for the Rock Creek sapphires. It intensifies the colors and it removes the cloudiness and silk in the gemstones.

[00:04:40] Jonathan: Yeah. So about 30% can stay in their natural color of pink, blue, blue-green, and green. And about 70% of it needs is green or slightly brownish and that’s what gets heat treated. So the great thing about Rock Creek is it has quite a bit larger Sapphire crystals and they range [00:05:00] from two millimeters in size up to about one inch, which would be around 30 carats. So they produce some quite large pieces. And that’s kind of up to about, I think about 20 carats.

[00:05:15] All right. Okay. So Rock Creek was mined by. It was mine since the 19 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. All the way up till the 1930s and then in the 1930s. And it was all done by hydraulics. And so they didn’t have equipment. So the hydraulics, they basically get a big pond of water going. And then they’d flush that water down and through a big hose until it had enough pressure. And so they were only able to mine the very narrow bottom of each of these gullies. And so they missed tons of sapphires.

[00:05:51] Brecken: As evident by the large supply, we’re seeing come out of Rock Creek right now.

[00:05:55] Jonathan: So in 2014, Potentate bought 90% of the Rock Creek area

[00:06:01] about

[00:06:01] Brecken: 3000 acres.

[00:06:04] Jonathan: It’s a huge, huge amount. So not only Rock Creek, but also Eureka Gulch. And so now Potentate is mining that and that’s where all this new material is coming from.

[00:06:14] Brecken: And I think this is the first time in the history of the Rock Creek mining area, that one company has owned so much land and been able to make it really commercially viable.

[00:06:27] Jonathan: Yeah. And their goal is to be the largest gem producer in all of America, of the United States.

[00:06:36] Brecken: I was reading a little bit about it and their whole thing is that mining in Rock Creek, the sapphires occur near the surface. So it’s not like a deep underground mine. So it makes mining costs much lower. So they’re able to go in there and I mean, mining in the US is not an easy thing to do. There’s tons of rules and regulations that are put in place in the US to keep people safe. Everything like that, which adds to the cost of mining. So to be able to viably mine, Sapphire in the US is exciting. And it’s because they’re close to the surface of the ground. They don’t have to tunnel.

[00:07:19] Jonathan: And Potentate also is working really hard to be environmentally friendly. So they do, they use all recycled water. So they don’t use any of the creeks or streams in Montana.

[00:07:29] They actually use, they have their own ponds.

[00:07:32] Brecken: Keep the waterways clean,

[00:07:34] Jonathan: keep the waterways clean and then any ground that they disturb. They’re fully reestablishing it. And then also old disturbed ground, like back from the 1890s clear through the 1930s, all that disturbed ground. They’re actually reestablishing that as well.

[00:07:51] Brecken: Oh, so they’re going back and cleaning up.

[00:07:53] Jonathan: So they’re cleaning everything up. So it’s a really, it’s a really great company to be associated with.

[00:07:57] Brecken: That’s cool. And they’re a Canadian company.

[00:07:59] Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Potentate’s owned by a Canadian company that also has mine, diamonds and gold and

[00:08:06] Brecken: wow. Now Montana Sapphire, and there is very little waste of the gemstones that they find. Most of them are marketable. So 12 about 12% they leave as fancy colors as they’re found. And then, after heating about 80% of the sapphires become a what you would call a “market desirable” color.

[00:08:28] So something someone desires to own. Color that’s not, you know,

[00:08:33] Jonathan: and it’s all a documented chain of custody. So they’re using a selected group of Sapphire cutters and polishers with reputable jewelry manufacturers like us. So there’s just a small, they’re trying to keep a small group because they don’t want any funny business being done to the Sapphire.

[00:08:51] Just natural and light heat treatment and they do all the heat treating themselves. So they’re doing all of that and then selling the rough after it’s heat treated.

[00:09:00] Brecken: I am super obsessed with it. I’m wearing some right now.

[00:09:02] Jonathan: Yeah. It’s beautiful.

[00:09:03] Brecken: We just finished a group of jewelry. And when I saw the set, I was like, “Hmm, I need that. I have to have that.”

[00:09:12] So the twins like it, I was talking to Olivia this morning and she said, “Mom, what’s in your necklace.”

[00:09:18] And I said, “Well, that’s a Montana Sapphire” and she said “Is that different than Sapphire?”

[00:09:23] I said, “No, it’s the same thing as Sapphire. It just comes from Montana.”

[00:09:28] And she said, “Oh, where’s Montana.”

[00:09:30] And I said, “Well, it comes from about four hours away.” And she’s not following any of this, but she likes it too.

[00:09:37] Jonathan: And then there is another mining area in the Rock Creek area. And it’s the Gem Mountain Mine.

[00:09:46] Brecken: It’s the 10% that Potentate doesn’t own

[00:09:49] Jonathan: but it’s really cool. You can actually go there as just a consumer and you can even make a reservation on their website. Gemmountainmines.com I believe. And you can make a reservation for you and your family to go up there and they bring down sapphire rich gravel in buckets, and you can buy the buckets and then they teach you how to actually sort.

[00:10:10] Brecken: So you’re not really digging it out of the ground, which no would be totally unsafe.

[00:10:14] Jonathan: but you still have to do all of the sorting and safety. And people have found some really, really big sapphires. And if you go on either GIA’s website or Gem Mountain’s website, you can see a couple of videos that talk-

[00:10:26] Brecken: We’re taking a field trip this summer.

[00:10:28] Jonathan: We have to, when it’s warm, for sure.

[00:10:30] Brecken: Cause it’s not warm right now, but, and I mean, they don’t mine in the winter, do they?

[00:10:35] Jonathan: No, no. It’s open from labor day through Memorial day.

[00:10:41] Brecken: Okay. Yeah. So we’ll hit it up this summer. Take a little road trip with the twinies. They can go find their own Montana sapphires.

[00:10:48] Jonathan: So then probably the most well known

[00:10:52] Brecken: Sapphire from Montana would have to be Yogo. Yeah.

[00:10:55] Jonathan: Which was first discovered in 1895 by,

[00:10:59] Brecken: by another gold prospector,

[00:11:00] Jonathan: Jake Hoover.

[00:11:03] Brecken: He and two other gentlemen formed a mining company. They were going to mine gold and raised about $40,000 to get this up and running.

[00:11:14] And in three years, with this mining company, they found $700 in gold. So I’m gonna guess they weren’t that successful gold miners, but what they also found were some blue pebbles and a lot of other miners in the area just discarded them. Just kind of threw them off to the side.

[00:11:33] Jonathan: And so of Hoover’s partners, Hoover was the only one that collected them, and he kept collecting them and putting them in a cigar box. And eventually he took that cigar box and didn’t know what these bluestones were and he sent it to Tiffany and Company. And that’s when George F Kunz figured out that it was sapphire.

[00:11:49] Brecken: Yeah. And George Kunz said that it was one of the finest precious gemstone ever found in the United States. And that’s because Yogo, Sapphire is pretty free of inclusions.

[00:12:02] Jonathan: It’s very clean

[00:12:03] Brecken: and a beautiful blue color. Without any need of heat treatment

[00:12:07] Jonathan: and it ranges from a beautiful cornflower blue, which is what it’s most well known for, but it does range in color from cornflower blue, all the way to a deep violet.

[00:12:16] Brecken: Yeah. So do you know how much he sold that box of Sapphire that he collected that little cigar box?

[00:12:22] Jonathan: Oh, I’ve heard the number before

[00:12:23] Brecken: he sold it for $3,750, which is. Five times what he made from gold mining.

[00:12:30] Jonathan: But still doesn’t recoup the $40,000 that he,

[00:12:34] Brecken: No, so he, of course they scrap the gold mine and they start just mining Sapphire and Hoover in a few years, decided Sapphire mining wasn’t for him. He sold it to his partners. He sold his share to his partners for about $5,000. And then two months later they were sold again, the partners sold out to a British company for a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:13:01] This guy didn’t have good luck. $40,000 in a mining investment. And he made $700 from gold. And then, so it just wasn’t his day, but he did discover it. So yeah.

[00:13:12] Jonathan: Yeah. So, and so they owned eight of the 14 stakes in the Yogo Gulch area. And so it sold to a British company, Johnson Walker and Tolhurst, and that became known as the English Mine, and then six other stakes that were bought out that were claimed.

[00:13:29] Brecken: Hoover actually deemed them unfit for mining, right?

[00:13:33] Jonathan: Yeah. because they were steep and Cliffy. And so that became the American mine and so millions of carats were mined out of the British mine and very little out of the American mine.

[00:13:44] Brecken: Yeah. So the british were actually very successful in mining the Yogo sapphires.

[00:13:49] Jonathan: Millions of carats.

[00:13:50] Brecken: Millions and millions of carats. And it is actually considered the most successful endeavor ever in Yogo Sapphire mining. Unfortunately for Americans, it was all shipped to London. And then sold in Europe, but it wasn’t sold as American Sapphire. It was sold as “Orient Sapphire.”

[00:14:10] Jonathan: Right. Because it was worth more.

[00:14:12] Brecken: That’s because that name made it worth more, even though it wasn’t true. The Americans were not so successful because like Jonathan said rugged cliffs…

[00:14:23] Jonathan: Well, and they didn’t really know what they were doing because eventually the mines combined in 1913 and they sold the American mine

[00:14:29] Brecken: well, the american mine went bankrupt.

[00:14:31] Jonathan: Well, but then they sold it for $80,000. And then the English mine found over $80,000 in sapphires in the first year. Just cleaning up their old tailings. Not even mining. Just cleaning up tailings. So they obviously didn’t know what they were doing.

[00:14:46] Brecken: No, they recouped the cost of purchase in one year, just going through the tailings before they even actually had to invest in mining

[00:14:54] Jonathan: And then 13 million carats were mined in the early 1900s with the [00:15:00] two mines combined that was used for jewelry, watches, and then the ones that weren’t good for jewelry or watches were sold for abrasives for steel. And it’s kind of interesting that this was one of the few mines that was allowed to keep operating during World War II during shortages of fuel and steel because of the fact that the,

[00:15:20] Brecken: it was deemed necessary for the War effort, for the abrasives.

[00:15:24] Jonathan: So it’s kind of cool.

[00:15:25] Brecken: They used all that to cut through metal and then,

[00:15:28] Jonathan: No, actually that was World War I not II.

[00:15:30] Brecken: Yeah World War I

[00:15:31] Jonathan: Sorry, World War I, and then a flash flood destroyed the whole mining area 1923.

[00:15:36] Brecken: Yeah. It’s kinda sad story in 1922, you really see the expansion of synthetic sapphires into the market. And that’s when they start using synthetics for watch bearings and abrasives. They don’t need natural stones anymore. And the cost of the natural stones is so much higher. So that means now all of the Yogo Sapphire its only value is as a gemstone.

[00:16:02] And then in 1923, like Jonathan was saying, there was a flash flood that came through and it destroyed all of the above ground mining structures. So it washed everything away. And the British company that owned it just. Said, you know,

[00:16:17] Jonathan: “we’re done.”

[00:16:18] Brecken: “We’re done.” there’s, it’s, you know, not gonna be profitable anymore because it’s only for gemstones and jewelry and there’s really no use.

[00:16:26] Jonathan: And then it sold and sold and sold and sold and sold

[00:16:30] Brecken: and sold.

[00:16:31] Jonathan: And, and so a bunch of people have tried and nobody really has ever been able to reestablish that Yogo mine.

[00:16:38] Brecken: It’s almost sad that all of the stones went over to Europe and weren’t sold as Yogos. I mean, they are, they are truly beautiful. They’re, they’re free of zoning. So you don’t see a lot of color zoning in them.

[00:16:55] Jonathan: They’re just beautiful blue.

[00:16:56] Brecken: They are. The one thing is they’re pretty shallow.

[00:17:00] Jonathan: And small.

[00:17:02] Brecken: And they’re, they’re usually so small most of them they say are

[00:17:05] Jonathan: under a carat

[00:17:06] Brecken: Yeah, a 10th of a carat, generally. We have it and we sell it, but mostly as clusters, melee, as little pieces of melee.

[00:17:14] Jonathan: Beautiful, beautiful clusters.

[00:17:16] Brecken: But they’re saying that in the early days in Yogo, the veins, the Sapphire veins were 20 feet wide.

[00:17:27] Jonathan: Wow.

[00:17:27] Brecken: Yeah. And now they’re eight inches to 10 inches wide.

[00:17:32] Jonathan: Geez.

[00:17:32] Brecken: Yeah. So you can see how and they’re very deep in the ground. So this is tunnel mining. This is very deep in the ground now. And it’s really not like I was saying earlier. What makes the Rock Creek so successful is that it’s shallow. It’s close to the surface, which makes it more economically viable. Where Yogo really isn’t.

[00:17:56] Jonathan: Pit mining versus tunnel mining. There’s a huge difference in cost.

[00:18:00] Brecken: Yeah. And there are, I mean, there are a few people that own claims at Yogo now, and that are mining it, but it’s really just a it’s few and far between very few and far between, and you don’t get much material out of it. It’s not something that not everyone can have a Yogo Sapphire.

[00:18:18] You know? And so most of it is sold exclusively in Montana.

[00:18:23] Jonathan: So, uh, there’s been some really cool studies and videos done both by Potentate and by GIA. So we’ll post some links to those on our blog. So you can check those out so that you can kind of see what this country looks like. It’s really beautiful country up in Montana.

[00:18:39] Um, it’s kind of halfway between Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. So it’s kind of halfway in the middle and it’s just, it’s really beautiful and it’s really interesting videos and they’re well done. So, uh, we’ll, we’ll post some links to that so that you can check those out.

[00:18:53] Brecken: And I’m just excited about, you know, the opportunity to sell gemstones American gemstones from four hours away.

[00:19:01] Jonathan: Yeah, it’s really cool.

[00:19:03] Brecken: And the color’s cool. I think I can say my favorite color in the Montana is probably the most prevalent, which is like a blue-green,

[00:19:14] Jonathan: the teal.

[00:19:14] Brecken: Yeah, kind of bi-color almost look where you see some blue, some green loving it. Obsessed. I need a 20 ct one. It’s not gonna happen. Jonathan’s telling me never. Maybe I’ll mine it this summer,

[00:19:32] Jonathan: Maybe

[00:19:33] Brecken: All right. Well, I wanna thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of gem junkies. I’m Brecken

[00:19:39] Jonathan: and I’m Jonathan.

[00:19:40] Brecken: And if you are in Tucson, come see us

[00:19:42] Jonathan: Booth 417.

[00:19:43] Brecken: Yep. Booth 417 at the, a AGTA gem fair. And, if not, well, we’ll see around somewhere else and you can see what we do in our real life.

[00:19:55] Jonathan: On Facebook or Instagram at Parlé Gems

[00:19:59] Brecken: at Parlé Gems. All right guys. See you later.

[00:20:01] Jonathan: Bye.

Our Partnership with the Devon Foundation

     

     The measure of someone’s goodness is their willingness to give back. We, at Parle believe companies have a corporate responsibility to improve the lives of the people it affects. We found our cause right at the heart of our company and have partnered with the Devon Foundation in hopes of educating and improving the lives of those closest to the source.

     The Devon Foundation is responsible for developing talent in our field by providing gem-cutting scholarships to men and women in East Africa enabling them to earn a living in the gem trade. The gemstones in our collection “Sharing The Rough” are directly sourced from this area in Africa. We are inspired by the positive impact that Nancy Schuring and the Devon Foundation are fostering within these communities.

     Not only does the Devon Foundation help sponsor educational scholarships, but it provides the most important school supply on the market- school lunch! The Foundation is now solely responsible for the Kitarini school lunch program which feeds over 500 young Maasai boys and girls, providing 10,000 meals a month. Not only has this increased school enrollment, but it has improved the educational advancement of each of these children.

     For us, this is remarkable. We feel as if we are able to positively influence a society of children and workers a world away just by doing what we love. This program and our new collection are interwoven, sharing a platform to speak on behalf of the beauty and strength of both people and gemstone. While we know not all students will grow up to be gemologists, miners, or stone-cutters, we believe it is important to not only improve the lives of the hands our stones touch, but even the shoulders they brush past. This is why we appreciate the reach of the Devon Foundation in its efforts to give back to the field, and to the community where our gemstones are unsurfaced.

     Our Parle promise is to donate a percentage of proceeds from our Sharing The Rough jewelry collection, and we ask that our retailers do the same. We know we work with great jewelers that are like-minded in giving back, and hope that with their donations and ours, we can continue to improve the lives of others.

Go their website directly by clicking the link http://devonfoundation.com/

Mint of the Merelani

 

     Nestled up in the foothills of Africa’s largest Mountain, Kilimanjaro, is the world’s most famous green Grossular mine. Merelani Hills, Tanzania, is home to some of the most rejuvenating green Garnets; green Garnets that can match up to the reputation of voluminous Emeralds and Tsavorites, reign from deep within a Tanzanite mine. All by accident the Mint Garnet was discovered and has been captivating gemstone enthusiasts and jewelry designers ever since. With only a limited supply from a small part of western Africa, Mint Garnet has not only enchanted everyone with its beauty, but also its rarity.

    This gem might draw you in due to the pastel green that differentiates it from its Tsavorite counterpart, but this gem has another secret. The cool bluish-green fluoresces into a pinkish-orange under UV light thanks to the rare and valued mineral chromium that is present in this family of garnets.

     Like the shadow that a lush mountain casts as the sun rises over it on a bright spring the morning, Mint Garnet’s color reflects that of calmness. The gentle green offers a renewing sensation, like that of a new day or the start of a new spring. If you close your eyes you can almost get the impression of a cool drop of mint water at the back of your throat or the feeling of morning dew on lush grass.

     We value how close to nature this piece feels and want to preserve the aspects of it’s beauty that strike you from its most raw form. The luster it gives off is preserved with meticulous stone cutting techniques. We offer both tumbled and faceted styles that both captivate the brilliance and uniqueness of each piece that is unearthed. Nothing this valuable is underappreciated by our designers, and we make sure to take care that every gemstone is given the platform it needs to share its story.

The Parle Promise

     

 Here at Parle we have spent many years perfecting the craft of jewelry design so we can bring beautiful stones to you, and let the harmony between metal and gem speak for itself. Parle means “to speak,” and it is our intention for every one of our handcrafted pieces to speak to you with its beauty and enjoyment, for a lifetime.

     Every gem starts as a stone from the depths of mother nature where elements combine over years to form a perfect structure. Once mined, the rough stones are brought to a stone cutter who carves every stone into the most spectacular colored gem. The stone cutter then finds a designer whose creativity and passion will provide a platform in which to cradle the gemstone with intent. Every gemstone that comes through our hands holds the ability to connect cultures, worlds apart all for the purpose of creating a final piece that isn’t only beautiful, but meaningful.

     Our dedication to this process ensures that high quality jewelry is sourced carefully, crafted meticulously, and designed thoughtfully so that every piece can transcend lifetimes. We hope that for every time a design of ours is placed around someone’s neck or garnishes someone’s hand that it leaves them speechless, so the jewelry can tell its story.

Call us today, to make your appointment for JCK LUX, and hear the story from the gems themselves.

Sharing The Rough

 

Our company is named Parle because we believe that each and every gem has a story to tell. The gemstones combine minerals, heat, water, and pressure to mold themselves into unique and intricate treasures. Each has their very own distinct properties that are displayed in their color, patterns, and sometimes shape. Although the beauty from the unearthed gem speaks for itself, there is another story that is equally remarkable and important. For every piece of finished jewelry that makes it to the floor of a retail location there are multiple hands involved in the unearthing, cutting, designing, and crafting process. This is the story we want to tell. 

To the miners that dive deep into the folds of the earth, or that sift through riverbeds in the hot sun, to the gem cutters who unveil the most precious colors and forms possible with every gem, to the jewelry designers who carry the vision for how to best accentuate the beloved features, to the people who package it all together, this is their story, too. A gemstone can transcend global and cultural boundaries, and create unlikely bonds between communities that are worlds apart. 

The power these gemstones hold to weave all of these remarkable stories is where we found the inspiration for this collection. We want to bring you something that encapsulates the passion and beauty of every part of the journey. So, we bring you, “Sharing The Rough” and hope you will become part of their story.

 

 

 

One of our Mint Garnets in the hands of the Director of the film, Orin Mazzoni III.

 

Polishing facets of a Tanzanian Rhodolite Garnet.

A Look Back at 2016

Another great year has come and gone, and we here at Parlé are gearing up to have yet another exciting year. With all the fast-paced changes we have been making and the busy nature of the industry in general, it seems like maybe a brief moment to pause and reflect is in order. So we propose to take a step back and check out some of your favorite designs from Parlé in 2016.

After some number crunching we have come up with a big list of some of your favorite pieces of jewelry from our vault!

Here are the most popular trio sets from our Color Celebration Collection! (Click the caption to see on our website)

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 If you are feeling like summer can’t come fast enough, many of you were also very fond of our Sea Life Collection of jewelry.

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Click here to see the full list of best sellers!

Hopefully you have enjoyed taking a look back with us, and from everyone at Parlé, we want to thank our wonderful community of jewelry lovers who make what we do possible.

Best of luck in 2017!

Australian Black Opal

Australian Black Opal rough is extremely rare and mining has greatly decreased in the last decade, so imagine our surprise when 45 ounces of full color rough landed on Frank’s desk this September. As a company we haven’t seen material like it for 30 years and personally I have never seen anything like it! The story of how this opal rough made it all the way to Idaho is so fortuitous it deserves to be told, so here it goes!

It starts near Portland, OR earlier this year at an estate sale. At the end of an estate sale a crew comes in, cleans and donates all the remaining items. Customarily the crew is allowed to take items going to be donated or trashed if they have any interest. At this point we meet our hero, we will call him Tom, and Tom was cleaning out this estate sale and noticed an unassuming bag of rocks. He decided they looked interesting enough and loaded them into his truck and headed home. Later that night, sitting at his dining room table, Tom and his wife were assessing his discovery. They both noticed blue/green flashes of light and thought they had found something special, at this point they decided a trip to their local jewelry store was needed.

Still unaware of what he had discovered Tom loaded his bag of rocks into the Jewelers and sat down. The Jeweler informed him that he had a large bag of opal rough and from what he could tell black opal rough. Unfamiliar with rough opal pricing and not needing 45 ounces of opal the Jeweler then called us.

After a brief explanatory call from our Jeweler friend we received a call from Tom. Tom agreed to drive all the way from Portland to Pocatello in hopes of discovering what his find was worth. After all, with nothing invested into the bag of rocks Tom had nothing to lose. Frank and Jonathan sat with Tom for hours and poured over piece after piece, dipping them in water to bring the fire out of the unpolished stones. Beyond all expectations this black opal rough was a remarkable find and at the end of the day Tom was driving back to Seattle with a sizable check, he compared it to winning the lottery, and Parlé was left with 45 ounces of extremely rare Australian black opal rough.

A few months later, after several meetings with our cutters, Parlé is the proud owner of over 1200 cts of fine black opal. Frank believes this material to be at least 30 years old and the property of an old opal dealer native to the Oregon area that we lost touch with over 20 years ago. With a little luck Tom managed to save this natural treasure from a landfill, which is where it was headed if he hadn’t picked it up that day.

So I think I’ll be headed out to all the estate sales this weekend, never know what you will find!

 

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