boulder opal branch ring

A beautiful raw auqua and turquoise boulder opal from Queensland, Australia with flashes of green. Set in a simple silver rub-over setting on a free-form branch style eco-silver ring with silver granulation: this one has sold but I can make similar ones to order.

The colours are so beautiful: I particularly the turquoise and blue shades with plenty of flashes in them. The shapes and shades do vary a lot so it's good to check you like the stone before I make it up for you: just let me know you ring size and I can make it to fit you perfectly.

The dimensions of this one are around 10mm x 5mm for the opal; the ring shank is around 3-4mm wide woven eco-silver in an art nouveau style: dimensions will vary with each different opal.

All my jewellery is gift-wrapped in tissue or recycled giftboxes

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Eco-silver is a green alternative to sterling silver. It is a little bit more expensive but has the same silver content as sterling, it's just made of 100% recycled and scrap silver products. Eco Silver can be both treated and worked with in the same way as silver, for the same quality results but more environmentally friendly. Produced from scrap jewellery, medical equipment, electronics and giftware, all the eco silver I use comes with a certificate of authenticity and is hallmarked if it is the required weight.

Boulder opal information from www.gemselect.com:

Boulder opal is one of the most valuable varieties of opal, second only to Australia's black opal. Fine specimens of boulder opal can exhibit all of the spectral colors through their distinct play of colour. Boulder opal may be considered to be less valuable than black opal, but it is actually much rarer. Boulder opal accounts for approximately 2% of all of Australia's opal, however, black opal equates to around 8% of the entire yield. The remaining 90% is common opal, often referred to as 'potch' or 'white opal'. Australia produces over 95% of the world's entire supply of opal gemstones, clearly establishing it as the world's leading opal supplier. Boulder opal was first discovered in Quilpe, Western Australia, around the year 1870. Almost all boulder opal available today is from Western Queensland's opal-rich fields, confined to an area of about 200 to 300 square kilometers.

Boulder opal is found embedded in large boulders of ironstone, which is how it earned its name. Occurring as pebble rock, precious opal develops within thin veins, fissures and hollows. As opal miners attempt to remove the embedded opal from the ironstone, some of the host matrix is preserved during the process. For this reason, boulder opal is sometimes referred to as 'opal in matrix'. The ironstone matrix enhances the stones durability and vibrancy of color, often increasing the desirable effects of 'play of color' and 'opalescence', which are two different optical phenomenona, commonly mistaken for being one and the same. Boulder opal is similar to layered opal doublet, but rather than being assembled, boulder opal's layering is a natural occurrence.

Compared to other varieties of opal, boulder opal has a much higher density because of its ironstone matrix. As a result, boulder opal precious gems are much smaller in size compared to common opals of equivalent weight. Boulder opal is often cut in irregular, free-form shapes, in attempt to maximize the size and value of the finished opal stone.