Opal resources?

[MakingTheGrade]

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone had any good links to online educational resources about opals?
I love my ethiopian opal from Barry, and I just bought this opal from Lightning ridge, Australia so now I"m curious to educate myself a bit better of these stones.

Thanks!

 

[Pandora II]

Rick Martin at Art Cut Gems is a bit of an opal guru and has some interesting articles on his website that he has written.

 

[Richard M.]

Since my name has come up I'd like to mention a couple of excellent books on precious opal. Fred Ward's "Opals" is a reasonably-priced paperback that gives an excellent (pre-Ethiopian) summary of of play-of-color opals, their sources, handling, etc. He's a former National Geographic photographer so his images are first rate. He also knows how the Australian opal trade really works.

For those willing to spend more (around $35 + postage if memory serves), "Opal: The Phenomenal Gemstone" from Lithographie LLC is one of the finest and most beautiful collections of opal information I've run across (and I think I've read about everything available on the topic except some of Barry O'Leary's books which are either out of print or not currently available in the U.S.)

Ethiopian opal is so new on the market that little has been printed about it so far. The best and most exhaustive piece I've seen on Welo opal (the stable kind) was in "Gems and Gemology" (Summer 2010).

There's a lot of good information on-line but there's also lots of uninformed and/or unreliable stuff as well. For those who may not know the difference I strongly recommend reading one or both of the books mentioned before plunging into the on-line jungle.

Richard M. (Rick Martin)