Category Archives: Opal Jewelry

Fishing Over the Bridge OR Under the Bridge ???

Side by side Fish bed comparisons.

Once upon a time, on a spring day in Michigan, two Bluegills created their nests. One nested in a lovely lake in Kalkaska County, while one nested in a scenic lake on Isle Royale. Of course both fish made nests from their local rocks and minerals.

All The Kalkaska fish could find was loads of sand and Petoskey Stone pebbles (Our State Stone), while the other fish built her nest from our State Gemstone, the Isle Royale Greenstone. She was decorative, adding Agate, Datolite, and Thomsonite to make her bed homey.

The lakebed is a Copper Nugget, The nest is Datolite, Thomsonite, Lake Superior Agate, and an overabundance of Isle Royale Greenstone beads (originally from Isle Royale.

The Yooper fish had to be bigger and stronger in order to move heavy metals, the other, although, a very fine fish, was able to move her pebbles with a swish of her tail.

The Yooper had to wait for almost summer to nest, while the Troll fish (she lives Under the Bridge) was able to nest in late May.

These fish both sported great spring coloration, and were very fine mothers. Again, the Yooper fish had to defend against much larger fish (but had the muscles to succeed), while the smaller Troll Fish mostly had to scare off Bass, and Trout .

The Yooper fish is tough, bred to survive the 300 inches of snow that tries to block her stream pathways and lakes. Maybe that’s why her coloring is whiter, light pink with flecks of rainbow colors. The Troll fish lives in a longer growing season, so that might explain why she has more blues and greens.

This was two weeks work, and loads of frustration, (who drills little Greenstones?)

Let me know if you prefer fishing under the bridge OR over the Bridge.

About the Author

As a boy, I earned my candy money by selling fish. From my grown up life, I have a couple of prize-winning blue gills hanging on my wall, caught in the spring, while those blue-gills were “on their beds”. Now that I’m older and not really fishing much anymore, this is my creative story about my creative pieces. by Don Reed

Lightning Ridge Opal and Jewelry

A Lightning Ridge with an unusual patter enhanced with a Mercury Mist Topaz

We found some quite spectacular Opal Doublets from Lightning Ridge Australia this year in Tucson.

Depending on the lighting, this one turns color.

The lighting makes this change color from orange to green and everything in between.

You search and search at the worlds largest Rock, Mineral, Gem, and Fossil Show and occasionally you find the right quality combined with affordability. One of the things we located was a dealer selling high quality Lightning Ridge Black Opal, AND I was the first buyer at his booth and got first choice. I carefully searched a couple virgin boxes of cabochons, picking out the best of the lot.

A classic Lightning Ridge Neon Blue. A picture does not do justice to any of these opals.

Black Opal is a loose term as most of the opals are not black. In fact many are a darker blue background, but they can come in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Lightning Ridge is inland in the east/central part of Australia approximately a 10 hour drive from Brisbane. Lightning Ridge mines have been producing quality opal since the early 1900s and the area continues to produce even today.

You just can’t take a good picture of these.

A very dark opal with much flash.

I mentioned in one of my Tucson Gem Show blogs looking over and recognizing another dealer acquaintance. We had great fun. He also had a couple promo boxes he was sorting through. I noticed the material he was choosing and fed him a few pieces from my box, as he fed me some stuff from his box. We had enjoyed the “dig”.

The picture does not show all the pinfire in this dark blue LR black opal.

Each stone I picked suggested how its’ eventual pendant wrap might be created. Every stone suggests whether it should be gold, silver, or Pink gold, or maybe the gemstone might like a two-tone treatment. Black opals are so striking and colorful that they do not require much as far as wrapping them; let the stone star, not the wire.

In the past shows I’ve found some very fine triplets, but these doublets were so much better.

For those that do not know the term “Triplet” refers to a thin layer of opal sandwiched between a clear cap and a dark backer. A “Doublet’ refers to a nice thicker layer of gem opal with a backer. The better Doublets are backed with Ironstone from the same area the stones came from.

I’ve created many works of opal art with more to do in the future. Opals were our biggest sellers at the “Agate Expo” international agate show last year, nd for good reason. We have very high quality with very reasonable prices. If you like any of these, or anything we blog about, get ahold of us. Our jewelry goes to our website, our retail outlets, and some we sell at art shows. We should be able to track down anything you want or suggest similar.