Introducing opal doublets
The Unique Artistry of Custom Assembled Settings
For collectors looking to commission bespoke settings without astronomical retail markups, we also curate premium, hand-cut Australian opal doublets. These settings fuse a genuine layer of precious natural opal onto a protective backing of common ironstone potch. This process perfectly highlights the rolling flash of thin gemstone veins while offering superior durability and a magnificent presentation for custom rings, cufflinks, or daily-wear pendants.
Bespoke Metal Selection: Your Custom Opal Configuration
Because authentic Australian precious opals feature a highly dynamic spectrum of iridescent fire, selecting the perfect surrounding frame is a deeply personal choice. To provide absolute flexibility for our collectors, we offer our unmounted solid opals and hand-cut doublets as completely customizable assets.
As a domestic bench jeweler and setter, I work directly with you to cast your chosen stone into an heirloom design tailored precisely to your personal budget:
Solid 14K & 18K Luxury Gold: Ideal for showcasing the deeper body tones of premium black opals, frequently paired with high-brilliance natural diamond halos.
Fine Sterling Silver Settings: A brilliant, cost-effective alternative that beautifully highlights the cool, violet-blue flashes of white opals while keeping your investment highly affordable.
Handcrafted in the USA: Designed, securely hand-set, and dispatched straight from our South Florida studio under strict United States consumer protection laws—guaranteeing fast delivery with no unexpected import duties.
The Elite Ranking of Australian Black & White Opals
Among fine gemstones, authentic Australian black opals command premier investment values due to their dark, deep body tones that allow spectral fire to flash with maximum intensity. Natural white opals offer an equally breathtaking but more accessible milky-white or semi-transparent canvas, showcasing beautiful, rolling rainbow play-of-color across their surfaces. Every piece in our studio is meticulously framed in open-back gold settings designed to pull ambient light straight through the stone matrix.
Understanding Gemstone Terminology: Precious Opal vs. Potch
The geological matrix behind common opal mining is known as Potch—an amorphous, hydrated form of silica that lacks color diffraction. True precious opal occurs only when perfectly uniform microscopic silica spheres align to diffract light, transforming the stone into a vibrant spectrum of colors. As bench jewelers, we inspect the physical structural integrity of every gem under magnification to ensure our settings showcase maximum flash intensity.
BOULDER OPALS ARE A UNIQUE STONES UNLIKE ANY OTHER
Opal is a material that forms within the cracks and crevices of different types of rocks. Often, the veins of opal within a rock are thin and winding. Quite often the formation is not quite big enough for a stone of its own, though it is still dazzlingly beautiful within the rock. At some point, someone had the good sense to realize that the rock and opal together can make a beautiful stone, which is precisely what boulder opals are.