Synthetic Opal Found While Scrapping Sterling Silver

9 days ago

I find all sorts of interesting things while scrapping Sterling silver. Some of it I keep. A lot of it ends up melted down, but every once in a while I find something that I want to save.

I forgot I had saved this from a lot of scrap from a few months back. It was a single earing in a random lot of mixed jewelery. In it was this opal.

I did some research and it's a fairly common type of opal. Even if it were natural, it's one of the more common types of "precious" opals that reflect multiple colors of light back. Due to its perfectly flat back, I figured it's synthetic at the very least.

In some instances, only a small sliver of it is real, while the top is glass, resin, etc., and the back is opaque white, all glued together. The easiest way to tell if it's real is soak it in water. If it is glued together, a long soak will work the glue loose and cause the whole stone to become cloudy. I soaked it for 24 hours and there was no change. I looked at it under a loupe and didn't see where it showed any signs of layering. That said, to get this teardrop shape with a perfectly flat back leads me to the conclusion it's all one piece of synthetic opal that was cut to shape and polished.

It's not particularly valuable, but it does still have eye appeal, so I'll keep it for now. Maybe I'll set it in some jewelry. I may also just wait until I have more stones saved up from scrapping and sell it all together as a mixed lot.

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