Opal Information

With "the fire of the carbuncle, the brilliant purple of the amethyst and the sea green color of the emerald, all shining together in incredible union" opal clearly impressed Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), Roman historian and author of the world's first encyclopedia.  The Romans had been wearing opals for centuries and considered them a symbol of hope and purity while for the early Greeks they embodied the powers of foresight and prophecy. The more fancifully minded Arabs thought that opals must have fallen from heaven in flashes of lightning thus achieving their unique play of color or "opalescence".

Amazingly this opal escence is a result of the 5-10% of water trapped inside the stone in which rows and rows of tiny spheres of silicon dioxide are arranged, diffracting light in a unique fashion.

Opal has also featured in literature with Shakespeare referring to it in Twelfth Night as "the queen of gems". A real queen had to intervene in the near destruction of the 19th century opal market when Sir Walter Scott's Anne of Geierstein started a superstition that opals were bad luck for people not born in October. The novel's heroine owned an opal that burned fiery red when she was angry and turned ashen gray upon her death. Queen Victoria finally dispelled the curse by giving opal jewelry as gifts at a royal wedding.
 
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