OPALANIFine Australian Opal Jewelry

Black opal pendants — the easiest way to wear the rarest opal

Solid Lightning Ridge black and dark opal on sterling and 14k chains. Certified body tone and origin.

Why I'd steer most first-time buyers to a pendant

A pendant takes no knocks. It needs no size. It never meets a car door, a gym bar or a granite worktop, which are the three things that end opal rings. For a stone at 5.5 to 6.5 on Mohs, hanging in the air is the easiest life available.

There is a cutting argument too, and it is the better one. A ring stone has to fit a setting and survive a hand, so it gets cut down and domed. A pendant stone can keep its shape — I can follow the colour bar where it goes instead of where a bezel needs it. More of the bar survives, and you see more of what the ground actually made.

Chain length changes what you see

Higher on the collarbone, a stone sits under overhead light and flashes as the head turns. Longer, it sits in the shade of the body and shows its colour on movement instead. Neither is right; they are different pieces of jewelry made from the same stone. Each pendant lists the chain it ships on.

Sterling for cool faces, 14k for warm ones — the same rule as the rings, for the same reason.

Turn it over — that's the test

The back of a solid black opal looks like the back of a rock, because it is one. Natural potch, sometimes a little sand or matrix, an irregular surface where the cutter stopped taking material away. It will not be pretty and it should not be.

A doublet's back is a flat plate of ironstone or black glass with a dead-straight join where the glue sits. A triplet adds a dome on top of the same flat layer. On a pendant you can see all of this without a loupe, which is why I mount stones so the back stays visible where the setting allows. Full detail: solid opal vs. doublets and triplets.

Body tone, stated the same way

N1 to N4 is black opal. N5 and N6 are dark opal. A seller who calls an N6 stone "black opal" is not committing a crime, but they are rounding in their own favour, and I'd rather write the number down. Every pendant here carries its tone and carat weight.

What that scale does to price is set out in the black opal price guide, including why brightness and pattern move the number more than size does.

Care, in one line

Solid Australian opal is fine in water. A doublet is not. That is the difference you paid for, and it is the reason the word "solid" is on the certificate rather than in an advertisement.

Beyond that: warm water, mild soap, a soft cloth, never an ultrasonic cleaner. The rest is in caring for opal jewelry.

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