Grace Opal finally publish $250'000.00 opalised shell find.
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- čas přidán 26. 08. 2024
- A couple of years ago the Grace Opal brothers were pillarbashing on the Dead Horse Gully field about 35km north West of Coober Pedy.
It was getting late and being the ‘ol fulla’(Lochy from World Class Opal) was tired and hungry but the young fulla (Shannon from Kimberley Opal), was champing at the bit to go and check an old abandoned claim on 15 Mile.
Lochy wanted to go back to town for food but Shannon convinced him with “nah we’ll just jump down that old cave in claim and there’ll be another cave in and it will be full of shells!” Given the distances involved, they decided to travel the 20k’s to 15 Mile for a quick ‘bash’
They arrived and descended the old claim where they had found 30k over a couple of months of work about 20 years back. Armed with the new, lightweight and powerful battery powered UV torches, the hungry opal hunters started checking over the old workings afresh. There was quite a bit of interesting trace and they had probably found a few hundred bucks worth of skin shells after half an hour of searching..
This mine is enormous, it spans 300 metres long by about 70 metres wide and the main level has been removed to a spine chilling degree.. At one end of the claim, there is a gargantuan cave in the size of a very, very large house. This happened while the miners with the tunnelling machine that did most of the work were still IN the mine!
According to a first hand account from one of the partners, they were tunnelling away as normal when they noticed dirt falling from the ceiling indicating major movement above. They promptly backed the machine out of the affected area thinking some of the roof may collapse. Shortly afterwards, a cave in of horrific proportions sunk maybe 20% of the entire claim a whole 20 feet with a deafening crash, crushing the pillars beneath like toothpicks and plunging them into darkness and horror as the mine filled with thick dust.
That was the last day those miners spent underground, the fear it struck into their hearts seemed to cure them of opal fever. God save the opal hunter from such a horrible fate.. Although it could certainly have been much worse.
At any rate, Lochy was at one end of the claim chipping away when Shannon came scurrying excitedly from a couple of hundred metres away down the labyrinth of caverns, “Oi! We’re effin rich man… seriously… There’s heaps of these and it’s a massive pocket! “ pulling a handful of stunning fully opalised shells with beautiful dark crystal bars from his pocket.
Lochy quickly left his bit of trace to lend his pick to the situation.
It was uncanny, exactly as Shannon had said at Dead Horse Gully a hour or so before, they went down and found a newly collapsed area and there was a massive bed of shells exposed in the roof. They didn’t need a shovel, just several hours of picking from the roof and picking up and breaking level lumps on the floor.
Lochy went up to see what they could use to carry all of the opal out and all he could find was an old sleeping bag, they filled it up along with several other makeshift containers. Pulling the bag full of opal level to the surface late that night proved a dangerous job due to the belled out shaft and extreme fatigue from the extraction work, but it got done without casualties.
Back in Adelaide and a full week of clipping and cleaning later, some stunning gems were emerging. Graceopal.pty.ltd eventually donated a 170k fossil opal collection, mostly from the Old 15 Mile find, to the South Australian Museum under the Cultural Gifts tax offset scheme. The brothers have dedicated these items their late Dad Kevin who introduced them to the fascinating world of the outback opal hunter.
Most of this opal has been sold rough or set into precious metals at worldclassopal.net and kimberleyopal.com where some is still available.
Here’s hoping for another strike like this or better for the company. It certainly makes life in the desert more exciting and rewarding.
Thanks for reading, watching and for being interested in the amazing phenomenon that is Australian opal!
Wow ! Congratulations on that for sure ! That was some dazzling material no doubt.
I’d love to get my hands on just a small parcel of rough like that.
Absolutely amazing !
Hearty congratulations!!
That's a once-in-a-lifetime pocket, you blokes. It's an a-m-a-a-a-a-z-i-n-g parcel.
When I was working (mining) at the Southern end of 'Zorba' Field near the New Field around 1990, we were pillar-bashing an old ballroom about 25m wide by 20m across in an adjacent claim, some of which had all ready fallen. A labyrinth of tunnelling-machine drives went out from the ballroom like multiple wheel-spokes. On one edge of the ballroom a ledge was exposed and broken open at random up there was a semi-black-crystal shell similar to the one at 3.13, bottom L, but not as good. Even more strangely, it was sitting just below the level in a 3-inch wide band of gypsum and completely enclosed by it. It was the only opal we found there.
A shell.
Only ONE shell, unlike the hundreds in the video.
It was surrounded completely by gypsum and only exposed by an utterly random fall and break in the gypsum band. I scrounged around in the dirt on the ground and found the piece that had broken off. In hindsight, I wish now that I had dug it out and left it in host rock as a display specimen. It would have been pretty good; we never found a shell in gypsum, before or after that..
Only one Chinese buyer showed any interest in it at the time and we knew nothing about semi-black opal back then so we took the offer of $2,000 for the 2 pieces.
Undersold it, for sure 😢😬.
Do you have any of the dark shells @ 3.13 left for sale, please?
Awesome! Thanks for sharing! The experience of the fields really stays with you hey.
I have only a couple of stones left and haven’t decided what to do with them yet, suffice to say they aren’t for sale for now, but may be soon, probably depending on what we find next week haha..
@@Opaldigger Thanks for the quick reply.
I've just returned to Adelaide from LRidge where things are very quiet. Not many blokes mining. Coincidentally, I was able to buy a small parcel containing several of those smaller, almond-shaped opalised freshwater shells that they find over there, but nothing like the quality (or volume) you found.
I noticed a nice green belemnite in the stuff you gouged. Was it clean? Did you leave it as a specimen or polish it?
@@mikeoliver5671 Nice! The pipe went ‘as is’ to the museum. Not sure what they’ll do with it.
I love Old Zorba shells, they’re sparse as you indicated but have a unique colour spectrum and are often stunningly bright.
@@Opaldigger reynolds ridge gives up good colour crystal shells, we pulled quite a few out when i took angel and lindi there in 2020, they were only small clusters though, but very nice clean crystal,
Okay! You guys have me hooked. I am happy to subscribe. Really super looking opal fossils! Truly.
Hey thanks! Sorry I just saw your comment!
Its incredible the kind of colour that the shells can have, rivals even Lighting ridge in my honest opinion
Thanks for watching! Yes we have often thought the same, Old 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 Mile, in particular have stunning shells that could often easily be mistaken for LR material if it weren’t for the shell shapes etc.
Spectacular! They are alive...
Cheers! Haha, the miners, and the opal!
@@Opaldigger Jaw dropping!!!
Bad asss opal. Great shots.
Thank you! Can't wait to make some more, fingers crossed!
I love a good color bar
LOL, nice red and blue harlequin on jet black potch would be nice..
Insane haul!
Opal is the most valuable. It speaks words and phrases in a fire of style. You can have some. If it is in your lifestyle.
Thanks! Crazy to think we were walking just a few feet under it 20 years ago!
Once again amazing finds beautiful people and nice music. Can I come work for you one day
Cheers! Sure mate, we are just a small operation but Coober Pedy is always up for visitors with heaps to see and do.
WOW! some gemmy material! And such a nice mix of shells, crystal, dark, light, jelly. What a haul! Is that all from the one spot?
Thanks! Yes mate, all within about a ten metre radius more or less.
@@Opaldigger that's frikken epic!
Can I buy some for a final rub?
Sorry, pretty much all gone! There’s some jewelry left but the rough went fast. We are only publishing now for security reasons as you can likely understand.