To our members
Just a reminder we have the Opal Association meeting on the 15 th January at 1 pm at 25 surfers av Mermaid waters QLD.
If you cant make it you are welcome to try a zoom meeting which was successful on our last meeting. I will send out the agenda and zoom details to morrow.
Kind Regards
Paul Sedawie
President of the Opal Association
I have been concerned for a while about the amount of treated Welo opal being passed off as natural black opal. There are numerous treated Ethiopian opals wrongly listed on the internet. Equally important they are also been sold in Australian retail shops and unfortunately also on the opal fields. I asked Natasha Patel, an honours graduate in gemmology (AIGS Thailand) to research on how to tell if the stone is natural or treated one is on the opal fields and/without access to laboratory testing equipment.
This is a copy of Natasha Patel’s research report – Natural Black Opal – Are You Asking The Right Question?
OPAL ASSOCIATION NEWS LETTER DECEMBER 2020
Wishing all members a happy healthy Christmas and a happy new year. While for many it has been a challenging year the positive is that on most of the opal fields the view seems positive with rough sales robust but higher end stones seems slow.
The show Outback Opal Hunters will be showing the opal fields of Yowah and Koroit early next year so it will be interesting to see the impact the show will have on this material.
TUCSON GEM SHOW.
The main gem shows AGTA ,GJX and the Tucson retail show has been cancelled. Some smaller shows haven’t cancelled as yet but traffic will be well down. The Holidome and Gem mall have cancelled their shows by 10 weeks.
CASH TRANSACTION
The bill for making it illegal to pay over 10,000 in cash has been rejected by the senate so hopefully it wont be brought back. Still interesting to see many retailers and restaurants not accepting cash payments so a cash less future will one day be a reality..
OPAL CERTIFICATES
It has been brought to our attention that a member Brendon has issued opal certificates on his company’s letter head with a retail price and the opal association members ship was mentioned on the bottom. Members are not allowed to use the opal association name and logo on certificates and no mention of a retail price should be mentioned. Any discipline actions will be taken at the next meeting.
USA BUSINESS STIMULUS
(Reuters) – The United States has made over $500 billion in loans to small businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and about $145 billion remains in the congressionally approved fund, the U.S. Small Business Administration and Treasury Department said Sunday.
This could be a reason why the internet has been booming with small business receiving on average 79,000 USD. Some jewelers I spoke to in USA confirmed they received funding and were buying rough opal. They call it a loan but its confusing as it’s a non repayable loan so I’m not sure how it works.
OPAL CERTIFICATES
There is still a strong demand for members to issue their own certificates on our letter head. Natassa Patel confirmed she will help with the course ,which members will have to pass before they can issue certificates.. Natassa is a honors graduate of the AIGS school and I have commissioned her to do some work for me with testing of natural and treated stones. I will send a Newsletter with some of her work so members can see the knowledge and understanding she has of opal.
OPAL MEETING
We will have an Opal Association meeting on the 15 January 2021 at 1 pm at 25 surfers av mermaid waters qld. We used Zoom at our last meeting and would ask members to try it out as it was successful.
Merry Christmas
President