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Mexico has been the world’s primary source of fire opal for nearly 100 years. The Mexican fire opal deposits produce significant amounts of transparent to translucent, bright orange to orange-red material. Some of the transparent material is faceted, mounted in commercial jewelry, and described as “tangerine opal” because of its color. In the 1990s, Ethiopia became…

Fire opal has a Mohs hardness of 5.5 to 6, which is soft enough that it can be scratched by many objects that it might encounter during everyday wear. Fire opal also has a low tenacity, which means that it can easily be chipped or broken. Fire opal is best used in jewelry such as earrings, pins,…

The value of a fire opal is based upon the desirability and uniformity of its color, with yellow being on the low end of value and red being on the high end. Transparent stones are preferred over translucent stones. The best fire opal typically sells for prices that are much lower than the best precious…

Fire opals are cut in a variety of ways. Some are cut as faceted stones, others are cut as cabochons. The cutter decides how he/she thinks the stone will be most attractive. There is no rule for cutting fire opal. Transparent fire opals are most often faceted so that they can be illuminated by incident…

A few specimens of fire opal exhibit “play-of-color”. These specimens have both the fiery background color of a fire opal and the play-of-color of a precious opal. Some people call these special stones “precious fire opal”. The play-of-color can be tiny bright flashes of color when the opal is played under light, or a billowing…

Many people confuse “fire opal” with “precious opal”. So, here is a quick lesson on the three basic types of opal. The name “fire opal” is all about the bodycolor – fiery yellow, fiery orange or fiery red. It’s not about “flash”.