Welo Opal Magnificent Beauty

Welo Opal, a major source of gem opal

Welo Opal is really pretty unusual for a major new gemstone to appear on the market. I only remember a couple in 40 years of this business. Tanzanite comes to mind. Cheap Chinese pearls is another.

It’s easy to forget that this is a once in a lifetime sort of occurrence but a frequently overlooked one is Welo Opal in Ethiopia.

The site was discovered in 2009 and the market has been slowly growing. Less known is that this is one of the largest opal deposits in the world. We’ll be seeing this material for decades or more.

Welo opals are about 1/10 the price of their Australian equivalents that we’ve become accustomed to and that’s led to some curious lore. Are they crap? Are they kidding? Where’s the fine print?

Welo Opal is Hydrophane

To the extent that there’s fine print, it’s that they are what’s called ‘hydrophane’. That means they absorb water like a sponge. They give it up like a sponge too so you can dry them out just as easily as you can get them wet. When they’re wet, they lose the opalescence and that’s, well, weird.

It’s easy enough to avoid by staying out of the pool with them, but it does freak people out and you can change the look if you soak them in wine or something else that leaves a residue. This property lends itself to smoke treatment to blacken the opal. To confuse things further, natural black opal is also mined.

This hydrophane property means that if the stone is exposed to shampoo, oils, soaps or other liquids that can leave a residue It may be damaged. If you sell this opal, your client must understand this very well. A disclaimer on the receipt seems advisable.

How to identify Welo Opal

Drop it in a glass of water and observe the body color change to water clear within 20 minutes. It will return to the previous state within a day or two.

This does not harm the stone at all.

Some stones reportedly react to atmospheric humidity by varied transparency according to weather conditions.

Then there’s the translucency. I like it, but they don’t generally have that white opaque background that people have learned is the look of most Aussie stones. I see it as adding depth and a 3-D look to the play of color. You can see into and sometimes even through the stone sort of like what used to be called crystal opals.

Opals are fragile, and Welo opals are no exception, but they’re far less prone to crazing. That’s the little spiderweb cracks that opals are famous for developing from just sitting around. One day they’re beautiful and the next they look like sugar cubes with play-of-color. There’s no real way to stop it and there’s no way to tell in advance if you’re stone is at risk.

We will undoubtedly see a lot more of this material in the market due to the very low prices and beauty; if end users can be well educated on the special properties, it has a future as a viable gem

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