How much is an opal worth

Two opals can sit in the same tray and differ in price by a factor of five. The gap hides nothing. A stone's worth comes from a handful of things you can see under a lamp, and once you know them you'll read a stone the way a buyer does.

What a buyer looks at

Colour is most of it, and not in the way people mean when they ask which colours a stone shows. Almost every Welo opal shows several. What matters is how much of the face fires at once and how hard, plus whether it keeps going when the light moves. A broad flash sweeping the whole stone is worth more than a scatter of pinpoints, and colour visible from every angle is worth more than colour that needs one lucky position. On a Dreymir piece the description calls these two things by name: the colour range and the colour strength.

Pattern comes next. Colour laid out in bands, in rolling flashes or in fine points all read differently at a glance, and some arrangements are simply rarer than others. Body tone changes the mood of the whole piece: a crystal opal lets light pass through and plays against the skin, while an opaque stone concentrates everything on its face. Size and shape close the list. Dreymir stones are unworked, so what you are buying is the silhouette nature left behind and the material that survived the trip out of the ground.

Why a raw stone costs what it costs

A polished opal competes against a shape the cutter chose; a raw one carries its own geometry, and no cutter improved it. That is why two stones of the same weight can sit far apart in price, and why the pieces here are one of a kind. Once a stone leaves the shop, its twin doesn't exist.

What 750, 585 and 925 mean

Those numbers are hallmarks, and they read in parts per thousand. 750 is 18 karat gold, 585 is 14 karat, 417 is 10 karat, and 925 marks sterling silver rather than any gold. A hallmark settles what the metal is worth. It says nothing about the stone, which for an opal pendant is where nearly all of the value sits.

The chains at Dreymir are stainless steel and the cords are waxed, so you'll find no gold stamp on either. A Dreymir piece puts its value in the stone and in the setting that holds it.

Ethiopian and Australian, priced differently

Rarity looks different in the two big origins. How much is an Ethiopian opal worth covers the Welo material this shop works with, hydrophane behaviour included, and How much is an Australian opal worth covers black, boulder and crystal stone together with the trade vocabulary that prices them.

Keeping the value

Worth only survives if the stone does. Water, heat and fast drying are what damage an Ethiopian opal, and the whole routine fits on one page: how to care for your opal. If you are shopping, the collection shows every piece available right now.