Famous Opals
RED COSMOS
It often happens that great stones are not always found by the original claim holder . There are many stories where the second or third owner has found a great stone in the patch . The discovery of “Red Cosmos” is one of them . It all happened on 9 July 1988 at one of the new Carter’s rushes . The area had originally been discovered in 1970 by Art Carter, an enterprising American businessman, who had fallen in love with opal . Although not related, two miners by the name of Baker bought the claim after the original owners believed there was none of the patch left they had been working on .
Little more than half the claim had been worked when they took it over, and except for a long slide that the original owners had driven through and found nothing, no interest had been taken in it . With their experience, they worked parallel along the slide for 15ft, getting opal almost all the way and wondering how the original owners could have possibly missed it . They had been digging out opal for days, when one morning an incredible gem fell out of the wall at their feet . They were astonished by the size and brightness of the stone, even before they had picked it up .
It was the thickness of the colour bar that attracted their attention and on close examination they found that it was also naturally jointed . There was another piece, but where was it? Looking up, they saw the other piece looking at them in the wall where they had been working, still embedded in the slide . It looked so beautiful sitting there in its natural state they said that they wished they’d had camera to record it .
The excitement was too much, even for experienced miners like them, and they called it a day . They had found a once in a lifetime gem . Up in the daylight the colours almost mesmerised them and they were little better when they first brought the two pieces to me to be photographed . They wanted a record of the gems in the rough as they had come out of the ground, and after cutting, they came back on two occasions to have them photographed .
I must admit that at first I didn’t share their optimism as to both of the stones cutting so clean, with so little loss, although I never said as much . I didn’t want to dampen their spirits . Had I done so I would have been proved wrong . They cut two beautiful clean stones . The grey scum that often covers the top of such gems lifted as clean as a whistle, exposing broad red ribbon like patterns flowing across the large stone and to a lesser extent, smaller ones across the other piece . The final weight of both pieces was 725 carats and they were bought by a well known German dealer for an undisclosed sum .
Seda Opals has a piece of this opal for sale in investments opals on Opal Auctions! Visit Opal Auctions for further information!