Bluestone Opal is a collection of my late father’s opal collection over 60 years. My father moved from Sydney to start a new life opal mining in Andamooka where he along with my mother mined opal for a few years. I went to school in Andamooka, South Australia and we lived in a small tin dwelling that was very hot in the summertime. As finding opal progressed, we moved to a house with underground area for coolness in summer which was a nice change.

We then moved to White Cliffs in New South Wales, where I went to school for a period of time and lived in a “dugout, which is an underground dwelling which is excavated into the side of hill. I had fond memories of big spiders and scorpions at times crawling along the ceiling in my bedroom. After a couple of years, my father and mother decided to move to Geelong as the mining income was unpredictable and unreliable at times to finance the family.

My father then became an opal buyer, purchasing rough opal, having it cut and polished into loose stones and selling it onto jewellers. My father dealt with opal miners, cutters and jewellery makers across the nation and internationally meeting and dealing with many types of industry groups. I have my father’s opal collection to sell which includes, cut stones, matrix, painted ladies, opalised pineapples and opalised wood.