I found this place from some guy handing out leaflets on the street corner advertising this place. I thought I'd stop by and see a real opal cutters' factory, located in the heart of the Central Business District of Sydney. The "factory" is located on the third floor of an old building. You gotta take a rickety old lift to get there, and then get buzzed in. They have tight security around here, with cages around everything, security angles recording from every possible angle, and locks on all items. The clerk sat me down and started pressing on opals, how they're the best, and how they're so rare and time consuming to produce. The pitch was a bit high pressure, with lots of questions about my opal preferences. As she gave me the pitch, I looked around and saw no opal miners, or opal cutting going on, just people moving around large quantities of opals in boxes and binders behind locked cages. But she did a great job of showing the crafting and cutting of an opal, where they come from, what they look like, how they're graded, etc. The clerk was full of great information. A little informative fact card would've been nice, I felt overwhelmed with all the great info.
When we got to view the opals, they were magnificent- they have a great selection of different types, shapes, colors, grades, and levels of shininess. The only drawback was the price. They wanted crazy high prices for the wares that they were selling, multiple times what I was expecting. I wasn't hoping to buy an opal the size of my fist. The weird thing was my flyer that got me in the door came with a 10% off coupon, then the clerk said things were 40-50% off, so it was difficult to get a straight answer on what things actually cost. They did have the largest selection of opals I saw while in Oz- loose or set, and the highest quality. If you need a huge opal, this seems like it'd be the place to go. If you're looking for something a bit more modest, I'd keep going. read more