At Aussie Treasure Chest we buy cut and sell some the finest quality Lightning Ridge solid opal that you will ever find on the internet. Whilst I work the front end, my husband is always in background. He is the one that does most of the cutting and polishing  Over the years he developed his skill so far, that it is more an artform than a process.

Anyway we have been involved in the gem industry for quite some time now. It all started as a hobby a few years ago. We both liked opal but couldn't afford to buy cut stones, so we joined a lapidary club and learnt how to cut opals ourselves. We would buy cheap low-grade rough opal from gem shows and the like. We would then take it to the club house to cut in the vain hope of finding that priceless opal that somebody else had missed. Unfortunately that never happened, but we managed to find and cut some half decent opals. I still have one of the very first opals we acquired set in to a ring that I wear everyday. Anyway our collection grew and grew. After a while we had built up quite a few thousand dollars worth of opal, so we started to sell it locally at markets and directly to custom jewelers. The jewelers loved our opals so much that we started getting phone calls from jewelers wanting more and more of our stock.

I could go on about our life story but I don't want to bore you all to death. Suffice to say that now we cut and sell about 30-40% of our own opals the rest has already been cut by the opal cutters in Lightning Ridge.
We buy all of our opal either directly from the miner who dug it out of the ground or the cutter. So what I and saying is that you are dealing pretty much direct from the miner to you.

If you know anything about the gem industry, you would know that by the time any gemstone has got to the customer it has probably changed hands 5, 6, 7, even 10 times. Everybody taking a slice of the pie. No wonder an opal that a miner got paid $500 for ends up retailing for over $5000

We have one of the largest and most diverse selection of Australian opal you'll see anywhere on the web and we are building all the time. There is something for everybody taste and budget. From lovely opals starting at around $10 to opals worth $10s of thousands.
We have many years experience in the industry - cutting, wholesaling and retailing opal - you can rest assured in the knowledge that you are dealing with highly reputable opal specialists. Ebay has been very good to us as well as our new customers and friends that have joined the Aussie Treasure Chest Family.

We offer excellent value to our customers by purchasing rough opal directly from the opal mines and cutting it on the premises.
We specialise in the world famous Lighting Ridge black and crystal opal. We also have a small but growing selection of Queensland boulder opal.

Why not take home a beautiful and unique piece of Australia today!

We pride ourselves on exceptional customer service, and describe our opals honestly and fairly.
Our photographic process starts with a Canon 30D digital SLR camera coupled to a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. We one 30w halogen lamp for directional lighting and will sometimes us a second lamp for shadow reduction. Our aim is duplicate what the opal will look like in daylight conditions.We do not enhance our photographs but we will make slight adjustments to the lightness of the photograph so it matches the base tone of the opal. Tnis is because the photographic process tends to underexpose the opal and therefore missrepresent the opal, and make it look darker than it actually is. With all that in mind, it is important to know that the photographic process cannot capture the full and true beauty of an opal. On the flip side it can sometimes be difficult to get the photograph to look exactly that same as the opal, and you must allow for some variation. Also opals do look different on different monitors. That is why not only do have up to 10 pictures we also have full descriptions detaling, Colour, Brilliance, Base tone, weight, size. Go to "How opal is Valued" for a full explaination of each of these terms.

Go on give us a try! And become one of our many 100s of satisfied customers!