Why We Cut Yowah Nut Opals in Half – The $1.2 Million Discovery Channel Story

G’day everyone!

So many of you are asking why we sliced the Yowah nut opals down the middle in our record-breaking Outback Opal Hunters episode — the biggest opal haul in Discovery Channel history, valued at 1.2 million dollars. Here’s the real reason.

Yowah nut opals are the rarest opal formation on earth. These ironstone opal nuts look like ordinary brown rocks from the outside, but only about one in a thousand contains any colour at all. A crystal centre is roughly one in ten thousand, and something as spectacular as the Yowah Moon is closer to one in a million.

There’s no X-ray or scanner that can see inside them — the only way to know is to open them. Colour often settles at the bottom, so grinding the top is a gamble. That’s why we use a diamond saw and cut them clean down the middle. If you’re lucky enough to score a full internal crystal centre, at least then you’ll get the best colour on both sides, perfect matching pairs, and two finished halves are always worth more than one whole opal nut.

I’ve personally cut open millions of these Yowah nut opals over the years. Science has its theories, but the truth is — no one actually knows exactly what they were in all cases. I’ve got a story about it that would make your hair stand up, but that’s for another time.

Yowah is absolutely mind-blowing — it doesn’t just produce opal nuts, it also gives us pipe opal, seam opal, biscuit band material, wood and animal fossils, and so much more.

We mine them, cut them, and turn the very best pieces into stunning custom-made opal jewellery. We actually stock every type of opal from all over Australia — black opal, white opal, crystal opal, rough opal, fossils, you name it. But boulder opal is our true specialty, it’s what we love the most and where our heart lies. Especially Yowah and Koroit material.

If you’re searching for boulder opal, Yowah opal, Koroit opal, boulder opal jewellery, or beautiful opals for sale, you’ve come to the right place. Everything we sell is hand-selected and cut so you know exactly what you’re getting.

Come check out our collection at opalwhisperers.com — Yowah opal, Koroit matrix, boulder opal rough and cut, and custom-made opal jewellery all ready to ship.

Drop a comment if you’ve got questions — I love talking opal.

Cheers,

Isaac Andreou