Idaho Opal
Located a few miles East of Spencer on a mountain-top, the Spencer Opal Mines are a family operated
business. Spencer Opal Mines has a shop in Spencer open during the summer season with the mine open to the public
on holiday weekends .
The Opal is Hydrothermally deposited inside hollow geodes in successive layers making Spencer Opal ideal
for triplets as the thin layers of extremely high quality precious opal are very transparent with great color intensity.
To make a triplet the opal is ground perfectly flat parallel to the fire layer until the intense fire shows
completely across the surface. Then a flat piece of black Basinite or obsidian is epoxied to the flat fire layer.
The opal is again ground flat on the opposite side until the fire layer is exposed and shows its greatest intensity
against the black background. At this time the opal should be about the thickness of a
hair. A Crystal cap is applied with epoxy and the opal is ground to its final shape.
Thus is an Idaho Opal Triplet created.
Idaho Opal Spencer, Idaho. This picture illustrates some of the wide variety of colors and shapes
that are available at Outback and you can see it is truly remarkable. The price of good quality Spencer Opal triplets range from $5.00-$500.00+.
