$50K Opal is Worth More Than This Miner has Made in his Entire Career | Outback Opal Hunters

pete and sam are chasing the most valuable opal in the world black opal last season the partnership hit an all-time low it was a pretty hard season pete did his shoulder he went backwards in the money department not much at all mate didn't it really definitely crossed my mind just to go to a normal nine to five job i can't see fans sticking around if we don't find any money this season's all or nothing for me um don't find anything it's hard justify to keep going we need more opal to get some more cash to finish this place off so we're going to go hard season target we're going big this year yeah big mate that's huge yeah we go over 100 all right hundred thousand then we can do it i reckon haven't seen anything but in this sort of dirt you've got to wash it you won't see it it's a 20 kilometer drive back to pete's wash plant with their first 15 cubic meters of dirt this season tomorrow this dirt will be all washed down to maybe a cubic metre or two and then we'll uh take that back to town and sort through it and hopefully there'll be some gems in there after washing a truckload of dirt pete and sam are left with one ton of washed rocks to check for gems the idea is to spread it one stone thick and uh any colour will just shine like a rainbow a bit of potch in it hey money but just a few bits of pot colorless opal stones known as potch are often found near valuable colored opal oh there's a big one oh so that's a that's a good chunk of poach there there's no color what you need is that color on that on that size stone oh that's a nice size no he holy have a look at that [Music] that's um that's hitting the jackpot right look at that look at it look at it that's big money 50 grand plus easy mate could be double that finally finally the one we've been looking for in gem quality opal size and a full range of colors are king this one has both be interesting to see if you get an offer on it like that in the raft yeah yeah see a couple of little lines on it yeah because if you rub it and those lines are in the color it's worth it it's just an interesting specimen worth maybe five grand or something maybe but if it faces up it'll be 10 times 15 times that 100 000 i wanted to get this year to get this wash plant up and running convince sam that it's a good idea to stay and finding this stone it could get us to that target i don't know i'm hoping we're still not um not sure the exact value of it it's hard to tell in the rough when it's not rubbed but in the rough i think we decided around 20 grand 20 000 as is or cut and polished as much as one hundred thousand dollars but cutting and polishing the stone comes with its risks do i rub it or don't rub it you know it could turn into a hundred thousand or it could turn into 10 000. what are we going to do all right you've got to aren't you love it i'm going to rub it i'm in the tree that's exactly what it is are you sure about this yeah for the first time in his short mining career sam has found a monster gem in the tail out valued at twenty thousand dollars in the rough cut and polished it could be worth as much as 100 000. so you're just going to take that grey off the top yeah just going to take that bit off have a look and then then they'll take the top off i think it's a big gamble if pete grinds off the color or shows that the stone has flaws its value will plummet a bit nerve-wracking having this sort of money in your hand it's um gets your heart pumping a bit hey like don't hold it online hold it more health pumping right it's coming off this is where it starts getting scary every time you take a bit of color off that's a thousand dollars let's stop and have a look you're getting nervous oh you just rubbed more and more color off what do you reckon well i think it's um time to stop yeah and uh have a real good look at it you know look you got that black pit there yeah yeah and that black is under the red i think we'll stop there so where are we reckon mate what do we what are the two why is it worth now there's 50 grand sitting there yeah yeah i'm convinced of that their opal is lightning ridge black knobby displaying a full range of colors it weighs 41 carats or 8 grams it's a partial rub bringing its value to fifty thousand dollars paid over 50 grand 50 grand more money in a single stone than sam has found in his entire opal mining career i think it's really good for sam to see what can happen the the potential of this mining venture one stone fifty thousand dollars that's just incredible and now he's seen that it can happen to us i was about to call it quits last season you know we'd had three tough years of not much so to finally see a gem come out in our first week this year can't ask for a better start than that [Music]

Channel: Discovery Australia

Views: 2,835,504

Rating: 4.9062643 out of 5

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Id: AKB2ThNkofY

Length: 7min 14sec (434 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020