18K Gold Black Opal Ring - Oval Cabochon - Scroll Crown - UK Q

Black Opal in an Openwork Scroll Crown - 18K Gold

An oval black opal sits high in six rounded claws at the centre of this ring, ringed by a crown of small polished gold scrolls and beads that catch the light around it like a frill. The band splits below the head into two arms with an open pierced panel between them, so the whole setting reads as light and airy despite the size of the face. It is worked in solid 18K yellow gold, hallmarked twice on the inner shank - 18K on one side and 750 on the other. Explore the rest of the 14K & 18K Fine Gold collection.

What makes an opal an opal is not colour but movement. The stone is made of microscopic silica spheres stacked in an orderly grid, and light bending through that grid splits into spectral flashes that shift as the stone turns - the effect gemmologists call play-of-colour. This one runs strongly to blue and green, with streaks of emerald cutting diagonally across a deep teal body and smaller sparks of orange, pink and gold appearing at certain angles. Because the underlying body tone is dark rather than milky, the colours read far more vividly than they would against a pale background; that dark-bodied material is what the trade means by black opal, and it is the most prized of the opal family. More on how stones came by their reputations is on our JewelWhy™ pages.

FAQs

1. What makes a black opal different from other opals?
Not the colour of the flashes but the darkness of the background they sit against. Opal is graded on body tone - how light or dark the base material is, independent of the play-of-colour running through it. White or milky opal scatters light, so the spectral colours look pastel and soft. A dark body tone absorbs the stray light instead, and the flashes leap off it. The same colour play that reads gently on a white opal reads electric on a black one, which is why dark-bodied material has always commanded the highest prices in the opal trade.

2. Why does the colour move when I turn the ring?
Because it is not pigment. Opal is built from silica spheres packed in a regular three-dimensional lattice, and when those spheres are close to the wavelength of visible light they diffract it, splitting white light into its component colours. Which colour you see depends on the angle between your eye, the light source and the lattice - so as the stone tilts, different colours flare and fade. Sphere size sets the range: smaller spheres give blues and greens, larger ones produce the rarer reds and oranges. It is an optical effect, which is why no photograph ever quite captures it.

3. What does opal symbolise?
It has one of the most contradictory reputations of any gem. The Romans called it opalus and ranked it among the most precious stones, believing it held the virtues of every gem whose colours it contained. That reputation collapsed in the nineteenth century after Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein, in which an enchanted opal loses its fire and its owner dies - a plot device widely misread as folklore, and enough to depress European opal sales for decades. The Australian discoveries revived it. Today opal is October's birthstone and the traditional gift for a fourteenth anniversary. More on our JewelMotif™ page.

4. Is opal too delicate to wear?
It needs more thought than a sapphire, but far less than its reputation suggests. At Mohs 5.5 to 6.5 it can be scratched by quartz - which includes ordinary household dust - so it is not the ring to wear for gardening or washing up. It also dislikes sudden temperature change and prolonged very dry air. Against that, the six claws here hold the stone securely and the raised setting keeps it clear of most knocks. Treat it as a dress ring rather than an everyday band and it will be fine.

5. Why does the frame have so much open space in it?
Openwork does real work on an opal. Light entering from the sides and beneath brings out more of the play-of-colour than a solid closed-back setting would, and the pierced crown gives the ring a wide face without the weight of solid gold. The practical trade-off is that pierced galleries collect dust in the gaps, so a soft dry brush every few weeks keeps everything bright.

6. Does it make a good gift?
An opal is a genuinely personal gift because no two are alike - the colour pattern in this stone exists once. It carries an October birthday and a fourteenth anniversary, and it arrives gift-ready. Our JewelGift™ philosophy is built around pieces that outlast the occasion rather than mark it and fade.

How to Style It

An opal changes with the light, so give it room to perform - wear it alone, on the index or middle finger, and let the hand stay otherwise plain. Warm yellow gold elsewhere on the hand echoes the setting without competing. Blues and greens in what you wear will pull those flashes forward; black makes the whole stone read brighter. Browse the full 14K & 18K Fine Gold collection, or see JewelBuild™ for building a set over time.