Precious opal GENERAL INFORMATION By the noble or precious, are transparent or translucent massive variety of opals, which have a characteristic internal brilliant play of reflected light. As a jewelry material is used, and some varieties of common opal, whose value is determined by the extent and beauty of coloring. The name of the stone comes from the Latin «opalus», which means the precious stone at all, or from the Sanskrit «upala». Opal since ancient times, is considered one of the most beautiful stones and in support quoted by Pliny: "The disgrace, you can see the flames of fire carbuncle, gorgeous purple amethyst, emerald green sea, all raznotsvetiya gathered together in an incredibly colorful mixture. Some of its colorful opals are not inferior to the artist's palette, the other - the flame of sulfur or tongues of fire burning oil. " Precious opals have been known in Europe as early as the Roman Empire and very much appreciated. Carpathian opals were mined as early as I c. BC. Oe. and through the Byzantine Empire penetrated the markets of Europe under the name Eastern. In the past, precious opal was considered a healing stone that protects against eye diseases. In the XIX century. Opal's popularity has declined because of the belief that he supposedly brings bad luck. The peculiarities of color and optical effects are the following main varieties of precious opal white opal - light colored, transparent to the play of light in a light-blue colors, black opal - black or very dark purple, blue, green or burgundy color with a bright playing mostly in the red, green and blue colors, harlequin - Opal with a uniform color spotted with a predominance of red, "cat's eye" - a rare type of precious opal with concentric zonal bright green tints, fire (flame, sunlight) Opal - from hyacinth blue-red to honey-yellow with a fiery game, dzhirazol - blue and white translucent opal with color play in red, royal opal, opal is a unique kind of Austrian with an external, almost painted area and a dark red or bronze core with a green border; leykozos-opal - milky-green with the game deep green and deep carmine color.