**Please note that when purchasing a stone, we do not send just the stone itself. In purchasing a Mine Stone, you are reserving that stone in order to work with one of our custom designers to build the perfect ring for your stone!
Welcome to the “Staghead Mine”! The mine is home to our hand-selected collection of ethically sourced, extremely unique, and rare gemstones. These stones were curated because they cannot be found anywhere else and possess outstanding qualities that deserve to be highlighted by truly custom rings!
Start With Your Stone!
Purchasing a one-of-a-kind stone from the mine will reserve that stone, allowing you to design the ring of your dreams around a once-in-a-lifetime stone and create a truly meaningful symbol of your love!
Shortly after purchasing, you will be emailed by one of our custom ring designers to get started on the design of your dream ring. Once you have finalized your design, please note that custom commissioned rings always have the possibility of taking longer than our standard 8 week lead time as designing a new ring takes time and extra care to ensure we can make the ring you have envisioned come to life.
“Nerissa” - 1.15ct (9.35x6.55x2.75mm) Oval Lightning Ridge Black Opal
"Nerissa" is a black opal mined in Lightning Ridge, Australia that displays gorgeous green and teal play-of-color. This incredible color phenomena is caused by small silica spheres within the structure of the gem diffracting light. It is much like the sun and rain combining to make a rainbow or white light shining through glass and creating a spectrum of color. Play of color can include every color in the rainbow, although some colors like green and blue are more common than red. The size of the spheres within the opal will help determine the color it flashes - small spheres reflect blue while larger spheres reflect red. Black opals are not necessarily black stones - instead they are named after their relatively dark body color. Black opal is the most prized variety of opal in the world.
Opal has a Mohs hardness of 5-6.5. The Mohs Scale is a system used to grade the hardness of minerals (resistance to scratching) ranging from 1 to 10. For reference, diamonds are rated 10 on the Mohs scale, as they are the hardest mineral and can only be scratched by other diamonds. Talc has a rating of 1 on the Mohs Scale and can be easily scratched and crushed. Stones that rank seven or higher are best for everyday wear. We recommend setting this stone in a protective setting such as a bezel setting.
Read more about opals on the Staghead Blog here.
This stone is photographed in professional studio lighting that mimics natural sunlight of 5500 degrees kelvin and videoed outdoors the same.
For care and cleaning, we strongly recommend using soapy water and a soft brush as the most trustworthy way to clean your jewelry and avoid Ultrasonic and Steam cleaners. We also suggest avoiding extreme heat as it has the potential to harm the color variation of your stone. To be safe, remove your jewelry while enjoying a soak in the hot tub or steam in the sauna! You will also want to avoid strong household chemicals and cleaners such as bleach.
**We do not reserve stones for any customer expressing interest in a particular stone. You must complete the purchase of the stone in order to save and reserve it for yourself! For liability reasons we will require a signature confirmation upon delivery of your custom ring with your Mine Stone regardless of the shipping option, you select at checkout.**
**Please note that when purchasing a Mine Stone we do not send just the stone itself. In purchasing a Mine Stone, you are reserving that stone in order to work with one of our custom designers to build the perfect ring for your stone! We are artists, not stone dealers, and our passion is working alongside our clients in designing unique and beautiful rings. We love nothing more than seeing custom rings completed and a clients dream realized!**
