🔎 UNIDENTIFIED WHAT IS THIS OPAL THING?

Hdgovroom

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Oct 26, 2021
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Reulte

Jr. Member
Jun 26, 2013
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103
Currently Central Texas
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Bounty Hunter Tracker IV
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All Treasure Hunting
I'd go with opal as well as non-artifact. I don't think it is shell, there's no muscle attachment, no sign of growth rings, and the color/shine is all over rather than on one side.

Opals are delicate (well, for rocks they are) so stop trying to figure out a use as some sort of tool.

Driveways can be neat places to search though a lot of times the find is imported with a load of stone. I remember finding a lot of worked flint at the edge of a parking lot where rock piles were dumped as kind of a berm before the laid down asphalt.

Great find.
 

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Kray Gelder

Gold Member
Feb 24, 2017
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12,578
Georgetown, SC
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Fisher F75
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I agree, it's opal. Virtually all opal found in the state is common opal. Excellent find, and it would be called a white precious opal, because of the variety of color it has. Find that gravel pit!

One question. Is your driveway crushed rock, or river-run? That will point you toward the right gravel pit or rock quarry.
 

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GoldieLocks

Bronze Member
Dec 28, 2019
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Nevada
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I agree, it's opal. Virtually all opal found in the state is common opal. Excellent find, and it would be called a white precious opal, because of the variety of color it has. Find that gravel pit!

One question. Is your driveway crushed rock, or river-run? That will point you toward the right gravel pit or rock quarry.
There are very similar shells forms clams, etc, all over the edges of Bremerton Island a little outside Seattle where my brother used to live.
 

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OP
OP
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Hdgovroom

Jr. Member
Oct 26, 2021
25
31
Thanks. Ok, no more tool. I think I can be satisfied with a big ole opal. My driveway is both crushed rock and a variety of rocks collected in the Columbia Gorge (mostly). Wish I knew exactly where it came from.
 

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Clay Diggins

Silver Member
Nov 14, 2010
4,885
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The Great Southwest
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It does look like a nice piece of precious opal. I doubt it's a native rock though. Washington state does have some opal deposits, like most states, but the native Washington opals are either common or fire opal. This is precious opal and very much resembles the material from Coober Pedy, Australia. It could have come from elsewhere but that's my impression from the photo's you shared.

It appears that it has been rough worked by a lapidary. The rough work is done on opals to discover the best cuts from the stone. I suspect it was dropped somewhere by a stone cutter or jeweler and ended up in your driveway.

Nice find. If you decide to have it cut please share the results with us.
 

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