From rough stone to finished piece, four steps, three continents.
The path
Every stone takes the same path
An opal is not manufactured. It is found, opened, cut and set. At each of these steps, what it becomes is decided.
We walk this path ourselves. That is why we can say where each stone comes from and whose hands it passed through.
The journey of the opal
Before an opal reaches us, it lies in the earth for more than a hundred million years. Four chapters that every stone has passed through.
Rain, desert, time
100 to 110 million years ago
Ancient rainwater seeps deep into the earth. In the hot deserts of Australia and Ethiopia it combines with silica, heat and minerals, a process that lasts millions of years. Time becomes matter, water becomes colour.
Formed under giants
65 to 100 million years ago
While giant dinosaurs moved through the landscape, the first opalising layers formed beneath their feet. Some opals still hold fossils from that time: petrified wood, shark teeth, bone, caught in shimmering light. Every stone carries a chapter of the earth’s history.
The birth of the play-of-colour
5 to 20 million years ago
Tiny spheres of silica arrange themselves in a perfect structure. When light passes through, it splits millions of times: green flashes, red fire, deep blue haze. No pigment, no dye, only pure light. The result is a play-of-colour that exists only once in the universe.
The moment it is found
today
After millions of years hidden in the ground, the opal is found one day. Miners read a barely visible line and the light that rests inside. A find is not chance. It takes courage, experience and a deep feel for the language of the earth. A journey of precision, care and responsibility.
From the mine in Australia into your hand. Four steps, and we were there at each one.
01Australia
Opals form where an inland sea lay more than a hundred million years ago: in the outback of New South Wales and Queensland. We go there ourselves. In Lightning Ridge we stand in the shaft when the rock is broken, and we see a stone for the first time in the moment it comes into the light. What we take with us, we have held in our hands first. No catalogue, no middleman.
02Hong Kong
The rough stone goes to Hong Kong. There it is cut under running water so it does not get too hot while it is worked. Step by step, until shape and height are right. In the end it is calibrated to a tenth of a millimetre.
That is the point where a find becomes a component: only a stone with a fixed measure fits a setting that will still exist next year. We sit at the table when it is decided what each stone will become.
03Brieselang
In Brandenburg every piece comes onto the table: scales, loupe, gloves. We weigh, measure and look at the setting before anything is shipped.
Every stone gets its stone passport, with shape, origin and measure. What does not pass the check goes back. Only then is it packed.
04With you
In the end, what counts is the moment the lid opens: the piece resting on cloth, beside it the card with your lines and the stone passport.
Five-year warranty, thirty days to return. If something is not right, write to us. Someone who knows the stones replies.
The same stone
On the left, the rough stone as it comes from the mine, and beside it the stones that will later go into a setting with it. On the right, the same piece, finished. Move the slider.
This piece comes from the house of FAERELLI, our sister brand in high jewelry. The stone follows the same path as every opal at Liberty Angels. What differs is the setting, not the stone.
Before
After
Where our stones come from
From the same sources as FAERELLI
Liberty Angels is the daughter brand of the house of FAERELLI, the opal house from which we take our craft and our origin. Every opal we sell comes from the same checked sources as the stones of FAERELLI: chosen with care, mined responsibly, checked for quality.
So you can trace the authenticity of your stone, every opal is GSB-certified, a certificate that comes straight from the quality standards of the house of FAERELLI.
A path we walk together
Masterpieces come from many hands
Thank you for walking this path with us.
It does not belong to us alone. It belongs to the miners in the shaft, the cutters in Hong Kong who give a stone its measure, and the goldsmiths who build the setting around it. Every collection comes from their skill and their patience.
What we add: we are there ourselves at every step. And we write down what is inside.
Theodor Kehler & Anton Kehler, founders
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