Under a variety of banners, we have been dealing and trading in this industry for over 35 years and collecting gems, minerals and fossils for 47 years. We commenced opal cutting and dealing in 1966 and opened our first retail shop and opal cutting school in April, 1967. Although we were wholesaling cut opals we did not open our first wholesale business until 1968.

We traveled throughout Australia prospecting and collecting gems, minerals and fossils, whilst making new contacts to buy and sell Australian gems, minerals and fossils. In 1969 we traveled extensively through New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia collecting and selling our products. Naturally, one of our favourite haunts was Broken Hill, New South Wales, famous world wide for fine specimens, some of which we are proud to exhibit in our Galleries on the various pages.

In 1969, whilst on a prospecting trip to the north of Australia we discovered the now famous malachite, cerussite and pyromorphite deposit at Browns Prospect, Rum Jungle. At that time Australian Museums did not have funds to purchase gems and minerals and relied on the generosity of collectors to make acquisitions. We were able to trade minerals with museums and often, when we discovered new and unusual items, would donate examples to the museums to preserve our natural mineral heritage. We are proud of the certificates of recognition's for the donations we made as, today, the price of fine examples of gems and minerals has greatly risen and some items have become a valuable asset to those museums.

In 1971, I invented a process to set opal chips in calibrated ABS backings (requiring an injection moulding tool) using a thermosetting resin (epoxy) and was granted a patent on the process. We called the product "Rediset" and sold all we made. The main problem was with getting good quality opal chips. We also set a variety of colourful gem chips.

During the years between 1969 and 1976 we were active in purchasing and trading some of the finest minerals from Australian locations, especially from Broken Hill. Many of the fine Broken Hill minerals are now in Australian museums. One of the finest examples was what many Australians regard as the best specimen of mangano-calcite in the world. If you are lucky enough to own a copy of Minerals of Broken Hill, this beautiful specimen may be seen.

Amongst the localities we have mined is the Adelaide Mine, Dundas, Tasmania where we uncovered crocoite crystals up to 9" in length and large groups of crystals (many of these were donated to the National Museum of Victoria when I sold my personal collection to the same museum in 1974). My collection was reported as one of the greatest collections ever obtained to that date.

Back in 1972 we also commenced making injection moulding tools for the manufacture of "Crystal Showcases" a 1.5" cube acrylic box for displaying gems, minerals, fossils and rings. The invention of the ring jig insert in the box was an innovation which allowed the ring to be displayed in the box with the shank of the ring also visible. We became the first company to take out full colour advertising pages in the Australian Gemhunter Magazine, owned by a good friend and associate Cyril Kovac, now proprietor of CK Minerals. When it came to displaying and protecting minerals or gems it quickly became popular amongst Australian dealers and collectors alike. It remains the most popular gem/mineral/fossil thumbnail box on the market in Australia and now, via the internet, it is available to the world.

It was in 1976 that we started making a range of jewellery and souvenirs and designed a new injection moulding tool for making mineral stands. As our business grew we expanded into new areas and in 1980 commenced designing a range of Australiana figurines. These were initially made in sterling silver but, because of the demand, we later made a very important decision to expand the range and make the figurines in pewter. From 1980 to 1986 we made a total of 400 individual master patterns.

These were initially made by a sub-contractor but in 1985 we established our own mould making and pewter casting facility developing new mould making techniques for three-dimensional castings. Figurines mounted on gems and minerals soon became a popular range, and, together with figurines mounted in our "Crystal Showcases", we created an excellent range of gifts and souvenir lines which continue to sell to this day.

As the popularity of our fine pewterware grew we were able to invest in more injection moulding tools and became the leading supplier, in Australia, of high quality presentation and packaging products. First, there were a set of three larger boxes based on the original "Crystal Showcase" idea and then a dome and base set for the "Heritage Collection" of our fine pewter figurines.

We made our products interesting by including Australian gems and minerals in the diorama's we created. Gems and minerals were cheap in those days and we were able to make the diorama's with the inclusion of such colourful gems as opal, crocoite, chrysoprase, pyrite, orange calcite, galena, green fluorite, quartz crystals, smoky quartz and a host of others that we would give an arm and leg for today.

Our presentations were educational and included a full description of the gem or mineral. Each of the figurines depicting part of Australia's unique heritage of history, fauna, marine life and flora were adequately described to educate the purchaser. We mined malachite from Browns Prospect and purchased drums of pyrite from Peru, geodes from Mexico, amethyst from Brazil, quartz groups from various localities and chrysoprase from Marlborough, Queensland for mounting the pewter figurines.

I had never felt so proud when we had a phone call from some tourists from the USA wanting to buy opal. They did not have a means of transport to get over to see us and, as I have always had an interest in meeting people from other parts of the world, we made arrangements to take some opals over to show them. After an evening chatting they told us that, whilst travelling through a seaside town of Lakes Entrance in Victoria, they had purchased these fabulous souvenirs, "THE BEST WE HAVE SEEN!", which were so well presented and informative. I had to see them (I wanted to know what the opposition were doing); they unpacked them and to my delight, and amazement, they were our souvenirs. It's a small world and the internet has made the world smaller and brought us all closer.

We enjoy trading and if both parties can walk away believing they have both got a good deal then that is the way we want it. We are proud of the quality and presentation of our products and we strive to be better, maybe not the best, but the best we can be. We have always offered good service and quality of workmanship in the products we manufacture. Our eye for detail and ideas and concepts are well known in Australia.

Although we had stocks of overseas materials we were quickly running out of Australian materials which were the most popular as souvenirs in Australia. What did we do? We went prospecting again and discovered seventy deposits of gems and minerals and made contacts with miners for purchase of gems or minerals. In the early 1980's we had prospected in the Wave Hill area of Northern Territory, Australia and discovered huge deposits of prehnite, quartz geodes, smoky quartz geodes, amethyst geodes, agates and a number of other minerals. The potential of the area was enormous but the logistics of mining and managing the deposits were incomprehensible as it was at the northern edge of the Tanami Desert some 2,500 miles form our base in Melbourne.

Everything was hard to get out there; the nearest 'watering hole' (an Aussie expression for pub) was 160 miles away, not that that mattered, we had bore water close by. We later found that the town of Wave Hill, now renamed Kalkarindji, had a club called "Frank's Bar and Grill" - so we joined. It wasn't long before I got banned, and it wasn't for drinking, using abusive language being rude or fighting! I have a lot of stories to tell about my experiences in the bush, and from my travels overseas, that people who know me say I should write a book; I will one day - when I have time! However, if you and I ever get to meet I can certainly relate the tales to you in typical Aussie style over a few beers, or around a camp fire under the crystal clear Australian outback skies, experiences which I still long for.

The most amazing gem we discovered was a fascinating gem grade golden prehnite, perfectly transparent and extremely rare. Whilst the prehnite deposit is vast there is only one area where the gem grade can be obtained. It will be some time before I get back up to NT to get supplies as I have other commitments.

Because of the enormity of the project we needed to raise funds to mine the deposit and bring to the world some new and interesting gems and minerals. During the late '80's I was involved in prospecting for, and mining, rhodonite near Tamworth, New South Wales, with orders coming in from Asia for 40 tonnes per month. As we had several mining tenements, I wrote a proposal in 1988 to raise funds to establish a mobile mining plant to travel from mine to mine to extract sufficient materials to carry through to the next dry season in the north of Australia. The proposal also sought funds to establish a gem processing tourist attraction in Australia and a place where gem merchants could come from all over the world to promote their wares and buy and sell gems and minerals.

The economic situation in Australia at the end of the 1980's was bad, to say the least. All the high fliers of the early to mid '80's were falling flat. Our national hero who captured the treasured "America's Cup" (sorry about mentioning that - hehe) had become a fallen hero and Chris Skase was packing his bags to leave the country to fly to Spain and leave his problems behind. It was a bad time to raise funds and after almost a year of working on the proposal and promotion of it we were left with no ready cash but plenty of assets and little hope of mining the deposits. The only people to make any money out of the proposal were the legal eagles and accountants and we had wasted a year of our time in doing all the research essential for a genuine proposal.

One good thing did come out of all this and that was an idea I had to simulate gems and opals using computer generated images and holograms. At this time I knew nothing about computers but had an idea. I had an Apple IIe computer with a ZARDAK word processing software, yes with the old 5.5" floppy drive for drafting ideas but suddenly realised that pretty soon computers would be linked to laser copiers and printers. I made some colour copies of gems and opals and proceeded to remove the image from the paper onto other materials using heat. After all, the toners were plastic and were fused to the paper and my logic told me that if you can put the image on the paper you should also be able to get it off using similar heat. Using an old iron, I ironed the image onto fabrics, which I still have and, even after several washing and 12 years later, they are still visible on the material.

We applied for patents on "Simulated Gemstones" which were granted in 1991, and, over a number of years from 1991, proceeded to develop and perfect the process of simulating opal. Over $A2.5M was spent in Australia and overseas on patent applications, injection moulding tools and overseas travel to see whether anything similar was on the market. There wasn't. Patents are now held in Australia and USA.

With an investment from a Taiwanese investor In 1993 we moved our operation to Taiwan and worked there for a year trying to establish a jewellery range and making tools for mass producing the finished jewellery. We called the new gem "Opalus™" and you can view a range of jewellery by clicking on the Opalus™ rotating logo in the left column on the FRONT PAGE.

We are looking for oversees distributors for this unique fashion jewellery range and are currently working on new injection moulding tools for display packaging, promotional items and unique points of sale to promote the range.

Whilst developing the process it was necessary to learn computer graphics - everyone thought that I was too old to learn, but never tell me I can't do it. I learned Adobe Photoshop™, Adobe Illustrator™, QuarkXpress™ to make a range of unlimited random opal patterns. I then designed a range of random patterned holograms to test the process and finally developed a unique method of making the original plates. Using a variety of other materials I finally had a product which I was happy with. A year in Taiwan was enough for me and I returned to Australia to complete the process and raise more funds to mass produce the range.

It is never easy to be a pioneer but with perseverance I have dragged the project like an anchor to a stage where it is almost ready for release on the market with full back up promotional point of sale and new concept display packaging.

In 1994, I had a hip replacement as a result of an accident in 1989 and was up and walking in just a few weeks. The physios were surprised but I still had a dream to fulfill. I went back to Taiwan in 1995 and collected my tools, collection and materials. Upon returning to Australia, I set up a business making simulated opals and souvenirs using the techniques.

More to follow soon.......... as we find time. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us.