Magdalena (Opal town)

We went to Magdalena yesterday. Very easy drive from here (I only missed that Nogales/PV exit once and had to circle around). Took about 2 1/2 hours. The town is very nice. You can tell there is money there and everyone has jobs. They take pride in their town. It reminds me of Tequila except there are Opal shops and factories all over. We didn't get there early enough to take an opal mine tour however we will return again. The women bought opal jewelry and my step-father bought some raw rocks to cut and polish himself. There is also lots of obsidian jewelry and carvings. We spent about 2 hours looking around then headed to Tequila which is about 15 minutes away.

We took some visitors to Magdelena again yesterday. We saw this interesting restaurant sign:

Hi CB. Esposa would like to know : What was the opal quality like and, do you think they'd do custom work. Gracias. Nice resto sign. I wonder what the scrap value would be. If that place was Whalley ud have to insure it, jajaja.

If opals are of interest, a couple of articles about Mexican opals:
http://opals.mexicogemstones.com/
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/1532-mexican-fire-opals
http://www.mexicanamber.org.uk/mexicanopal.php

Hi Bob,
What time is the tour? Would like to go and see all of this, looks great.

CBob - Was that plane driven AFTER the owner took the Tequila tour FIRST? LOL

Maybe an overloaded dope plane that the owner of the bar was sentimental about.

viajero wrote:Maybe an overloaded dope plane that the owner of the bar was sentimental about.

With a pilot that was high on the product! LOL

Based upon Bob's reports on Magdalena, we made a point of including a visit when we went to Tequila and Amatitan.  One certainly can be overwhelmed by the availability of opals in many shapes and colors.  Strictly a personal taste thing but we really didn't see any jewelry settings that jumped out at us.  We would be inclined to purchase polished stones but would have to educate ourselves on just what makes for high quality opals before taking the plunge.  Personally, I was very impressed with some of the obsidian statues but the ones I really liked showed my champagne tastes and I was concerned about making sure I got them home in one piece.

We did find a piece that we both liked at a price we were willing to take a chance on packing in our luggage.  As you can see, it made it home in one piece:
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Our photo album from Magdalena: https://plus.google.com/photos/118146709599975173363/albums/5981970651561989697

One word of caution, we have a small collection of stone masks:
https://plus.google.com/photos/118146709599975173363/albums/5792539296248824929
and saw similar masks in Magdalena.  It is our belief that they are bringing these up from Tecali de Herrera and not making them in the area.  The prices were noticeably higher than those found in Tecali, Puebla or Oaxaca.

Very nice!!!