Dan Newman, left, founder of Alaska Premier Auctions and Appraisals, and Nick Cline, a business partner, pose Friday in Anchorage with “Americus Australis,” believed to be one of the premium quality gemstones. most still in existence.
Mark Thiessen / AP
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Mark Thiessen / AP
Dan Newman, left, founder of Alaska Premier Auctions and Appraisals, and Nick Cline, a business partner, pose Friday in Anchorage with “Americus Australis,” believed to be one of the premium quality gemstones. most still in existence.
Mark Thiessen / AP
JUNEAU, Alaska – Nick Cline gets calls about all kinds of items people want to sell through the Anchorage auction house where he works. But he was caught off guard by a call he received last fall from a man saying he had “one of the largest opals in the world.”
“I was extremely skeptical but also extremely excited,” said Cline, a partner and appraiser with Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals.
According to the auction house, the opal, dubbed “Americus Australis”, weighs more than 11,800 carats and is one of the largest gem-quality opals in existence. It also has a long history.
Most recently, it was kept in a closet by Fred von Brandt, Alaska gold miner, in a closet in a home in Big Lake, north of Anchorage, Alaska gold miner and family with deep business roots. gem and stone business.
The opal is larger than a brick and is broken into two pieces, which von Brandt says was a method used decades ago to demonstrate gem quality.
Von Brandt said the stone had been in his family since the late 1950s, when his grandfather bought it from an Australian opal dealer named John Altmann.
Von Brandt said the decades-old opal was owned by his father, Guy von Brandt, who decided it had “been locked up long enough, that it was time to take it out into the world and see if it could generate interest. what”.
“He put me in charge of figuring out which direction we wanted to go when we parted ways with the stone,” von Brandt told The Associated Press.
The family, which has roots in California, displayed the stone at gem shows for many years, until the early 1980s, he said. His father later branched out into furniture and displayed it at his store. Mr. von Brandt eventually moved to Oregon and kept the stone “hidden style” for many years, von Brandt said.
Von Brandt said he brought it to Alaska over a year ago to consider the best approach to get it up for sale. He said he came up with Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals because he thought it would get more attention from the newer company than a larger auction house. The discount is set for Sunday.
Cline said the family has documents on the opal’s origins. During his research, he contacted Fiona Altmann, niece of John Altmann and general manager of Altmann + Cherny in Sydney, Australia.
Altmann said her grandfather, in his business dealings, regularly makes trips to Europe and America
Altmann said when Cline emailed her, she was suspicious; especially the name of the stone, which threw her. But she said she started digging and discovered “something in my grandfather’s handwriting with an image of an opal with the word ‘Americus Australis.'”
“I’m 100% certain that their provenance information is 100% accurate” because it matched the information she had, she said.
The auction house said the stone was discovered in the same field in Australia as the so-called “Olympic Australis” opal, which weighs 17,000 carats and is on permanent display in Altmann’s shop. According to Altmann’s company, Olympic was one of the stones that John Altmann and his partner Rudi Cherny acquired in 1956.
The auction company is seeking a minimum bid of $125,000 in Sunday’s auction. Cline said it was a “calculated risk,” with the company taking what it sees as a cautious approach in the hope of garnering the most attention. Cline said it was targeting a sale price of $250,000 to $350,000.
The sale included a smaller piece of the opal that von Brandt said his father had cut out for wear or display.
A spokesman for the Gemological Institute of America said they could not comment on the opal because they had not seen it. AP has reached out to others who are unresponsive or unfamiliar with the stone.
Altmann and von Brandt said they would love to see the opal in the museum. Von Brandt said he thinks the auction will be “both exciting and difficult, more for my dad than it is for myself.”
His father was a kid when the family bought the stone, and he had “a deeper connection than me,” he said.
Both have “a thrill of excitement,” says von Brandt. “I think it’s going to be good, and we’re optimistic.”
