Floating opal are a gorgeous piece of vintage jewelry and can give you many years of wear IF you buy a true vintage piece.  They are opal chips or chunks, encased in a blown glass globe topped off with a gold or silver cap.  There are many beautiful caps out there, but the most typical, and more desired cap is tulip shaped. 

BEWARE of items sold as VINTAGE when they are NOT.  A true vintage cap will have the bail attached SEPARATELY and not joined together as one piece.  VINTAGE floating opals are only ball or teadrop/orb shaped.  They never made them in a heart shape or a square!  Please buy wisely if you are looking for a truly vintage floating opals.  The only cap that has the bail attached to it is from the Edwardian era and I have a picture of that particular one listed.  If the GOLD is "plated" in anything other than 12K filled (marked clearly on the cap)-then chances are it's not a true vintage item.  Many floating opals are passed off as vintage, when they truly ARE NOT.  I have seen HEART SHAPED floating opals sold on the internet as "vintage".  These are "beads" that are sold by a company online.  The seller then applies their own cap and bale--and the cap and bale are usually 1 piece.  A true vintage floating opal is ONLY a teardrop shape OR round ball--no other shape should be considered vintage.  ALWAYS look for glue/cement residue--if this is present, chances are our piece was recently "put together" or "mended"   Please be careful!

VINTAGE floating opals are a rare find today.  The most beautiful floating opal in my opinion was made in 1931.  This particular opal has a makers mark that has 10-13-31 engraved on the top of the cap.  It states pat. pend. but it you go the to patent site there is something totally different listed under those numbers.  After much research, I have found that this is actually the date the pendant was made.  Floating opals were no longer made by the major manufacturers beginning in the late 1950s. 

ALL floating opals are different-some have chunks of opals, some have chips and some have a mixture of opal and other gemstones.  You can find them with GOLDstone, black onyx or blue opals primarily.  But the most beautiful is the iridescent white opals!  The opals can be in oil or water.  If they are in oil, they will float slowly and it they are in water, they will move alot faster.  Some opals do not appear to float at first, but when they globe gets warm the opals begin floating!
 
The globes in vintage floating opals should be ATLEAST 3/4 full of the opals and the oil should be FULL to the top of the globe. If the oil does not go to the top of the glass globe, then chances are some of the oil has leaked out.  You can carefully inspect the glass globe for breaks or holes, even though most of the time, they will leak out at the very top of the glass globe, right under the cap which is hard to detect.  If the metal has a greenish tinge to it, more than likely some of the oil has leaked out.  If the opal chips do not go to the very bottom of the glass globe, then chances are it's NOT a genuine VINTAGE floating opal.

There are also floating "aurora borealis" sets out there, which many do confuse as FLOATING OPALS.  There are no OPALS in them--just little diamond/sequin shaped little spaklies floating around inside the glass orb.  The floating AURORA BOREALIS does sparkle more than the opals-it looks like little diamonds floating around.  Sometimes the water is "colored/dyed" blue or purple which hides the borealis somewhat and prevents the true sparkle to shine through.  I LOVE the floating Aurora Borealis!

The NEWER versions of floating opals have the glass globe, but inside is another glass tube in which the opals are inserted in to, thus preventing the opals from going all the way to the bottom of the glass globe. MOST vintage floating opals will also have some type of metal description on the top of the gold caps. Always make sure you are buying a truly vintage item, IF it is listed as VINTAGE!

MOST VINTAGE gold floating opals are 12K GF which is just as sturdy as today’s 14K gold.  These beauties were also made with very sturdy sterling silver, but a lot of them are made in white gold.  It’s hard to distinguish between the SS or white gold when just looking at the metal!  They were also made of genuine 14K GOLD. Here are some pics of the different styles!