Opal Minded

Opal Minded is an opal company with an opal boutique in The Rocks in Sydney, Australia, which has grown out of a familial tradition of opal mining.
Its roots go back to just after the end of the World War II, when John Benny, a Polish immigrant aka Jan Wojciechowski (1925-2007), started to look for gold in the Tanami Desert in Australia's centre. At the end of the 1950s he moved onto full-time opal mining in Coober Pedy in South Australia. In 1972, after the encouragement by Des Burton, who was responsible for rejuvenating the boulder opal industry of Australia, John Benny relocated his whole family consisting of wife, Zofia, and three children, Diana, Ronald and John, to Queensland opal mining fields. He devoted the rest of his life to mining, cutting and collecting opals.
In 1989, his son John Benny (aka John Bernard) assisted his father in opening the National Opal and Gemstone Museum in Canberra . Its main goal was to house John Senior's collection of opals, possibly the world's largest . It was the first time the Benny family opals were sold directly to the public.
Having moved out of the National Opal and Gemstone Museum, in 1990, John Bernard opened another retail outlet at The Earth Exchange, a mining museum at the heart of The Rocks in Sydney. It specialized not only in samples of opal jewellery, but also mineral specimens, fossils and educational products related to earth science. In 2005, Opal Minded moved to 55 George Street, next to the Old Sydney Holiday Inn, this time focused solely on Australian opals and Australian opal jewellery.
Opal Minded continues its mining tradition with John Bernard, John Benny's son, mining opal fields in the area of Jundah, renowned for boulder and black opals as well as rare and colourful pipe opal .

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