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ERIC: I am speaking today with Bob and
Susan Thompson who operate the Opal Mountain Mine in Spencer Idaho.
Idaho is famous for things that come
out of the ground but many people would be surprised to know that you mine
opals in Idaho and that the Smithsonian has a huge chunk of your mountain
on display in the museum t here. Can you tell me about this?
SUSAN: Rock show Tucson / Approached
by Smithsonian and how impressed they are with quality. You finally
agree to give them some pieces.
ERIC:
Did you have any idea how big this would be when you started?
SUSAN: This was a retirement hobby
that has become completely out of hand. We have more buyers than
we can supply and everybody wants me to work harder. I want to
retire.
ERIC:
Can you tell us about the mining process and the equipment you use?
SUSAN: We started with some heavy
equipment pushing things back in a ____ acre circle. We had
___________ (describe equipment) Then we started digging using
_______________. We only went down 40 feet, but the deeper you go
the better the opal. The government estimated we had 46 years of mining
at this site. There could be anywhere up to ______or ______ million
dollars worth of opals in here.
ERIC:
Susan, you handle the sales. How do you sell your product?
SUSAN: We bought a general store
which we operate in Spencer not far from the mine. Selling the
opals in not the problem. (stop here as you would in a conversation) We
went on the QVC network one year. We had 1000 opal pennants with us and
they sold out in 4 minutes.
Eric:
Really
They invited us back in the fall and
we sold out again.
Eric:
Do you sell most of your opal retail?
SUSAN: We sell a lot of the opal
retail and the rest we sell to our wholesale customers.
We can’t keep up with the
wholesale orders any more so we just put them on a list and perhaps we
will increase production one day and be able to supply more.
ERIC:
Susan. You are in a very fortunate situation.
I want to go back to Bob... Business
would seem good. You are currently taking over $200 Thousand dollars
in opals from the mine every season. Could someone increase that to
a million dollars a season?
BOB: This mine has the ability
to produce a million dollars of opals yearly. But I want to get
out. I want to retire and what our clients want is to have me
working harder so they can buy more of our product.
The mine has been very good to us. We have made a lot of money and quite
frankly my wife and I want to get out of here and spend some of the
money we’ve made while we are still young enough to enjoy it.
You can reach Bob and
Susan at the
Opal Mountain Mine
by calling (208) 374-5474
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