In 1906, Charlie Dunstan found "Queen of the Earth", also known as "Dunstan's Stone", at the Angledool Diggings. She weighed-in at about 6oz. or nearly 900 carats, and one account says 1100 caret. Whichever, she was the largest nobby to date - alive with colour - "truly a marvellous gem; too beautiful for words!"
Leechman (1961) reports that the "Queen" was valued in the 1930s at a quarter of a million US dollars in her natural state, and that Dunstan had gotten but £100 for her from an unknown buyer. Idriess (1940) confirms the former.
Another story is that Charlie took the "Queen" to Angledool town to show her off. In his carefree mood, he drank too much, fell off his perch, and when he awoke, the "Queen" was gone.
The story goes, when she resurfaced, she had been sold for a mere £100, then resold to J.D. Rockefeller for £75,000, who donated her in the 1940s to his prestigious family collection.
By then, poor Charlie was long gone. He is the first recorded suicide on the Lightning Ridge Opal Fields. He shot himself down his mine in 1910. Some say, he died in the horrors.
Today, the feelers are out to locate "Queen of the Earth". The Gemological Institute of America is inactively researching any and all opals that fit the description and approximate date.
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