Stanislav & Petr Winkelhöfer

Brushes of precious stones



  • 38

    More than 38 years of experience with precious stones

  • 100%

    Guarantee of authenticity and quality

  • 450pcs

    All goods are in stock

Our team

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    Stanislav Winkelhöfer

    The most experienced of the team. More 38 years of experience with precious stones. 

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    Petr Winkelhöfer

    Son. It focuses mainly on expensive opals from around the world.

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    Family and helpers

    When needed, the whole family helps. Especially on mineralogical exchanges.

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    Cari

    Our family member who belongs to the team.

Who are we and what are we doing?

  • We are a family company and grinding, we have been dealing with precious stones for more than 35 years. We process and trade with all precious stones except diamonds. Dear opal has always fascinated us with its beauty - so many gems in a single stone - so we decided to specialize in this treasure of nature. We do not forget about other types of opals that are not in their beauty - fiery opals, wood opals, or various opal-bonded products - beads, opal mosaics. We only process our own raw material that we collect directly on the site. All our products are natural and are ready for other purposes - for jewelery, investment or just for joy. Over time we have created a wide range of opals from all over the world, part of which is offered in our e-shop, which is regularly supplemented with new opals. We believe you will find a lot of interesting and choose an opal from our offer.

  • use of our opals:
    All of our opals are ready for use for jewelery.
    To a collection or just for joy
    Investing in precious stones
  • quality:

    Quality manual work with many years of experience with expensive opals.
    All our expensive opals are grinding and polishing on professional machines.
    We use state-of-the-art polishing, which gives the opals maximum gloss.
    Raw material is purchased directly from the site.

  • why buy dear opal?:

    Natural mineral without any modifications.
    For natural expensive opals, it is not necessary to invent a complex jewel.
    Thanks to its colorful look it will look great in any jewel.
    In which other natural mineral you will find all the gems of the world.
    There is a huge difference between synthetic opal and synthetic gemstone!
    The complexity of gemstone authentication is missing.

Our history

Beginnings with precious stones


I started collecting minerals, visited most of the localities in Bohemia and Slovakia. The Mineralogical collection has begun to grow and I have had to choose for specialization and have gradually become precious stones. I started the ages of Bohemian Paradise and jasper and amethyst from the Ore Mountains (like most of the collectors). But these stones, I had to always cut off from a brush and polish, and unfortunately, the grinder mostly left half the stone for grinding. Which made me sorry and I wanted to process these stones myself. It was not complicated, I made a grinder with a cast-iron disk and the first saw on a so-called "brodilka" stone, that is, the stone is cut with a plain metal disc that is "wading" in a suspension of water and carborundum powder. Simple and inexpensive stone cutting.

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Over time, I have mastered this flat grinding and began to care about the grinding of jewelery stones, and that was much more demanding. Above all, the abrasives who controlled this craft did not want to share the experience at all, literature was not at all at that time, and I had no idea how to grind the facets they polished.
I tried at home everything possible and impossible but without result. Then he broke my findings, one older brushcutter from Turnov (he was already retired but appreciated by all the brushcutters, even when his mum had already been grinding with him, who had already been over eighty.) He cursed me to teach me the craft but always left me , that it's a waste of time that no amateur can grind well. I've been holding up for two years, when he told me "hele, when you resisted me that way, you think so seriously." And I started to him I traveled and learned the craft, and I bought an older Czech stonecutter (a unique way of grinding in the world).

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The machine worked fast and was unbeatable for grinding oval grinds, but unfortunately the angles were not exactly adjustable, so the cuts were often "blind". I did not like that, I started to try another way of grinding. At that time I think that even today was the renowned grinding school in Idar Oberstein, Germany. So I started thinking how to get there and learn the German way of grinding. I managed to get my hands on a practice in a grinding workshop in Germany. In Idar Oberstein I found that the German way of grinding is even more primitive than the Czech one. It was grinding there in a "stack" way, ie. that the wooden pin, where the stone was embedded into such a wooden board with the dents and the angle and the position of the facet, was determined by the eye. Although some German ablators have managed to do this, they have to make a decent cut but after at least ten years of practice. So I was quite disappointed returned back.

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At that time, I have already taken various professional magazines from the world, and there I saw that the world is sharpening on very precise machines so-called quadrants and the cuts made on these machines are really perfect and thanks to precise angles with maximum brilliance. Unfortunately, these machines were not only cheap for me, so I made a drummer myself. And finally, my cuts really started to be good.

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Business

1989 came and the opportunity to do business, I remember that I read a newspaper at my job and wrote that there is now a chance to do business. Despite the fact that I did not even know if I was going to live with it, and I had two young children at that time, I immediately denounced the job and started to "do business". I had no experience, the words of the invoice, the delivery note for me was absolutely unknown.

Although I had a few regular customers from home and abroad, but I have been grinding for them in exchange for money rather than for money.

Work for a German company


Fortunately, I learned that a German company is looking for a grinder. I immediately wrote a letter and signed up. I was invited to visit, where I learned that about ten abrasives, mostly from Germany, had already been registered. I had a small collection of my products, and I showed them to the business owner. The work caught him and gave me a test order. I can not forget today, these were top tourmalines and emeralds, I never did that quality. Nevertheless, I have confirmed to the owner that I process such a raw material daily, and I have carried this "treasure" home at home. Most of the other shredders have received such test orders. When I saw those shriveled barks I did not really have a chance. Still, I've got everything I've ever done and paid off. My comps for the German company have taken the most and we have worked together. This cooperation lasted 8 years. During this time, I gradually expanded the company and accepted three employees that I myself learned. At the time of the greatest prosperity, which lasted about two years, we produced 8,000 to 10,000 stones per month and we were among the leading European companies. We participated in all European exhibitions and trade fairs and had over 600 regular customers. And most importantly, I have gained a tremendous experience with the processing of precious stones, of such values ​​and qualities that I could never afford to buy.

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Experience and travel


About seven years of cooperation with a German firm, my friend said the Swiss company was looking for an expert to evaluate some stones. So I thought I'd try luck. I managed to succeed in the tender and I cooperated with the company for about 4 years. For this company, I have been buying precious stones in the world, and in the customs warehouse in Geneva the stones were sorted and valued and some of the selected stones were grinded. I visited a number of countries (some reports will be here on the site) and mainly gained more experience with stones, especially from Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam.
At that time, I had one more company with my friends, where we made stones from different stucco objects such as paperweights, ashtrays, stands and fountains where a stone sphere rotated on the water film. We also manually cut these balls in a big way. Unfortunately, due to problems between the partners, this company did not go well and its activity only lasted for about two years.

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Present

I am currently grinding with my son, who has been in the precious stones area since childhood. He helped me find the raw material on the site, selling it on the stones. Today he deals with precious opals from all over the world. As the Czech minerals caught me, my dear opal loved my son, so he decided to specialize in them.

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Usually we only work on our material (only exceptionally from the customer's raw material). When traveling around the world and working for foreign companies, I have gained a great deal of contacts around the world. It is not a problem for me today to get any stone anywhere in the world. We provide consultancy to collectors and those interested in investing in precious stones, consulting travelers and anyone interested in this field, unless my knowledge is sufficient by the advice of a colleague we work with.

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We are constantly looking for new sites, rare stones or collectible pieces

Often we are among the first sharpeners to process new precious stones or new deposits, and it is not just gemstones such as citronchryzopras (lemonchryzopras), which we first introduced to the European market, similar to variscite, we also helped the world with Czech iron quartz we were the first to present at the biggest European exhibitions, etc., etc. It was really a lot in those years and I hope it will be. I was also processing new synthetic materials for American companies and involved in researching whether some materials that were developed for space research could be used for jewelry as well.

The precious stones are a lifelong love for us, and now I pass on my experiences to my son, perhaps we will help you find a relationship with these miracles of nature through this site. You can find only opals on this website, if you are interested in other gems, visit our second page dedicated to all precious stones

 World of gemstone