Erik Madsen
$10,000 AOC Founder

When Erik Madsen migrated to Australia from Denmark at the age of 21, he never imagined the journey that lay ahead of him. Now one of Australia’s most established opal wholesalers, Erik has recently expanded his mining operations from the Queensland boulder opal fields back into Lightning Ridge where his story as an opal miner first began. Here, Erik recounts his lifetime searching for and trading the Queen of Gems and why he is backing the new Australian Opal Centre as an AOC Founder.

“In the early 1970s I had a close friend from Denmark who was mining in Lightning Ridge, so in January of 1974 I flew with his younger brother to Sydney. My friend picked us up and drove us out to Lightning Ridge, which was a bit of a shock to the system - coming from minus temperatures in the Denmark wintertime with snow and then turning up in the outback where it was 45 degrees. 

I stayed for a month and got to know a few people, but I had to look for a job so went to the coldest place I could find in Australia, which was Tasmania, and I worked picking apples. After 4 months I came back to Sydney to work in an office but a month later I was back in Lightning Ridge where I’d had an offer to play soccer and work on a percentage in an opal mine. I jumped at the opportunity and mined there for 18 months.

In 1978, a friend opened up an opal wholesale and retail business in Sydney and asked me to manage it, and I jumped at the chance. I worked for him for a couple of years, saved up some money, parted ways and then started my own opal business, Madsen Opals, in 1982. 

When I had a bit of money saved from selling opal, I would go out to the mines in Lightning Ridge, buy some material and then sell it to the shops in Sydney. I’d go back and forth every week just about and managed to build up a bit of capital. I came to know the miners in Lightning Ridge quite well, and then became involved in a partnership with a Caldwell drill and was lucky enough to find a bit of opal out near the Lightning Ridge airport. 

It just grew from there, starting at home then opening up an office in Sydney and then employing people and exporting opal. I travelled to Europe in the early days selling opal, and first went to Japan in the late 80s and was quite successful – we had a staffed office there for quite a few years. But that stopped about 15 years ago due to the downturn in business in Japan. We still do business there on a regular basis however, and also go to the Hong Kong gem trade shows. 

Besides selling opal, I still mine opal, but mainly boulder opal mining in Queensland, which I first started about 20 years ago. I also recently got back into opal mining in Lightning Ridge through a partnership with a local miner, so I’ve come full circle in a way. Opal mining gets in your blood when you’re young, and you never get over it. It’s a beautiful stone, it’s unique in many ways and you can’t compare it to anything else. But it’s also the people in the industry, the friendships, the outback. All of those things add up to it being a really interesting lifestyle.  

The new Australian Opal Centre is an absolutely fantastic thing and it’s great to see it come through, not just for the opal industry but also for tourism. For me personally, it’s very important to keep the opal business going, not just in Lightning Ridge but in all the opal mining locations, and we need to think about the future. 

One of the reasons I put a lot of effort and money into mining is because the production of opal is smaller than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and miners are getting older and passing on. Currently we don’t have many new young miners coming in and most of the ones who do come in because of their parents. This is something I am hopeful the Australian Opal Centre can think about and take action on through courses and education, especially for the younger school kids in opal areas. 

It will also be great to see all the opal industry organisations from across the states come together to work with the Australian Opal Centre in a strategic way for the betterment of our industry. If we all work together and have the same goals to make the situation better for miners, help to solve problems with exporting opal, liaise with government to reduce red tape, and get more people interested in mining through things like drilling programs – then that will be fantastic for the future and the industry could grow and prosper once again. 

That’s why I became an AOC Founder, because I want to support the Centre and all the opportunities it will provide. This project has real merit and the work everyone has done to get it to this stage is wonderful. I think it’s a great thing for the whole industry and the more people that become Founders from the opal industry the better. The opal industry has been very good to all of us, so why not give back and put money towards something that’s going to benefit us all.  

If you’d like to join Erik as an AOC Founder, click here for more information. For more information contact Richard Wylie by calling 0416 090 705 or emailing partnerships@australianopalcentre.com. We look forward to hearing from you!