The Village Smithy Opals

STEPHEN AND DARLENE NEWSTROM

- Antoinette Rahn

Stephen and Darlene Newstrom, owners of The Village Smithy Opals, Inc., during an opal buying trip to New South Wales, Australia.

For more than five decades, Stephen Newstrom has been living what he calls an “opal adventure.”

This unique and rewarding life is one he shares with his wife, Darlene, and as owners and operators of The Village Smithy Opal, Inc. His rockhounding origins story mirrors that of other business owners within the industry, in that he discovered his love for rockhounding as a child.

“When I was young, my father and I used to take camping trips to the north shore of Lake Superior,” said the native of Minnesota. “The purpose of the trips was mostly to collect the small Lake Superior agates along the shoreline, north of Two Harbors Minnesota. I cherish those memories!”

Those early rockhounding excursions created a passion that would evolve into a rewarding and successful profession. Several things along the way, including the gift of a B & I Gem Maker on his 14th birthday, and a hands-on introduction to opals, would become a source of great inspiration and the stuff of his dreams.

Part of Newstrom’s introduction to opals occurred in 1964, when he was just 15, with the purchase of the popular reference, “The Opal Book,” by Frank Leechman.

“While reading (The Opal Book), I had visions of a great adventure, moving to Australia and digging for opals,” he said.

If reading this book inspired great excitement and intrigue in Newstrom, then the opportunity to handle an opal only enhanced his decades-long fascination with opals.