How Trax NYC Is Bringing Opals to the Mainstream
In this article
Key Points
- TraxNYC founder Maksud Agadjani has been posting opal content to millions of followers, with individual videos reaching over 100,000 likes on TikTok alone.
- His limited edition Black Sphere Opal Claws, featuring 20 to 30 carat natural opals set by hand in 24 karat gold, have become some of his most talked about pieces.
- Agadjani played the character Yussi in the 2019 film Uncut Gems alongside Adam Sandler, a movie built entirely around an Ethiopian opal.
- The growing interest in opal driven by pop culture and social media is creating a new generation of opal buyers, many of whom are encountering the gemstone for the first time.
A jeweler from New York City’s Diamond District is doing something the opal industry has struggled to do for decades. He is making opals cool.
Maksud “Trax” Agadjani, the founder of TraxNYC, has spent the past year flooding social media with opal content that consistently goes viral. A TikTok video of a 24 karat eagle claw grasping a spherical opal pulled in over 112,000 likes. Another showing a $250,000 opal drew nearly 90,000. His limited edition Black Sphere Opal Claws, featuring natural opals ranging from 20 to 30 carats set by hand in gold claw settings, have become some of the most talked about pieces in his catalogue.
For anyone in the opal trade, this is significant. TraxNYC has over 3.4 million followers on Facebook alone, with a combined audience across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube that reaches well into the millions. When Agadjani holds up an opal to camera and tells his audience what makes it special, more people see that stone in a single afternoon than most opal dealers reach in a year.
And this is not the first time he has put opal in front of a mainstream audience.
The Uncut Gems Connection
In 2019, Agadjani was cast in the crime thriller Uncut Gems, directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and starring Adam Sandler. He played Yussi, one of the employees at the fictional jewelry store run by Sandler’s character Howard Ratner. The film was shot partly inside TraxNYC’s real offices at 64 West 47th Street in the Diamond District, and many of the people who appeared on screen were actual jewelers from the building.
The central plot of Uncut Gems revolves around a single gemstone: a large Ethiopian opal, still embedded in its host rock, smuggled from the Welo mines of Ethiopia to New York. Sandler’s character stakes everything on the stone’s value. NBA star Kevin Garnett, playing himself, becomes so captivated by the opal that he believes it gives him supernatural luck on the basketball court.
The film brought opal into mainstream pop culture in a way nothing else had before. According to the Gemological Institute of America, the opal shown in the movie was a representation of Ethiopian opal in matrix, though the film described it as black opal. In reality, the prop was assembled from multiple real opal pieces arranged to look like a single massive specimen, because a genuine uncut opal of that size was far beyond the production budget.
For Agadjani, the experience left a lasting impression. In interviews since, including a widely viewed appearance on Valuetainment with Patrick Bet David, he has spoken about how the movie drew directly from the real culture of the Diamond District and what it was like to work alongside Sandler on set. He has also continued to lean into opal as a core part of his jewelry line, an unusual move for a jeweler best known for diamond chains and custom gold pieces.
A jeweler from New York City’s Diamond District is doing something the opal industry has struggled to do for decades. He is making opals cool.
Maksud “Trax” Agadjani, the founder of TraxNYC, has spent the past year flooding social media with opal content that consistently goes viral. A TikTok video of a 24 karat eagle claw grasping a spherical opal pulled in over 112,000 likes. Another showing a $250,000 opal drew nearly 90,000. His limited edition Black Sphere Opal Claws, featuring natural opals ranging from 20 to 30 carats set by hand in gold claw settings, have become some of the most talked about pieces in his catalogue.
For anyone in the opal trade, this is significant. TraxNYC has over 3.4 million followers on Facebook alone, with a combined audience across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube that reaches well into the millions. When Agadjani holds up an opal to camera and tells his audience what makes it special, more people see that stone in a single afternoon than most opal dealers reach in a year.
And this is not the first time he has put opal in front of a mainstream audience.
Why Opal Is Working for Trax NYC
The opal pieces Agadjani is producing are not traditional opal jewelry. They are bold, sculptural, and built for social media. The Black Sphere Opal Claws feature round opal spheres gripped by detailed gold talons, designed as statement pendants. A grizzly bear pendant on his site features a diamond covered bear head gripping an opal in its jaws. An “Uncut Gems” opal and diamond ring remains one of his signature catalogue items.
These are pieces designed to stop someone mid scroll, and they are doing exactly that.
What makes the approach effective is that Agadjani is not selling opal the way the traditional gemstone industry sells opal. He is not talking about geological formation or mineral classification. He is holding up a stone, pointing at the color, and saying look at this. For an audience that has never seen an opal up close, that is more persuasive than any educational guide.
The result is a growing audience of people, many of them younger, many of them men, who are seeing opal for the first time and wanting to know more. Where does it come from? What makes one opal worth more than another? Why do some opals cost $50 and others cost $250,000?
These are the right questions. And the answers matter, because not all opal is created equal.
What New Opal Buyers Should Know
The opals featured in TraxNYC’s collection, and the opal at the heart of Uncut Gems, are Ethiopian opals. Ethiopian opal was first discovered in 1994 in the Welo province and has since become the primary alternative to Australian opal on the global market. It can be stunningly beautiful. The color play is often vivid and the stones are widely available at accessible price points, typically ranging from $5 to $300 per carat according to current market data.
But there are important differences that anyone entering the opal market for the first time should understand.
Ethiopian opal is hydrophane. This means the stone is porous and absorbs water, which can temporarily or permanently alter its appearance. A bright, fiery Ethiopian opal can lose its color when exposed to moisture and may not always return to its original state. This makes it less stable for everyday jewelry use compared to Australian opal, which does not absorb water and will not change over time.
The durability difference is significant. Australian opals formed slowly over millions of years within the sandstones of the Great Artesian Basin. Ethiopian opals formed far more rapidly through volcanic activity. The result is a structural difference at the molecular level. Australian opal is denser, more stable, and better suited to jewelry that is worn daily. For anyone buying an opal ring or pendant they intend to wear for years, this distinction is critical. Our guide on how opal is formed explains the geological differences in detail.
Then there is the question of treatment. A growing number of Ethiopian opals on the market have been smoke treated or sugar acid treated to darken their body tone and mimic the appearance of black opal, which is the rarest and most valuable variety of opal in the world. Natural black opal comes from only one place: Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia. It commands prices from $500 to over $50,000 per carat for top stones, compared to $5 to $300 for Ethiopian material. The visual difference between a treated Ethiopian stone and a natural Australian black opal can be difficult to spot in photos or short video clips, but the value gap is enormous. Our detailed comparison of Australian black opal versus smoked Ethiopian opal breaks this down further.
None of this is to say Ethiopian opal has no place in the market. It does. It offers color and beauty at a price point that makes opal accessible to people who might otherwise never experience the gemstone. What TraxNYC is doing with Ethiopian opal in bold, creative jewelry settings is bringing attention to a stone that the traditional industry has often overlooked or undermarketed. That is a good thing for everyone in the opal world.
But for buyers who are moving beyond their first piece, who want a stone that will hold its value, hold its color, and last a lifetime, the path leads to Australia.
A Rising Tide
The opal industry has not traditionally been good at marketing itself. Compared to diamonds, which have had decades of coordinated global campaigns behind them, opal has relied on its own beauty and the knowledge of specialist dealers to find its audience.
What Trax NYC is proving is that opal does not need a traditional marketing campaign. It needs to be seen. When millions of people watch a stone flash red, green, and blue inside a gold claw on their phone screen, the gemstone sells itself. The question that follows, where can I get one and what should I look for, is where education becomes essential.
For those exploring opal for the first time, understanding the difference between Ethiopian and Australian opal is the single most important starting point. Knowing whether a stone is natural or treated, solid or composite, hydrophane or stable, determines not only what you pay but what you actually receive. Our opal buying guide and opal price guide cover these distinctions in full.
“Anything that brings more attention to opal is positive for the entire industry,” said Michael Shepherd of Opal Galaxy. “Trax NYC is reaching people who have never held an opal in their hands, and that is genuinely exciting. Our role is to make sure that when those buyers start looking deeper, they can find accurate information about what separates a good opal from a great one, and where the best stones in the world actually come from.”
Australia produces approximately 85% of the world’s opal. Lightning Ridge remains the only commercial source of natural black opal on the planet. And for every person who discovers opal through a viral video and decides they want the real thing, the path ends in the same place it always has: the Australian outback.
Sources
- TraxNYC — Official Website
- TraxNYC — About Page
- Gemological Institute of America — The Real Gemology of Ethiopian Opals in Uncut Gems (January 2020)
- Valuetainment — TraxNYC Reveals the Real Story Behind Uncut Gems (January 2026)
- The Ringer — Inside the Diamond District, the Setting of Uncut Gems (December 2019)
- Filmmaker Magazine — On Set Props in Uncut Gems (December 2019)
- Famous Birthdays — Maksud Agadjani
About Opal Galaxy
Opal Galaxy is a family owned Australian business specialising in ethically sourced natural opals and handmade opal jewelry. Based in Australia, we work directly with miners and cutters to offer black opal, boulder opal, crystal opal, and white opal to collectors and jewelry buyers worldwide. Established in 2012, Opal Galaxy is a registered Australian wholesale opal seller and a proud member of the Opal Association and the International Gem Society
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