The Queen, Sharon Stone and Broome Pearls
Broome pearls adorn crown jewels around the world.
It is rarity and quality serious buyers seek, and the best pearls are extremely valuable. Only about 20 per cent of a pearl harvest will be flawless, the rest with have some kind of blemish.
South Sea pearls, the pearls of Broome, are the largest and finest in the world with a silvery whiteness or overtones of rose, blue or gold.
Broome pearls average 13 mm in diameter, while other species will usually top 9mm at best.
The best pearls are said to come from contented oysters. Modern pearls come from pearl farms that are designed to minimise stress. Shells are moved while tides and temperatures are fairly stable. They are cleaned of marine parasites, and hung from panels in water columns so they flush, and nutrients and waste is carried away.
Different types of pearls fetch very different prices.
The Queen wears them to State banquets and morning teas.
All other gems can be cut and shaped to please. A pearl, you take as it is.
The most remarkable pearl ever found is said to be the ‘Southern Cross’, a natural formation of nine pearls discovered in the 1880s. Its whereabouts today is a mystery.
Modern pearl production results in a range different pearl types and shapes. Pearls can be cultured round, or baroque pearls are irregularly shaped. Mabe are half-round pearls and Keshi, or seedless pearls, are irregularly-shaped natural pearls made with no artificial nucleus.
Sharon Stone flashes them at the Oscars.
When pearling began in Broome, back in the 1860s it was the mother-of-pearl, or pearl shell that lit the imaginations of thousands, and started the first of many boom and bust times in Broome. Any pearls found back then were just an occasional bonus.
In ‘The Fat Years’ of 1889 to 1891, the price of mother-of-pearl shell escalated, establishing Broome as the Queen City of the North.
By 1910, nearly 400 luggers and more than 3500 people were fishing for shell in waters around Broome, by then the biggest pearling centre in the world. In the 1920s the price of pearl shell hit its highest.
The demand for mother-of-pearl continued and Broome became known as the ‘Pearl Capital of the World’, as well as one of the most unique and multi-cultural towns in all of Australia.
For all the boom times in Broome, there have been as many busts. Cyclones, world wars and even oyster-loving bacteria have brought the bad times.
Nothing hit the industry quite like the invention of plastic in the 1950s. Decorative and household items, like buttons, cutlery handles and trinkets once made from pearl shell, were now being produced in plastic.
In Asia they are symbols of both achievement and enlightenment.
While 1950s plastic technology brought the pearl shell industry to its knees, by the mid-1950s a different technology was reshaping and reviving the pearl story in Broome.
The seeding and growing cultured pearls was being perfected.
Slowly, this new version of pearling grew and prospered. For many of the early years Japanese companies dominated the evolving cultured pearl industry, and Japanese buyers dominated the market.
Today Broome’s cultured pearls are acknowledged as world class.
Pearl production and jewellery design are highly competitive, dynamic and creative industries.
Once again Broome is booming. Pearl galleries and showrooms offer the world’s best and most precious pearls direct from their source in this far corner of Western Australia.
Enjoy some of the romance of Broome’s South Sea Pearling story.
Willie Creek Pearl Farm is the only pearl farm in the Kimberley region open to the general public, providing visitors with a unique insight into modern cultured pearling. Learn how technicians seed the oyster to produce a pearl, cruise the creek and view shell panels suspended in their natural environment. View a stunning selection of Australian South Sea cultured pearl jewellery, or relax in café overlooking the beautiful waters of Willie Creek.
Pearl Luggers has restored two wooden luggers and offers an entertaining look at the ’saltwater cowboys’ who risked their lives diving in hard hats for the lustre of pearl shell. Catch the Pigram Brothers Nowhere Else But Here Concerts planned for Pearl Luggers on Thursday nights, in May.
Sail on Intombi, Broome’s oldest pearling lugger. This authentic 104-year-old wooden lugger worked out of Broome during its pearling heyday. Try a Champagne Breakfast Sail in the morning or a Gourmet Sunset Sail.
Take home your own piece of Broome’s South Sea Pearling story.
The best of Broome’s pearl shopping is just a short walk from Captains by the Bay.
Kailis Australian Pearls and Paspaley Pearls, the pioneers of the south seas pearling industry in Broome are a stroll away.
Close by are Linneys, designing with Broome pearls and Argyle diamonds for thirty years, along side galleries like The Courthouse Collection, Anastasia’s Pearl Gallery and Broome Staircase Designs.
The lustre of Broome pearls is something you need to see for yourself.
