The Kimberley Region The remote Kimberley coastline in the North-West of Australia is the perfect location for growing South Sea Pearls. The area is home to huge tidal variations of up to 12 metres (the second largest tides in the world).
Freshwater pearls are cultivated in countries around the world, including Australia, China, Indonesia and Japan.
Australia and Australian pearls have been a central part of the worldwide pearl business since the 1800's. Broome on the far north-west of Australia's coastline has been the dominant sea port where pearling is based largely due to the wealth of oysters on the floor of the ocean at eighty mile beach.
Marine species found in South Australia. It is established in the upper Spencer Gulf. The Pearl Oyster is a tropical Australian native oyster.
Paspaley is the source of the world finest and most valuable cultured pearls and the last significant source of natural pearls. They have been pearl farming over 80 years and three generations and still continue today.
Today, Broome is still known for its pearling industry, which produces some of the finest pearls in the world. Founded as a pearling port in 1880s, by the turn of the century over 300 luggers were plying the rich waters of Broome's Roebuck Bay.
Broome: 'the pearling capital of the world'
By 1910 Broome was the largest pearling centre in the world, benefitting from newly introduced diving suits, fertile waters and a booming international pearl button market.
Today, natural pearls are extremely rare. Only 1 in about 10,000 wild oysters will yield a pearl and of those, only a small percentage achieve the size, shape and colour desirable to the jewellery industry.
Sydney rock oysters are native to Australia's east coast.
All oysters can secrete pearls, but this is rare! An irritation such as sand can cause an oyster to overcome this by layering nacre over the irritation.
The Australian South Sea pearl oyster (Pinctada maxima) is the largest and rarest of all pearl oysters, and produces the finest and most beautiful pearl nacre of any mollusc.
Extraordinarily rare, naturally beautiful, unmatched in size. Australian South Sea pearls are grown inside the largest and rarest pearl-producing oyster, the Pinctada Maxima. They are highly sought after as the pearls produced are amongst the world's largest and most valuable.
– Australia: home to some of the finest quality pearls in the world, with a variety of colors ranging from white to black. The Australian pearl industry is worth an estimated $500 million per year.
The recent global economic crisis had a large effect on the Chinese pearl industry. The overproduction of low-quality freshwater cultured pearls coupled with low demand and spiralling prices for these pearls, has meant that many pearl farmers could no longer cover their production costs.
Freshwater pearls are cheaper because they are easier to extract, making sea pearls more valued. Why? Sea pearls are larger, more beautiful in shape, luster, smoother surface and, of course, much more expensive than freshwater pearls.
The easiest way to tell the difference between freshwater and saltwater pearls is by their color. Freshwater pearls are typically white, off-white, or cream in color, while saltwater pearls come in a variety of colors including blue, green, black, and pink. You can also tell the difference by their shape.
Saltwater pearls have a more brilliant shine and luster than freshwater pearls and are more expensive. Pearl facts: After implanting the seed pearl, oysters are tended to by divers as they grow. The color of the pearl depends mainly on the color of the oyster shell itself.
There is no obvious sign that an oyster has a pearl inside. You have to open the shell to see if there's one inside. However, larger, older oysters are more likely to have pearls.
“Finding a pearl in an edible oyster is very rare,” Matthew Gray, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told CNN via email. “Anecdotally, it's estimated to be something like 1/10,000, but I think this is being generous.”
The oyster named pinctada margaritifera, commonly called the black-lipped oyster, is the source of black pearls.
Some pearls form naturally, but others, known as cultured pearls, are created by inserting a special irritant inside the shell. Some oysters are grown specifically for producing pearls, which can be removed without killing the oyster, and new irritants inserted to grow more.
Naturally colored blue pearls are the rarest pearl colors in the world (with one or two exceptions, which we will get to below). The color has existed in pearls for decades, but only recently have naturally colored blue pearls gained popularity in the modern pearl jewelry markets.
The process of producing a pearl can range from 6 months to several years. Even before this, it takes about 3 years for the mollusk to reach a mature age in order to produce a pearl. A mollusk is only able to begin the pearl making process naturally or with the help of humans when it reaches this mature age.
These rare pearls are highly sought-after due to their beautiful, intense lustre and unique freeform shapes.
La Peregrina was a gift for Elizabeth Taylor
La Peregrina is the most famous pearl in the world. Its history spans almost 500 years.
Zhuji City, in the Zhejiang Province of China, is one of the biggest hubs for freshwater pearls in the world. Zhuji is also the capital of the ancient Yue Kingdom and native town of Xishi, a legendary beauty in the old China.