Perfect Pearls
Broome pearls adorn crown jewels around the world; the Queen wears them to State banquets and morning teas; Sharon Stone flashes them at the Oscars; and in Asia they are symbols of both achievement and enlightenment.
Occupying the luxury end of the market, South Sea pearls earned the industry $196 million last year and although their price is high, the international spread of well-heeled folk who buy them is expanding.
The marketing and jewellery arms of the industry have been flexing in tandem with pearl production, working to increase sales and distribution and create imaginative fine jewellery which challenges the traditional notion that pearls are just necklaces worn with twinsets.
One man ideally placed to comment on the growth in interest in pearls and pearl jewellery worldwide is David Norman. David's involvement in the industry started when he was quite young. He was born into a pearling family with connections in Japan and Thursday Island and, as he grew up, was determined to stay in the industry; today he is pearl marketing consultant at Broome Pearls Pty Ltd.
His busy job takes him to Broome, where he grades and values pearls during harvest time (about 80,000 in the last crop) to international trade fairs, regular clients and developing markets.
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He sells 'raw' unset pearls, rounds, "keshi' and "mabe' and also acts as a broker by buying and selling produce from smaller farms.
Different types of pearls fetch very different prices, depending on their rarity and quality but, as David explains, the best pearls are extremely valuable.
"About 20 per cent of the whole pearl harvest is completely clean - that's over all the different shapes and sizes - and the rest of them have some kind of flaw or blemish," he said.
"The ones which are blemish-free sell for an enormous amount of money, perhaps $15,000 a pearl wholesale, and the very large size perfect ones certainly sell for a lot!'
South Sea pearls are normally 10-20 mm in diameter, with a harvest average of about 13 mm, while pearls from other oysters are generally quite a bit smaller, reaching a maximum of about 9 mm.
"In Japan they want a pearl about 12 mm in size to wear in a ring, which used to be a standard item as an engagement ring," David said.
For many years the Japanese dominated the pearling industry but times are changing. And as the Japanese presence fades from industry ownership, Japan is no longer the sole market for South Sea pearls.
"The Australians will get better at selling all around the world and the Japanese will completely lose their stranglehold," David predicts.
"They used to buy 100 per cent of the production, now only about half gets sold to Japan direct, and maybe another 10 per cent indirectly."
The pearl is the national gem in Japan, but a 'pearl fever' during the 1980s saw prices as high as $30,000 for a pearl valued today at $10,000. Ultimately the bubble burst, the yen dropped and in 1991 the Japanese, confident in their domination of the market, offered to buy the Broome Pearls harvest for half-price.
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"We said no, we're not going to take half price and so we started selling to other customers," David said. "We realised having just one customer in one market just wasn't safe, so we began to develop America, which is an enormous market, Europe, and the rest of Asia."
Today he is confident South America, where there is no indigenous pearl production, will prove a huge market for Australian pearls.
"The market in Europe likes a creamy rosy colour and America likes silver white and pink, as does the Australian market."
David shows me a multiple string of small Japanese pearls, and explains:
"These pearls are classically white and pink but they have been treated, because when they come out of the Japanese akoya oyster they are blue, yellow, brown, really dark. They are bleached white and then dyed a bit pink, whereas we never treat our pearls."
"A lot of people think the best pearls are white and pink, but really the colours are not relevant, it's purely a matter of taste. I think whereas shape, lustre and blemishes are clearly quality factors, size and colour is just a personal issue."
In other words a pearl's worth is all up to its shape and degree of flawlessness.
"This pearl," he says as he picks up a 13 mm white pearl, "is quite flawed and worth about $3000 wholesale, but if it was much cleaner it would be worth $15,000. A really gem-quality pearl this size would easily be worth $60,000."
Of course as the world pearl production increases, prices will tend to drop but, on the other hand, more people will be able to afford them.
David Norman thinks the Australian South Sea pearl industry, young though it is, is very well placed to increase its markets.
"There was a World Pearl Conference in May 1994 and it was amazing to see how disorganised some of the other producers were," he said.
"Last year the South Sea Pearl Consortium was set up, which is basically a group of all the Australian Pearl Producers with Nick Paspaley as chairman. Two of the largest Japanese companies, one from Hong Kong and one from the USA, are also members."
"Everyone in the group has to give an amount of money, about US$200,000 a year, into a fund to promote Australian Pearls and to educate people who sell them."
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"We also have finer quality pearl production to keep ahead of Indonesian South Sea pearls."
Pearl retailing has also become more serious over the past few years; Paspaley have shops in Broome and Sydney, Broome Pearls retail in Broome and Fremantle, and Linneys are in Broome and Subiaco.
Freelance jewellers like Michael Tanner take private commissions as well as making pieces for specialist pearl shops.
"When I arrived here 11 years ago there was only one jeweller in Broome, who worked as a counter hand during the wet," Michael said. "He just kept a few pieces - rings mostly - made up and replaced them as they sold."
"I do a lot of handmade work, which sells well. Over the past few years probably $5 m worth of retail jewellery has been sold in Broome alone."
"The field is highly competitive now, very dynamic and creative."
Michael's sentiments were echoed by Bill Read, part owner of Linneys in Broome. He also put in a plug for Broome - the "pearl capital of Australia'.
"Between the half dozen retailers selling pearl jewellery here in Broome, we probably have a wider selection of pearl jewellery than you'd find anywhere else in the world," Bill said.
"Rings are the biggest sellers and we also sell a lot of brooches."
"More than half of our jewellery incorporates pearls and Argyle diamonds, set in 18k gold."
"I think earrings are the most important piece a lady can wear because they are for others to see, whereas many people buy rings for their own enjoyment."
Both Bill and Michael prefer jewellery created with keshi or "seedless' pearls.
"We specialise in jewellery rather than necklaces, because I feel it's very unimaginative to go to all the trouble to grow beautiful pearls if all you can think of doing with them is drilling a hole in them and putting a bit of string through them!' Bill said.
"The market for keshi is limited, as are the number of pearls, because they are a by-product; producers don't try and grow them, so there's not a huge amount," Michael explained.
"Keshi are individual, that's the beauty of them, each one is different and that's where all the fun for the designer comes in."
"All other gems can be cut to requirements but a pearl you take as it is."
"Every pearl is drilled to be set, but some keshi can be a bit temperamental and there's a greater risk of damaging them due to odd shape."
"You'd be paying $2500 to $5000 for a string using keshi and gold, but a silver white pearl with a rose tinge will still outshine any other pearl."
"Our customers buy pearls primarily for body adornment and they are principally visitors from the eastern states, with perhaps 20 per cent being European tourists, and about 30 per cent of our business is established mail-order clients, who phone us with particular orders," Bill said.
One thing everyone agreed on was that once you've seen the real thing, fake pearls are much easier to spot - at least, so far.
"Real pearls are heavier and colder while fake ones are always room temperature and that's the test," David Norman said.
"Real ones are also a lot heavier, although some French fashion houses make fantastic fakes, using crushed shell and fish scales and calling them shell-based pearls."
The most remarkable pearl ever found is the 'Southern Cross', a natural formation of nine pearls discovered in the 1880s, but its whereabouts today is a mystery.
For everyone in the industry there's the eternal question - will the next harvest bring a perfect pearl?
"Once you've been in the industry for a long time, you can't allow your staff or yourself to get excited about getting one perfect pearl, but if you pull out a 16 mm pearl worth $30-$40,000, you can't help getting a bit of a tingle!" confessed Bill Reed.
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