Pearls were the New World's biggest export, until the full development of gold and silver mines in Mexico and Peru. As a matter of fact, the value of the pearls exported to Spain exceeded that of all other exports combined. In Europe, the Americas became known as "the lands where pearls come hither". One of the most famous pearls found in the Americas was "La Peregrina (The Wanderer)". Particularly noted for its beauty and dark-gray color, "La Peregrina" has the size and shape of a pigeon's egg.
Mexican pearls are born out of two native Pearl Oyster species: the "Panamic Black-Lipped Pearl Oyster" (Pinctada mazatlanica) and the "Rainbow-Lipped Pearl Oyster" (Pteria sterna). Both organisms are very able at producing pearls in a wide array of colors: from an opalescent white, golden-bronze, grays, greens and blues, pinkish-violet, and all the way to jet black. The fame of Mexican pearls increased even further when an important development took place in the Island of "Espíritu Santo" (near the City of La Paz), in the southern part of Lower California. This development took form as a company founded by Medical Doctor Gastón Vivès, who started the world's first commercial pearl oyster culture farm, this back in the year of 1903. This took place several decades before the Japanese where even dreaming of culturing pearls.
Mexico lost the great opportunity of becoming the leading country in the culture of naturally colored (black) pearls. The factors involved in this were many, but bad government practices and decisions were decisive. It was back in the decade of the sixties when a pilot pearl culture station was started in the Falsa Bay, South Baja California, with the help of Australian Pearl Promoter: C. Denis George.The estimated yearly production of cultured pearls for this pearl farm will be of about 10,000 pearls per year starting by the year 2002. This makes Mexican pearls the rarest in the World.