Signature Luxury Travel & Style
GOLDEN LEGACYS
Transforming Western Australia’s natural gold nuggets into stunning jewellery
Western Australia’s gold rushes of the 1890s changed the face of the state forever. While the small European settlement here once struggled to survive, the discovery of this element – and lots of it – drew entrepreneurs and fortune-seekers from around the world. Towns were built, shops were erected, and Western Australia began to boom.
The nuggets unveiled here to this day are among the finest you’ll find in the world, and are particularly pretty when paired with other West Australian riches, including pink Kimberley diamonds, boulder opals and deep-sea pearls.
West Australian-based Smales has been uniting these bounties since 1937, when founder Ron Smales Snr opened Kalgoorlie’s – the heart of the goldfields’ – first watch and jewellery emporium; initially dedicated to repairs, then branching out into crafting covetable goldnugget pieces. Everything was, and still is, made by hand, which means that when you buy a ring or a bracelet or earrings, you’re the only person in the world with anything like it.
Adding to the individuality of each item of jewellery is the fact that no two natural gold nuggets are ever alike – eroding from quartz, natural nuggets break off with their own distinct characteristics, discovered by miners in all manner of sizes, from one centimetre in diameter to six, and ranging from 18 to 23 karats. The larger the nugget, the more rare and valuable it is, with experts now placing one-ounce nuggets in the same value category as a five-carat diamond. This distinctive DNA gives each piece of Smales jewellery a bespoke appeal.
Not all nuggets are, however, created equal. In fact, many people ‘make’ them, by melting gold flakes and casting them together. Natural gold nuggets retain the original form in which they’re found, with each a unique shape and also composition – some have other mineral content as well, including silver and gold, telling an individual story of place and provenance.
Jewellers then transform them into wearable pieces of art, adding them to gold rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces, and embellishing with rare Argyle pink diamonds, perhaps, or distinctive opals and glossy pearls.