Their has been some discussion that diamonds are only really valuable because certain people wanted them to be and started a successful marketing campaign for them in 1938. Otherwise they would basically be worthless rocks except for certain industrial processes because of their hardness.
Now personally I’ve always liked gold better. It looks better. I get “gold fever” just touching it. And it can always be melted down and remade into something else.
Utterly a successful marketing con. (Hopefully, the production process will eventually become refined enough that artificial diamonds will come down to cents per caret like cz.)
A lot of young people I know are moving away from diamonds for their wedding jewelry.
Mostly due to human toll, horrific mining conditions, ecological damage, and manipulated pricing.
Turns out, there’s lots of pretty stones!
A lot of young people I know are moving away from diamonds for their wedding jewelry.
Mostly due to human toll, horrific mining conditions, ecological damage, and manipulated pricing.
Turns out, there’s lots of pretty stones!
This has always been my reaction when people gush over how beautiful a piece of diamond jewelry looks. Would it still be beautiful if I told you it was 50¢ worth of glass?
I’ve always preferred the look of rubies, sapphires and emeralds, personally. I don’t think diamonds are worthless (well, not any more than other gems), but they are overpriced because the supply is kept artificially low. Also the diamond industry contributes to a lot of misery in Africa, so that’s a bad thing. But those issues are indicative of problems with the diamond industry as it currently exists, not diamonds themselves. Which, after all, are just shiny rocks people like to make jewelry out of, not particularly different from any other gem. Now, start talking up the beauty of chocolate diamonds and my eyes will roll back in my head 360 degrees or more.
The way I see it, diamonds are like Beanie Babies - they’re worth what a buyer is willing to pay for them. Then again, that’s pretty much true of anything, isn’t it?
I don’t like them - never have. My mother loves 'em and has a bunch of 'em. I hope and pray she doesn’t bequeath any of them to me, but if she does, I’ll be selling them.
Yeah, no. If you ever see a well-cut, well-mounted diamond you won’t mistake it for cut glass. They have a quality that is quite distinct.
Are they worth what you have to pay for them? That’s a different question and one that everybody has to answer for themselves. I don’t think so. I prefer emeralds and so does my wife. You can bewail DeBeers all you want (and I have), but they and their marketing campaigns are the most successful in history.
Yup, and people do do that. But they’re not worth as much because the diamond industry has brainwashed a significant portion of the public into thinking that they “don’t count”. And the way you tell the difference is that the bespoke ones are higher quality than you can find in the ground.