Okay, so let’s recap to see if I understand everything:
Question 1: Since DeBeers is a monopoly, how are they allowed to do business/advertise in the US?
Answer 1: They don’t do business in the US and anybody can advertise (except for cigarette companies) regardless of monopololy position. DeBeers commercials are especially unique since they are more promotions than advertising.
Question 2: What is an alternative to buying a DeBeers diamond ring as an engagement ring?
Answer 2: Buy a different stone (e.g. sapphire); unless you mine it yourself it’s impossible to tell with whom a diamond originated (at least not until DeBeers begins laser etching their diamonds).
Question 3: Is DeBeers evil?
Answer 3: Santa ain’t visiting, is he?
All said and correct, and in deference to Random’s threadspot, I ask two more questions:
Is it possible to tell a diamond-desiring woman about the true history of diamonds without getting castrated? Would she ever accept it?
What does it say about someone who requires expensive jewelry, regardless of the source, to feel loved?
Friendly neighborhood pawnbroker here. Until I became a pawnbroker, I told my wife she’d never get a diamond. I said I’d spend the same money on a car for her, or to take her to Polynesia or someplace, but that diamonds were a horrible ripoff. Then I became a pawnbroker. All of a sudden, diamonds were common and she got them every birthday, etc.
So here’s the deal: In wholesale terms, a diamond has to be at least a 10 point (1/10 carat) before it’s worth anything at all. That means a sparkly ring with many, many diamonds in it is worth far less than one with one big diamond.
The standard retail markup on diamonds (and, indeed, most jewelry) seems to be about 300 percent. That is, a 1/4 ct diamond I buy from my wholesaler for $220 will generally sell for $660 to $880. Further, my wholesaler buys his diamonds in Israel and probably makes 300 percent markup himself. My point, in any case, is that diamonds are neither especially rare nor expensive, except when presented for sale to the public.
BTW, synthetic emeralds have apparently gotten so good now that many jewelers can’t tell them from real ones. Diamond buyers should also watch for Moissanite, a synthetic diamond that fools standard diamond testers (your salesman should have a Moissanite tester on hand).
You are right about the general standard being a 300% markup on jewelry in a typical commercial jewelry story.
However, I doubt that your wholesaler gets them for $75 for a 1/4 ct. He probably pays $125-175, depending on the quality.
At $9/point, you’re paying pretty stiff wholesale.
I would be hard pressed to envision an $800 1/4 ct.(even in a department store).
But if you run a pawnshop, why do you need to buy overpriced 1/4 ct diamonds from a wholesaler. That’s why you’re there, to buy them from the public for $75-$125.
Diamonds are the greatest of all precious stones.
>>Hmm, well, they’re the hardest, but that’s their chief superlative quality.
They’re the most beautiful of precious stones.
>>OK, obviously, this is in the eye of the beholder. I much prefer red coral, malachite (a cyan & green semiprecious), and various green stones to boring little yellow, white, and gray diamonds (which is most of the diamonds you’ll see, admittedly). Why not get something visually interesting, instead of the merely obvious?
Diamonds are white, more or less, and the closest to clear of precious stones. (Thus perhaps the most boring ;)!)
>>Actually, as a mineral, diamond is commonly rather brown. There are gorgeous green diamonds, red diamonds (now those can really be worth something), blue diamonds, and lots of yellow and brown diamonds. Ask a jeweler about these “unusual” colors. You might be surprised what a diamond can look like.
Diamonds are the rarest & most expensive…
>>Next to rubies? Red coral? Yeah, whatever. Even your “classic” color diamonds (white/yellow/grey/blue) litter jewelry stores across the world. Throw in the browns, and, well, there are a lot. (Of course, there’s a lot of demand, too.) DeBeers is protecting its income by limiting the supply, or they’d be pretty cheap (relatively).
It just isn’t an engagement ring without a diamond.
>>There is no such law on the books. Wedding rings don’t have to be gold, either. Of course, it’s nice if an engagement ring or a wedding ring is recognizably that thing, but then, the “ring finger” serves that function in our culture. You have a lot of options, and of course, you don’t necessarily need rings at all.
Yeah, I buy diamonds off the street for about half of wholesale, but sometimes I don’t have the right grade, color, size, shape that a customer wants. Most of the stuff that comes in from the general public is not all that great, mostly Wal-Mart stuff…
$800 for a quarter carat might be a little high, but not much. You wouldn’t believe the number of people around here paying $1500 for a 1/4 carat wedding set; subtract $800 from the $1500 total price and you’re left with $700 for the setting, which is outrageous considering how much the gold in them isn’t worth. These customers almost cry when I tell them I could’ve sold them the same ring for $600.
I think the current jewelry markup is probably the reason most jewelers don’t buy stuff off the street–it’s easy to appraise a $600 ring for $1800 when you’re not the one buying it.
Yep, it’s in Murphreesboro, Arkansas. DeBeers owns it, but can’t mine it because they’re not allowed to do business in the US (the monopoly thing)…so they “donated” it to the state. It’s a state park, and they even rent shovels and sifting screens, the money going to the state treasury.
There is an active diamond mine in the US. The Kelsey Lake mine is in Colorado near the Wyoming border. See here for details about the largest diamond found in the US.
> 1. Is it possible to tell a diamond-desiring woman about the true history of diamonds without getting castrated? Would she ever accept it?
I think it might come off as something you made up because you are too cheap to buy the diamond.
> 2. What does it say about someone who requires expensive jewelry, regardless of the source, to feel loved?
In Canada we have a new gem quality diamond mine coming on stream in the North West Territories and (suprise)today DeBeers has announced they are going to buy 66% of the company. So it seems that they do have an unhealthy tendency to buy out their potential competitors.
Keith
Honest to God, I would rather have a DeBeer’s diamond than one from Sierra Leone. The “rebals” there instigated a brutal cival war that resulted in truly stomach-churning atrocities–they cut the right hands off of whole villages, including toddlers. In some cases they took the left hands and feet, too. These terror tactics were always aimed at obtaining control over the diamond mines–there were no higher princeples involved. Furthermore, there is no real way of knowing if a diamond you buy came from Sierra Leone. They have been smuggled out for years. Worse than paying a monopoly inflated prices, you may be supporting an orginization that maims two year olds.
I may be a minority here, but I am a woman and I don’t ever want any type of engagement ring. I would much rather have a new computer. Neither my mother nor either of my grandmothers ever had an engagement; wedding rings serve a purpose, announcing that a person is married. Unless you are going to be engaed for years, engagment rings don’t serve the same purpose. I also think that they are a pretty patriarchal idea; the man is deciding how much money the soon-to-be-joint finances of the couple can take. If your lover borrows money for an engaement ring, you marry that debt. It is the sort of thing that I would want to be consulted about beforehand, not expected to just look grateful that he loved me so much he put both of us in debt.
Furthermore, I think it is a bad idea to invest too much emotional and symbolic signifigance in an item that is so easily lost.
My question to you would be: Why are you interested in a diamond-desiring woman in the first place? If you really are on the same page about social issues and materialism this shouldn’t even be a problem. If you’re not on the same page, you should re-examine the reasons why you want to marry this person.
You don’t have to come off as cheap, either - there are other things you could buy instead of a diamond. If it must be jewelry, get a unique ring.
It says they are selfish and materialistic. I am a woman and for the life of me I can’t understand why other women care about diamond rings. I saw the deBeers documentary and it re-confirmed everything I’d ever thought about diamonds. Women who are stuck on the diamond thing can’t think for themselves. Do you want a lemming for a wife?
Whoa nelly! Just so you know, I originally wrote out those questions as hypothetical.
The girl I’m engaged to is not diamond-desiring nor does she require expensive jewelry to be loved. She would prefer a house to a diamond engagement ring. I am lookingfor a way around the problems that are associated with diamonds, while yet maintaining some sort of tradition.
It just upsets me when I hear women giving advice to other women that if your boyfriend doesn’t buy you a diamond engagement ring by such-n-such a date, then he’s no good. Note that both requirements are required to be fulfilled: 1. Diamond ring; 2. Time Limit. If you don’t get #1, he’s cheap. If you don’t get #2, he’s using you and is afraid of commitment.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that there are women who feel this way about the problems with diamonds. Frankly, before posting to this board, the only other person who had gone against the diamond engagement ring that I knew of was a guy who gave his girlfriend a plastic ring and kind of jokingly asked her to marry him. She decided to take it seriously (and he was happy about that too), and still wears the ring to this day.
I remember reading about some melons in Japan that sold for something like $50. Apparently the idea was not that the melons themselves were worth $50, but that having someone know that you cared enough about them to spend fifty dollars on a melon was worth $50.
