Just saw on the news, someone bought a huge diamond for 12 million dollars.
Myself, I don’t think any jewelry is worth that, nor even a one hundredth of that.
What if one day, everyone just decided diamonds aren’t worth what they are asking for them? How low would the price go down before the sellers decided it wasn’t enough of a profit?
Diamond still have other industrial uses, so at the very least they wouldn’t be valueless…
No, diamonds definitely aren’t worth what people pay for them. The prices of diamonds are artificially inflated by the fact that the DeBeers diamond cartel hoards a lot of diamonds to create a false “scarcity” of them. I believe I’ve heard that one of the ways they maintain control is by threatening to unleash a lot of diamonds onto the market to make the price plummet. For reasons like these, I’m one of the few women who really doesn’t like diamonds much. 
Diamonds certainly are worth what people pay for them, just as anything else is worth what people will pay. Ohter wise, the diamond merchants wouldn’t make too many sales. Might not be worth it to you or I, but it is worth it to the buyer. Also, from what I understand, DeBeers doesn’t have as much power as they once did, for what it’s worth. In addition, we are dealing with a 600+ carrot doorknob of a rock here, not really the same thing as a commodity diamond.
I must say, 12 million seems low to me. I don’t know what other big stones have sold for, but people spend way more than 12 million on other rare objects, cars, art, what have you. Not that if I had 13 million buck I would have tendered a bid or anything.
That seems like an attempt to define the problem out of existence. Especially since the demand for diamonds, the whole “diamonds are better than anything else, women want them more than anything, he only loves you if he gets a diamond” routine is as artificial as the price.
Well sure, there is a lot of BS in the marketing, but when is there not? I mean, Mountain Dew seems to think I should like their soda more than I really do. Society might tell me I should value something, but if I decide to buy it, that means I actually do value it more than the price, if not, I wouldn’t have bothered. The powers that be tell me I need to buy a tie to go to work. This is “artificial” as the tie doesn’t really help me get any extra work done. But I like going to work, and I like fitting in with society (for the purposes of this argument) so I go ahead and buy the tie. It is worth more than the price to me.
Then you’re on my list of women I’d marry. Uh… how *you * doin’?
Hoping to Learn, and thus Fight Ignorance:
Doesn’t the industry also try to maintain scarcity/value by quietly encouraging the idea that any ring that wasn’t bought from a store is ‘used’ and ‘bad luck’? And that a subtle hint in the ‘Diamonds are Forever’ ad campaign is that you should be buried in your jewelry (thus removing ‘excess supply’ from the market)?
It’s disgusting, quite honestly. To think my SO (and me - our finances are shared after all these years) should go into hock just to buy me a pretty thing. I mean I would really like an iPod, and the bigger one of those is only $300 I think, can I just ask for that as my engagement ring? Useful, too, unlike a rock.
I don’t ever want a diamond unless it’s inherited. I’ll never purchase a new one.
When I married my husband, I told him straight out I don’t want diamond jewelry. I don’t want to wear something worth more than I am worth (monetarily).
This was, of course, taken wrong. It was also spoken wrong. It was assumed that I thought myself worthless, or some such. It was also assumed that I hated diamonds. Both assumptions are wrong, to an extent.
12 years into my marriage, 12 years older and wiser, and with an April born child, I have been able to explain/revise my stance on diamonds.
IMHO: Diamonds are overrated. They cost a lot, and aren’t worth the reward. Women who think diamonds are a girl’s best friend are missing out on the things that money can’t buy. However, my disdain for diamonds would not preclude my joy at recieving a “mother’s ring”, which would include a diamond because of my April born son.
No. I do not want a gentleman purchasing diamonds for me. They cost more than they’re worth, and they are not worth their cost. I would much rather own birthstone jewelry, NOT because of the stone, but despite it. Give me a mother’s ring, or a ring commemorating my own birth (june = pearl) because of what the stone represents…but not because of the stone itself.
I would wear a stone in a ring commemorating my birth. or my marriage. or my son’s birth. I would not wear a stone just because it is a diamond. or a pearl. I lose jewelry far too frequently to want anyone to spend that kind of money on it’s purchase to simply “want diamonds”.
I will never get a mother’s ring from my husband and son, because I made the mistake of saying I hate diamonds. I don’t regret the comment, but I do regret the implication.
What if it was a man-made diamond? That’s the only kind I’d ever buy a woman if she really wanted a diamond. If she’s the type to get upset that it’s not “real” (it is real,) then it’s not any kind of woman I want to be with.
But I don’t need a diamond. Like I said, I’d rather have some new electronics, or a vacation or something.
Now take for example - my SO feels he simply must buy me a stone. I don’t even think diamonds are that pretty. Emeralds are my favorite stone, but they’re soft and fall out of settings easy or so I’ve heard. So I can settle for a sapphire - much cheaper, much prettier IMO than a diamond, a bit off the norm (I don’t like to follow Western standards in this arena anyway) and he is still satisfied that he has lived up to his traditions.