Thanks for that, it makes sense. I was just thinking about some sort of diamond exchange where people could get a better price for stones they wanted to sell while also getting a better deal on a sparkly for their girlfriend. It would have to be a volume business with very thin margins to offer better deals than the usual retail channels.
I was just thinking about that “Diamonds are Forever” slogan that DeBeers uses and it struck me that the recipients may or may not want them forever but the diamond itself should be damn-near immortal. Where do all the “used” diamonds go? And could someone actually tell whether a diamond was new or used?
Testy, please read the linked article in my last post. It has quite explicit answers to your question.
As to a cite for De Beers executives being under threat of arrest, I refer you to my March of 2001 thread titled, Diamonds Are NOT A Girl’s Best Friend!
FRONTLINE did an piece called THE DIAMOND EMPIRE in 1994. It pretty much exposed that the entire diamond business is based on psychological hype. De Beers used movie stars and the British Royal family to do their marketing.
General Electric came up with a process for producing diamonds that could have made gem quality stones but some deal was struck with De Beers so they only made industrials and they both raised the price of industrial diamonds.
Men need to start a propaganda campaign on the women to get this idiotic crap out of their heads. I’d rather spend a few thousand dollars on an oriental rug than a diamond.
The Economist is in error. Whilst the criminal indictment against Debeers stands, the personal warrants (which were not arrest warrants but rather orders to appear which had a detainment provision that looks a lot like an “arrest”) lapsed when the judge dropped the charges against G.E. In any case, most of the current top executives of Debeers are different from those at the time, Nicky Oppenheimer having shaken the company up in 1998 (and rebuying it this year).
Debeers is a big, evil monopolist, to be sure (if one gives two craps about the diamond market – this ain’t grain here). But I believe that Oppenheimer is free to land his plane here if he wishes.
Thank you for that reference, fascinating reading. It seems that establishing a clearing-house for used diamonds would be a tough job with prices dropping steadily. It would be nice to take some money away from DeBeers though. That advertising scheme was amazing.
You’re very welcome, Testy. It is almost astonishing to see just how much the current diamond market is a complete PR fabrication. The degree of manipulation involved almost goes beyond comprehension.
I wish there was some way to rip the mask off of De Beers’ slick packaging and near mind-control. The public is being played like a cheap violin. Their marketing program makes the Pet Rock, “Magic” cards and Beanie Babies look like the pitifully contrived small potatoes that they are. The almost outright fraud committed by De Beers has siphoned off billions of dollars for essentially worthless chunks of crystallized carbon. Few other cosmetic industries have managed to perpetrate such a deep and abiding deception upon the public.
DeBeers seems to have used a guy’s natural urge to get laid to scam billions out of the public. Amazing. The interesting thing is that other gems, saphire, ruby, emerald, whatever, are much better looking and cheaper as well but nobody wants them for engagements and weddings. The other gemstones have been synthesized for years but nobody cares.
Exactly, diamonds are only costly because of artificial market manipulation by a very few people, and any number of things could destroy the value of diamonds. If diamonds were really worth something, then there would not be diamond smuggling.
Diamonds are also subject to “subjective” ratings of quality, color, size of stone, etc.
Diamonds are not a girls best friend, it is gold.
Gold is finite, stable, and limited despite being mined for thousands of years, yet it is big enough that its value cannot be changed by any new discovery, the yearly production and unmined deposits are very limited, yet nearly anyone can afford and get at least one gold coin. Gold is gold, it cannot be broken, cut, melted, or cracked to cause it to lose its value. Gold has always been a store of value, and it cannot be syntheized or copied. All of the gold ever mined in the history of the world, would fit into a cube fit into an 82 foot cube, and most of it will never get into circulation with so much of it being in Fort Knox, in gold coins, and in other bank vaults.
Diamonds are not a store of value(like gold is), and diamonds are not rare. Forget a real diamond ring, tell your fiance to instead give you a synthetic diamond(no one will tell the difference anyways except a jeweler), and a bag full of $50 United States gold eagle coins.
To find out what any diamond is
“worth”, buy it “on approval with money back guarantee”, then take it to your local pawn shop and see what they will give you for it, that is the best quickest way to find out the real true price at any given time. You should never buy any diamond for very much over the price that a pawn shop will give you for it.
To compare diamonds with gold, the “dealer markup”(to cover fixed business expenses and buying and selling costs) on gold is about $10 an ounce, so you would only lose $10 bucks an once if you broke up or were forced to sell a gold piece the next day. There is no reason why the “dealer markup” on diamonds should be any more than the dealer markup on gold.
Gold can be adulterated through being alloyed with other base metals. Do a search on “Nazi Gold” if you doubt this. Its value is reduced by requiring additional time and energy to reconstitute it to a pure state.
Gold can also be synthesized. Bombarding platinum (which costs more than gold) with neutron emissions can reduce the target’s atomic weight and mutate it into gold.
Both gold and diamonds have intrinsic value as utile materials. Gold is used to fabricate highly reflective surfaces, dye glass, form semiconductor bonding wire, make corrosion resistant electrodes and many other applications.
Diamonds are useful in hundreds of different mechanical operations involving the shaping, cutting and forming of metals and other substances. Large scale civil engineering machinery (cement coring tools and roadbed removal equipment) depend on the heat “wicking” properties of diamonds to protect hardened metal cutting surfaces. Diamond “anvils” are a critical tool used to force matter into high compression states unavailable anywhere but the earth’s interior. If you had read the linked articles, you would also know that diamond exhibits vast potential as a semiconductor substrate and detector window.
The only difference between gold and diamonds is that the market value of gold has long been established by a practical system of supply and demand. Diamonds, on the other hand, have historically been controlled by a single group whose questionable business practices and dubious ethics has spawned one of the most exorbitant and overvalued commodity markets in modern times.
Speaking of gold and ripping people off. As you can tell, I’m in Saudi, and Gold here varies around 45 Saudi Riyals/gram or $360 per 30 gram troy ounce. That is for 21 or 22 karat metal. Anything under that adulteration is regarded as some kind of odd metal that looks like gold. In Thailand, the gold is almost invariably 24K and the prices are similar.
Given the prices I mentioned above, how in hell do jewellers in the US get away with incredible prices for 18K and even as little as 12K gold? It isn’t a case of workmanship, most Saudi jewelry is made in Italy and the Thai/Chines make their own. Susanann made a good point about gold being a girl’s best friend. At least if we’re talking about reasonably pure gold. Most of the Asian women I know consider gold to be “real money.” Notes and plastic are simply substitutes that you can’t wear while they are appreciating. S
What I meant was: even if gold is alloyed or debased, you can melt it to get it back to pure gold. You cant destroy gold like you can destroy a diamond. Anyways, debased gold is very common and it is ordinarily/normally sold for what the “gold content” is, no big deal.
As far as worrying about buying “debased gold” and not knowing what the content is, then just buy United States $50 coins- no debasing there.
As far as synthesizing, I meant that you cant make gold out of something that is worth less than gold is. Making gold out of platinum is pointless when platinum is worth so much more - why would anyone do it, making gold out of platinum is as ridiculous as conterfiting $1 bills by taking $20 dollar bills and changing them to make them look like $1 bills, yes it is possible someone could do it, but why?
But you can make artificial diamonds out of something cheaper than what the current price of diamonds are, or you could mine them yourself if debeers didnt have such a monopoly on them.
They get away with it for the exact same reason they get away with selling diamonds at such exorbitant prices. Americans often represent some of the least knowledgeable consumers (especially in light of their endless opportunities to self educate), despite having so much wealth. Gold and diamonds both pander in the N[sup]th[/sup] degree to our national malaise of conspicuous consumption.
It is vital to understand that only extremely large, flawless and well cut white diamonds are rare (in any true sense) or able to hold even a degree of intrinsic monetary value.
Current synthesis technology is entirely unable to compete in the manufacture of such large stones. Comparing the cost of smaller synthetic diamonds to their natural counterparts has no basis in reality due to the profound manipulation of pricing by the De Beers group. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that “… you can make artificial diamonds out of something cheaper than what the current price of diamonds are …” Synthesizing large gem quality diamonds may quite possibly never be economically feasible. Nanoassembly represents one of the few (if any) potentially cost effective methods of doing so.
Well, if you look at Zenster’s citation about the 1994 cartel investigation, it’s pretty obvious that DeBeers & co. are likely acting as a cartel- i.e. colluding to act like a monopolist. They’re likely producing and pricing to maximize revenue, which they can only do without significant competition.
I’m willing to buy and wear 18 and 12K gold because I was under the impression that gold purer than 18K was too soft for regular jewelry. I’ve always heard that pure gold will scratch and deform too easily to make good jewelry. I enjoy intricate work on my rings, etc.