# Worldwide diamond sales $100, 000

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldwide-diamond-sales-100-000/535617>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [April 10, 2010, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldwide-diamond-sales-100-000/535617 "2010-04-10T07:22:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casebash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed8c4c/32.png) [@casebash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casebash)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldwide-diamond-sales-100-000/535617/1 "2010-04-10T07:22:16Z")

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According to [this thread](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2524/is-a-diamonds-price-a-true-measure-of-its-value), world wide sales of diamonds in 1932 were only $100, 000. Using [Wolfram Alpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100000+%281932+dollars%29), I calculated the present value to be $1.56 million. I find this hard to believe. I doubt you could even support one industrial diamond mine with that amount of money. Can anyone explain this?

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldwide-diamond-sales-100-000/535617/2 "2010-04-10T08:25:51Z")

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You’re right. According to the Statistical Abstract for 1933, page 504, sales of diamonds in 1932 were closer to $10 million just in the U.S… [Link.](http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1933-08.pdf) (A few years later Marion Davies sold her jewelry collection for almost $1 million in and of itself, though I don’t know how much of that was in diamonds.)

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**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldwide-diamond-sales-100-000/535617/3 "2010-04-10T10:12:59Z")

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Could that 100,000 be in direct wholesale from the mine to the cutters in Antwerp and other locations? Then with _their_ markup to the manufacturers of jewelry you could get the 10 million sum.