If you don’t want a diamond, DON’T BUY ONE…
This piece was a response from our lead estate buyer Jonathan Flint to a video about diamonds that he had viewed on social media. So, we felt that his response might be helpful to anyone who might be in the market for a diamond or colored gemstone engagement ring.
I always find these videos to be FASCINATING! I just proposed to my Fiancée with a beautiful 14k Rose Gold Sapphire and Morganite engagement ring. I'm a jeweler who has been in the industry for years and have worked for many of the larger players who are attributed to selling a LARGE majority of diamonds in the US market… (which actually means) most of the worlds diamonds worldwide as the United States is actually responsible for a vast majority of most diamond sales in the entire world. That being said the “inflated prices” one sees with that of diamond sales can actually be attributed to many factors and or facets (pardon the pun.) First and foremost, diamond is a readily available material that is used for mostly industrial purposes such as saw blades, drill bits, sand paper, etc. However, GEM QUALITY diamonds are NOT readily available, for if that were the case I would say go ahead and find a diamond in your back yard… Secondly, finding a minable diamond deposit isn’t exactly what one might call easy. Thirdly, mining a diamond deposit is extremely costly and requires massive operations in very remote locations…
Now, moving on… after a deposit has been found, and gem quality diamonds have been mined, now comes the time to cut the stone for market. Which, takes a highly paid MASTER DIAMOND CUTTER to properly proportion, cut, and finish the stone in question. Wholesalers then purchase the finished product, and generally have the stone certified by one of the major organization such as The Gemological Institute of America, which is another cost (sometimes dealers purchase the stones already certified). Now, the wholesaler sells the stone to a retailer with the cost of the stone changing every single time one of the processes are completed. Now, you have a MAJOR retailer who has employees, insurance, building costs, marketing costs, taxes, etc. Then, usually the diamond is set in gold, or platinum by a master gold smith / bench jeweler… After all of this another educated employee is paid hourly to sell these diamonds in their stores to clients. Now that we have the facts straightened out, and one can see how difficult it actually is to bring a diamond to market we can now touch on the subject of “De Beers," “Diamond Cartels," and the like.
Historically speaking, De Beers was a MAJOR contributor to our current diamond market, and with their brilliant marketing campaigns diamonds became VERY popular. However, Diamond engagement rings were being given before De Beers came into the picture (do your research, please.) During the influx of the diamond industry, the De Beers organization was in fact the largest diamond distributors, as they owned most of the known diamond mines/deposits at that time. Having a monopoly on the supply of diamonds De Beers of course controlled diamond prices for many years. Now we move onto the fact that Diamonds are now being mined all around the world by many different organizations. De Beers is no longer the largest supplier of diamonds. There are a multitude of diamond mines all over the world. Australia, Russia, and Canada to name a few. In closing, the engagement ring I gave to my lovely wife to be has only colored stones in it because I wanted to do something unique. Attached are some photos! Thank you.
If you don’t want a diamond, DON’T BUY ONE…
