Why are diamonds worth so much?

Soldato
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This has bugged me for a while. We can make the damned things and just because the naturally formed ones are sat beneath the Earth's crust for a while, they are worth money. I can understand why gold was worth so much in past ages given the labour required to produce and purify it but these days with diamonds... really?

You're always told that you're skimping unless you buy your fiancée or wife a diamond ring. Is this purely because of DeBeers marketing? It seems to me that there should be plenty of diamonds around the world given frequent tectonic activity. You can even get yourself transformed into a diamond under lab conditions when you die FFS. There is lots of carbon in the world!

Is this the greatest ripoff in modern society or am I just being cynical?
 
Soldato
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You're always told that you're skimping unless you buy your fiancée or wife a diamond ring. Is this purely because of DeBeers marketing? It seems to me that there should be plenty of diamonds around the world given frequent tectonic activity. You can even get yourself transformed into a diamond under lab conditions when you die FFS. There is lots of carbon in the world!

Is this the greatest ripoff in modern society or am I just being cynical?

Yes to the bolded text. Turns out that a monopoly on supply is the best way to crank up the price and convincing people that a diamond engagement ring is the only acceptable way to propose is a good formula for making money :p
 
Soldato
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Beauty, vainty, perfection. Gold is valuable as it doesn't rust, scratch, is malleable and shines like the sun. Similar with diamonds, they are simply unbreakable and sparkle, pagan desires are drawn to such things and paganism leads to tradition, not that all tradition is a bad thing.
 
Soldato
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we can make diamonds, however >0.1 carat clear diamonds are less practicable so have to be mined.

They have no real value, other than a rarity value

You should read up on black pearls. These were worthless, some effective marketing with the glossy magazines showing images of these with other premium items and suddenly they are 'rare' with celebrities paying >£10k for a simple necklace.
 

wnb

wnb

Soldato
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Go watch Adam Ruins Everything on YouTube, in one episode he talks about Diamonds. Not sure if everything he says is true but it sounds convincing.
 
Caporegime
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Go watch Adam Ruins Everything on YouTube, in one episode he talks about Diamonds. Not sure if everything he says is true but it sounds convincing.

He's wrong on quite a lot of subjects, iirc his electric cars one is full of terrible math and a fundamental misunderstanding of a lot of things about it. I did see his diamond video ages ago and it's probably mostly accurate.

The semi short version is, diamonds were aplenty, loads of people mined them and no one wanted them. The DeBeers I presume had a bunch of diamond mines but no demand. They did basically two things, market the living hell out of diamonds as a premium product, X number of years ago (forget how many) diamonds weren't standard for engagement rings or wedding rings. They started the diamonds are a girls best friend, upped the price, made them seem premium and made people believe rich women thought they were amazing and encouraged the new generation to aspire to one day be wealthy enough to own a diamond and for men to show off how well they were doing by buying an expensive ring.

The other side of this was they went around buying up diamond mines to have a near total monopoly on diamond supply and started hoarding diamonds. So they dug them up but hold onto the majority. Marketing to seem premium, selling at premium prices and reducing the supply to make them artificially rare. For them what is the worth of selling 1000 diamonds at $2 when you can sell 20 at $500 and massively increase your profit.

People basically fell for it hook line and sinker and turned the Debeers into insanely rich people who are in effect scamming the entire planet.
 
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Soldato
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This has bugged me for a while. We can make the damned things and just because the naturally formed ones are sat beneath the Earth's crust for a while, they are worth money. I can understand why gold was worth so much in past ages given the labour required to produce and purify it but these days with diamonds... really?

You're always told that you're skimping unless you buy your fiancée or wife a diamond ring. Is this purely because of DeBeers marketing? It seems to me that there should be plenty of diamonds around the world given frequent tectonic activity. You can even get yourself transformed into a diamond under lab conditions when you die FFS. There is lots of carbon in the world!

Is this the greatest ripoff in modern society or am I just being cynical?

You simplify a lot to make a statement

a) Synthetic diamonds cost ~$2500 per carrat to be manufactured, and only coloured or industrial ones can be made. Due to the impurities. However 100 tonnes annually are manufactured.

b) Natural diamonds require few BILLION years to form and only 26 tonnes per year can be mined of which half goes for instructial useage.

c) At the jewels you do not pay for the diamond, but for the other materials (eg gold) required to make the jewellery, AND the craftsman making the item which is a very tedious process.

d) diamond cutting is very tough and expensive process. For two reasons.
Diamonds are brittle and can break on a single blow, but they are hard also, making their process difficult.
Also 50% of the raw diamond is getting wasted in this process.


e) All the above is manual labour process done by a high skilled professional, and in some cases takes days to make a diamond.

Thats what you pay.
 
Associate
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You simplify a lot to make a statement

a) Synthetic diamonds cost ~$2500 per carrat to be manufactured, and only coloured or industrial ones can be made. Due to the impurities. However 100 tonnes annually are manufactured.

b) Natural diamonds require few BILLION years to form and only 26 tonnes per year can be mined of which half goes for instructial useage.

c) At the jewels you do not pay for the diamond, but for the other materials (eg gold) required to make the jewellery, AND the craftsman making the item which is a very tedious process.

d) diamond cutting is very tough and expensive process. For two reasons.
Diamonds are brittle and can break on a single blow, but they are hard also, making their process difficult.
Also 50% of the raw diamond is getting wasted in this process.


e) All the above is manual labour process done by a high skilled professional, and in some cases takes days to make a diamond.

Thats what you pay.
oh look, a proper answer
 
Tea Drinker
Don
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Proper diamonds have value. Panos statement above is correct for good diamonds. What we buy for a few thousand pounds is a waste product cleverly wrapped up with advertising and social pressure.

You can pick them off the river beds in south africa but they stopped that as well by inventing the blood diamond theory.


http://www.johnbetts-fineminerals.com/jhbnyc/djwlrgal.htm

However I do need to buy Mrs Macca a 40th present so I'll be looking at something a bit different
 
Soldato
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There are certain uses for diamond. Iirc it's the harder material known to man so it's sometimes used on the end of machine cutters. I think it's quite conductive too.
 
Soldato
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8,833
You simplify a lot to make a statement

a) Synthetic diamonds cost ~$2500 per carrat to be manufactured, and only coloured or industrial ones can be made. Due to the impurities. However 100 tonnes annually are manufactured.

b) Natural diamonds require few BILLION years to form and only 26 tonnes per year can be mined of which half goes for instructial useage.

c) At the jewels you do not pay for the diamond, but for the other materials (eg gold) required to make the jewellery, AND the craftsman making the item which is a very tedious process.

d) diamond cutting is very tough and expensive process. For two reasons.
Diamonds are brittle and can break on a single blow, but they are hard also, making their process difficult.
Also 50% of the raw diamond is getting wasted in this process.


e) All the above is manual labour process done by a high skilled professional, and in some cases takes days to make a diamond.

Thats what you pay.

I saw a Horizon programme on synthetic diamonds which was significantly at odds with statement a). The programme seemed to suggest the nature of synthetic diamonds was they were too perfect lacking the impurities. I can't comment on cost or volumes if that was mentioned it was too long ago.
 
Associate
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Way up High.
I think there is one main companyy that deals with diamonds....de beers.

As above if you have a monopoly you can create an artificial price. They have been running the diamond trade for years.

The marketing deal is to portray diamonds are speacial and rare. They are not rare at all.

I think a lot of diamonds come from africa which is ironic with their people being so poor (nver their leaders though). Africa produces the most.
 
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