De Beers and their minions have found a way to sell ugly diamonds

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the marketing and perception of diamonds, particularly focusing on "chocolate diamonds" and other colored diamonds, as well as the practices of companies like De Beers and Rio Tinto. Participants explore themes of rarity, value, and consumer behavior in the context of diamond purchasing, including ethical considerations regarding blood diamonds and the cultural significance of shiny objects.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants criticize the marketing of brown diamonds as "fancy," suggesting that they are unattractive and previously unsellable.
  • There are claims that diamonds are not rare and that De Beers maintains a monopoly by stockpiling them.
  • Some participants advocate for cultured diamonds as a more ethical alternative to mined diamonds.
  • Historical context is provided, with mentions of the invention of diamond engagement rings by De Beers during the Depression and the impact of the Argyle diamond mine on the market for brown diamonds.
  • Participants express differing views on the emotional and psychological attraction to shiny objects, with some attributing it to evolutionary instincts.
  • Concerns are raised about the ethics of supporting companies like De Beers through diamond purchases.
  • One participant shares personal experiences with gemstones and critiques the diamond market for its perceived dishonesty and over-grading practices.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of opinions, with no clear consensus on the value or desirability of colored diamonds, the ethics of diamond purchasing, or the motivations behind the attraction to shiny objects. Disagreements persist regarding the implications of supporting companies like De Beers.

Contextual Notes

Some claims regarding the rarity of diamonds and the ethical implications of diamond mining are based on personal opinions and experiences, and the discussion includes various assumptions about consumer behavior and market dynamics.

turbo
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You may have seen TV ads for "chocolate diamonds" - brown, unattractive stones that were unsellable. Now, the industry has managed to convince a lot of loons that brown diamonds are worthy of being considered "fancy" diamonds like the pinks, blues, canary yellows... Just like the "inky" sapphires that have been foisted on US women for decades. Decent sapphires and rubies never make it to the US. The Asian market sucks them up, with good reason. They are rare, and far more valuable than diamonds.
 
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diamonds aren't even rare. De Beers just has a monopoly on the market and stockpiles them.

but if you want a pretty diamond, and want to make sure it isn't tainted by blood, just get one of the cultured ones.
 
Proton Soup said:
diamonds aren't even rare. De Beers just has a monopoly on the market and stockpiles them.

but if you want a pretty diamond, and want to make sure it isn't tainted by blood, just get one of the cultured ones.
You can buy an old "mine-cut" diamond, but remember that your diamond was mined by someone whose life was probably just as crappy and miserable than people who have produced the modern blood diamonds.
 
Diamond engagement rings were invented by De Beers to maintain profits during the Depression. I'm glad that we discovered the rocks up in the Yukon, to at last break their monopoly.
 
[PLAIN]http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9881/ironyc.png [/PLAIN]​

Oh, the Irony.
 
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Cyrus said:
Oh, the Irony.

Nice!
 
When I was shopping for a diamond for my wife's engagement ring, a guy at a "large jewelry chain" tried to convince me a "rare black" diamond was the way to go. I laughed joking "you want me to buy an industrial grade diamond?!" and left.
 
If buying a brown diamond makes some people happy, why care? It wouldn't make me happy, but so what?
 
Vanadium 50 said:
If buying a brown diamond makes some people happy, why care?

For one thing, it supports De Beers.
 
  • #10
Someone please explain this insane attraction for shiny objects.
 
  • #11
Phrak said:
Someone please explain this insane attraction for shiny objects.

If I had to take a guess, it is probably a left over natural instinct from our prehistoric, nomadic days. If you had to move from place to place looking for food, it would help you tremendously if you were able to spot light reflecting off some water source in the distance. So, you see shiny in the distance, you do not dehydrate.
 
  • #12
Vanadium 50 said:
If buying a brown diamond makes some people happy...

My first EW officer had the unique ability of...

Let's just say that in today's market, his quirky pasttimes would make him a mint.
 
  • #13
mugaliens said:
My first EW officer had the unique ability of...

Let's just say that in today's market, his quirky pasttimes would make him a mint.

I shudder to think...
 
  • #14
Diamond is just high(excessively)-priced carbon. :rolleyes:
 
  • #15
Apparently, this has been going on since 1986 and not so much by De Beers and its minions as by Rio Tinto and its minions.
Another example of successful diamond marketing is brown Australian diamonds. Brown-colored diamonds have always constituted a significant part of the diamond production, but were considered worthless for jewelry; they were not even assessed on the diamond color scale, and were predominantly used for industrial purposes. The attitude has changed drastically after the development of Argyle diamond mine in Australia in 1986. As a result of an aggressive marketing campaign, brown diamonds have become acceptable gems. The change was mostly due to the numbers: the Argyle mine, with its 35,000,000 carats (7,000 kg) of diamonds per year, makes about one-third of global production of natural diamonds; 80% of Argyle diamonds are brown.
Elsewhere in the article it says that the Argyle mine is owned by Rio Tinto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond"
 
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  • #16
Phrak said:
Someone please explain this insane attraction for shiny objects.

What Phrak said.
 
  • #17
Mathnomalous said:
If I had to take a guess, it is probably a left over natural instinct from our prehistoric, nomadic days. If you had to move from place to place looking for food, it would help you tremendously if you were able to spot light reflecting off some water source in the distance. So, you see shiny in the distance, you do not dehydrate.

So, women are still living in the stone age?
 
  • #18
Sigh.
Demonizing the De Beers company today is just silly.

It is due to De Beers, for example, that Botswana is just about the only non-dysfunctional country in subsaharan Africa.
 
  • #19
chaoseverlasting said:
So, women are still living in the stone age?

Yeah, most of them anyway.
 
  • #20
Topher925 said:
Yeah, most of them anyway.

I'm just waiting for evo to pick up on this.
 
  • #21
chaoseverlasting said:
I'm just waiting for evo to pick up on this.
Anticipating Doomsday? :biggrin:
 
  • #22
chaoseverlasting said:
So, women are still living in the stone age?

And so do men: shiny sports cars.
 
  • #23
chaoseverlasting said:
I'm just waiting for evo to pick up on this.

Danger said:
Anticipating Doomsday? :biggrin:
I saw it.

chaos, I had a 2 year gold membership to give away, why didn't you tell me you expired? The person I gave it to was worthy though. Maybe Greg would split it into 2 one years?
 
  • #24
Evo said:
I saw it.

chaos, I had a 2 year gold membership to give away, why didn't you tell me you expired? The person I gave it to was worthy though. Maybe Greg would split it into 2 one years?

My membership has expired, and I don't relish transmitting my credit card number into the internet. Can I have a gold membership, seeing as we're such good buddies and all...
 
  • #25
chaoseverlasting said:
I'm just waiting for evo to pick up on this.

I'm not saying all woman in general are fascinated by shiny objects, I'm just saying that the majority of them are. Even worse, the majority of men are willing to spend insane amounts of cash to obtain those shiny objects.

[URL]http://www.diamondboycott.com/images/truelove.jpg[/URL]
 
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  • #26
Phrak said:
Someone please explain this insane attraction for shiny objects.
How can someone interested in physics not like light-reflecting crystals?
 
  • #27
Monique said:
How can someone interested in physics not like light-reflecting crystals?
I love crystals. I have mined my own tourmalines and beryls right here in Maine and have bartered and bought materials from all over the world. Every female relative that I have (down to the 2nd cousin level and more distant in some cases) has at least one piece of jewelry featuring gemstones that I have faceted. My faceting machine is really not equipped to facet diamonds, but that's OK because the market is pretty much throttled by entities that want to keep diamonds as expensive as possible.

I have faceted and given away stones that are much, much rarer than diamonds, including beautiful pastel sapphires from Yogo Gulch, tsavorite mined in Tsavo national park in Kenya, Tanzanite, emerald, rubies, etc, etc.

A few years ago, a nice young lady (who has 2 of my stones) asked my opinion of her diamond engagement ring, and I said "it's very nice." to which she answered "No, I want you to look at it and tell me what you think". I went back in the house and got a 10X loupe and a lump of modeling clay to hold the ring steady while I examined the stone. The diamond had several voids and hair-thin "tunnels" leading to them. She had a stone that was perhaps a bit over 1/2 carat that looked a little "soft" because the refraction was broken up by those uneven voids left after inclusions had been vaporized with a laser. Diamonds are a scam backed by one of the most effective marketing campaigns in history.

Crappy worked-over diamonds are all over the US market, as are inky sapphires, and pink sapphires being marketed as "rubies". The gem market in the US is very dishonest, with jewelers over-grading stones that would not warrant a second glance on the Asian market.

At a dinner after a business meeting, I was seated next to my company's VP of sales (international company), and I said to him "What a beautiful sapphire!" He had a heavy gold ring with an irregular cabochon sapphire that must have been close to 10 carats. He smiled and immediately took off the ring and handed it to me so I could look at it more closely. The stone was a beautiful rich blue with no visible inclusions or silk. He explained that his parents escaped China in advance of the revolution, and carried as much wealth as possible with them in the form of precious stones. The guy was carrying a fortune around on his finger, and he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased that an American would recognize that.
 
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  • #28
I'm generally not for spending large amounts of money on things that don't have a practical use, but just for the sake of completion, here's to anyone who may want info from the interested party:

http://www.debeersgroup.com/en/Inside-De-Beers/Governance/
 
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  • #29
turbo-1 said:
The guy was carrying a fortune around on his finger, and he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased that an American would recognize that.

This seems to capture the psychological angle.
We can even scape among ourselves over what constitutes legitimate verses illegitimate vanity.
 
  • #30
Phrak said:
This seems to capture the psychological angle.
We can even scape among ourselves over what constitutes legitimate verses illegitimate vanity.
I wouldn't characterize his wearing that ring as vanity as much as pride in his parents' resourcefulness and his family history. Our company was headquartered in Scotland, and he was a first-generation US immigrant of Chinese descent. He's a pretty low-key guy, and sharp as a tack.

BTW, the $$$$$ value of that ring would have been of no consequence to him. That stone stays in the family. He was just pleased that I recognized the sapphire for what it was. Most Americans have no clue. If a stone is not the color and opacity of Carter's ink, they don't recognize it as a sapphire, because that's the kind of junk that is sold here.