Keep in mind that this article was apparently written in 1982 so it's nearly 30 years old. Not that this invalidates it, but you should take into account that times change (although, with diamonds, they are largely the same).
Personally, my wife and I decided to buy a synthetic diamond for her engagement ring. She didn't want me to spend alot of money on it (knowing that whatever I spend is really "our" money once we are married anyways and thought it silly to tie up so much money in something you'd never actually sell). She didn't even want a diamond since they were so expensive in general. In the end we found a company that made synthetics that we liked and were able to get a nice sized stone for very little money. It gets the requisite social oohs and aahs and we don't have to explain why we think spending money on a diamond ring is silly.
I'm sure you're not unfamiliar with the signaling aspect of diamonds: a costly gesture and sign of commitment, since it can't easily be repeated to other mates, or done at all if one doesn't have the wealth / position / etc. And the signaling utility of diamonds is helped, rather than hindered, by the lack of a secondary market.
If your mate actively doesn't want the signal, then what's the point of signaling?
I mean, mine would scream bloody murder if I gave her a $2000 diamond next week. Hardly worth it, huh?
For our wedding, we went with a nice ring that has two modestly-sized Tanzanite hearts in a silver ring. It costs a mere fraction of what a diamond would have cost, has better symbolism than a single diamond, and, oh, it also looks nice. Frankly I think fully transparent gems lack personality. Only downside I was worried about is that Tanzanite is quite a ways down the Moh scale, but it has not proved a problem; if your gemstone is getting scratched your finger is probably getting torn off. This does not happen often.
I don't know about your experience with women, and by all means, if this is not true, kuddos to you, but this seems like one of those things women would say but feel something competely different.
Geez, way to generalise about an entire gender, and quite negatively at that. There are certainly people (both men and women) who say one thing and mean another, but comments like this do nothing but undermine those women who actually mean it when they say something (like "let's not spend too much money on our rings"), which I have to assume is most of the ones that bother to say stuff like that in the first place.
Yeah. Very important if your wife-to-be is "waiting for marriage" to maintain their market value, and you want to use the ring as a way to get the benefits of marriage before the ceremony.
A big splurge on a ring means that you are serious, and will go through with the ceremony. Breaking off the engagement will leave you out of pocket.
But most people aren't in that position any more. Girls don't "wait-for-marriage" to maintain their market value any more.
> Breaking off the engagement will leave you out of pocket.
Depending on the state, if an engagement is broken off for any reason, the ring should return to you. In others -- only if it's broken off by your betrothed.
If you're in New York, you have to return the ring. Recently, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stuck steadfastly to the no-fault reasoning and decreed that the donor should always get the ring back if the engagement is broken off, regardless of who broke it off or why (Lindh v. Surman, 1999 WL 1073639). Iowa, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Wisconsin have the same rule (Heiman v. Parrish, 942 P.2d 631, 636 [Kan. 1997]). The alternative rule, and still the majority approach, is that a donor who breaks off the engagement for a reason that has nothing to do with the donee's behavior cannot recover the ring. This is the fault-based rule
Snap Lake Mine, De Beers' first diamond mine outside of Africa, is 220 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife. Snap Lake is Canada's first completely underground diamond mine.
Victor Mine is located in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario, approximately 90km west of the coastal community of Attawapiskat First Nation. Victor Mine is an open pit mine and Ontario’s first diamond mine.
They aren't a mining company. So what about them? Companies source "Canadian diamonds" I would be surprised if Brilliant Earth could guarantee none of their diamonds are from DeBeers.
I'm just stating facts. A lot of people are confused about Canadian diamonds and assume that because they are Canadian they are ok because they have no connection to DeBeers who they see as bad. Most don't realize the level of involvement of DeBeers in the Canadian mining industry.
Even if DeBeers wasn't involved though you're still supporting and industry and an ideal that make DeBeers viable. So saying "I don't support conflict diamonds because I only buy Canadian" is wrong because its the demand you've created that make those conflict diamonds valuable.
The place I went with (link a few comments above) sells all the various cuts and sizes - a 1 carat princess cut is around $100 I believe, compared to $2,500-$15,000 from a quick search on bluenile.com (which is considered a relatively inexpensive way to purchase diamonds). So everyone's clear - I'm not endorsing any of these places, merely stating my own experience.
This Warren Buffett quote on gold could very easily be changed to apply to diamonds:
"Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."
Except that diamonds are just a form of carbon, whereas gold is divisible and un-manufacturable. Say what you want about diamonds, they way will pass as technology makes more and more strides, but gold does have industrial use as well as financial use. Gold is money when the future is completely uncertain. Heck, the Dow hasn't moved since the thirties when priced in gold.
If our society collapses, rebuilding parts of it will give great economies of scale to those with the requisite knowledge. Gold might not be the most worthful metal, though; that might go to copper, until the infrastructure gets built back up to the point where we're concerned with gold's particular conductivity.
People have agreed on gold's value for thousands of years. I don't think anything worse than the fall of Rome is likely to happen, and gold retained its value even then.
> Real-estate on the Moon is also divisible and un-manufacturable, but no-one seems to be arguing that we should base a monetary system on _that_.
From the perspective of a fiat currency serving as a store of value, Moon real estate is a great idea. The exact amount and location of it is available to anyone in the world; it's tamper-proof; and unlike regular paper money, it's difficult for it to be inflated.
A currency with zero nominal inflation translates to effective deflation in a growing economy. If you own x% of the moon, and no more moon can be printed, you'll hold your lunar notes under a mattress waiting for their value to rise and nothing productive will ever get financing.
I think you're the first person to think of it. Good idea. I will be arguing for it from now on, because not only is it divisible and un-manufacturable, it wouldn't inhibit industrial uses of gold or anything else.
I'll take 2,000+ years of recorded human history, across multiple cultures and ethnicities/races, over Buffett's views, thanks.
How about I counter with Bernard Baruch:
"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time ... When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."
If you apply the same argument to astrology, would you accept that we should hold it as a valuable part of human civilization as well?
Astrology is older than 2000+ years and it is used by multiple cultures and races. Only recently that scientific advances have convinced a substantial percentage of population to think otherwise.
If the exact same kind of astrology (not different variants) were used, and it was shown to have predictive power, perhaps I could see the equivalence between gold and astrology.
Example: I time travel back to 500AD, do some kind of service, get paid in gold and bury it in a specific place so I can retrieve it. Then in 2010 I get the gold - it has retained its value over that broad span of time.
Astrology - I use it in early September 2001 to predict a massive upheaval in US economy - I buy a bunch of short positions on September 9th, 2001 and make a boatload of money.
The difference here is that, with currency, if everybody agrees that something is currency, it IS currency, whereas astrology makes false claims about the physical world.
Gold doesn't buy derivatives it doesn't understand. Gold doesn't depend upon AAA ratings from government-sponsored cartels; gold can't be destroyed by gamblers or liars or cheats. 2000 years from now, it is highly unlikely that Buffet's empire will still exist in any form. Gold, however, will exist 2 billion years from now, just as it is today.
I have no positions one way or the other. Mainly because I don't plan on living 2 billion years. If I did though...
You could say that about any form of currency. For example, cash is trees that we cut down, cover with ink, and put in a vault and pay somebody to guard them. Maybe Mars has a barter economy.
As long as artificial diamonds are cheaper. Last I heard, natural industrial-quality diamonds were cheaper than artificial ones, which were cheaper than natural gem-quality.
The pain you feel selling diamonds is much more due to the huge markup charged by retail jewelers than anything De Beers has done.
It might be true that they're doomed as long term investments, but if you buy a diamond for a fair price (e.g. at Blue Nile), I'd expect you to be able to turn around and sell it for >75% of what you paid.
Even without the markup, diamonds are not going to be easy to sell. A valuation based on cut, caret, color and clarity is going to be hard to do. The buyer must accept a risk that they have undervalued (and you will shop around to find the buyer who undervalues it the most), so they need to give themselves some margin of error.
A case study in perfect marketing. I remember mentioning to some reasonably intelligent girl on how I would never buy my wife-to-be a diamond, and remember the reaction being the very definition of "scoff". The fact that someone wouldn't buy their lover a worthless rock is just too unreasonable to even contemplate.
One thing I like about wars is that they help thin out the human race. Hopefully one day, we will completely kill ourselves off; then I can finally be happy knowing that everyone alive will be thinking for themselves.
i would presume that the scoff came more from the implied "I am unable to understand or appreciate the needs and desires of a female partner" than it had to do with the logic behind the statement.
if you find a partner who doesn't want a diamond, then you are completely justified in not getting her one (just because she says she doesn't want one, doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't, though).
otherwise, the real value isn't in its intrinsic value, but in the various byproducts -- the signal it sends, how she's able to show it off to her friends (and will be expected to), the fact that she's likely been dreaming about it since childhood, etc.
just like any social norm, it doesn't always make sense. but by refusing to do something because you think it doesn't make sense, the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's.
the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's.
Really? Why, because you say so? Firstly, no girl "needs" a diamond. Secondly, doing things that don't make sense in order to please others has already been a cause of too much suffering in history already. Lastly, by insisting on having your partner spend a significant amount of money to buy you something that has no real value just so you can show off, the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's.
Girls don't "need" anything except food, water and shelter, but a man who gives her only that won't last very long. A blanket statement like "I would never buy you a diamond" implies "I will vet all your purchases." It's the most un-romantic thing one could possibly say. It sets the tone of the relationship, something like "What you want has to make sense to me before I give it to you."
It sounds quaint and old-fashioned, but a man should give everything to a woman he hopes to marry, and demand nothing in return, without worrying about whether or not it's sensible. It doesn't make sense until you realize that she only wants to do the same for you. She will commit to unconditional satisfaction of your wants, but you have to commit to hers as well, and saying "I would never buy you a diamond" sets up some major conditions.
It's not about the diamond. You can debate the diamond specifically (and btw, the showing-it-off part is where most of the worth lies) and you might win. It's about the debate, about having to discuss her wants in order to decide if they make sense. That is unromance.
It cuts the other way, too. If someone tells me, "I must have a diamond" then I know that person values her friends' thoughts or her appearance to strangers over her own rational thoughts. Not interested. (Alternatively, she has no rational thoughts. Also bad.)
It sounds quaint and old-fashioned, but a man should give everything to a woman he hopes to marry, and demand nothing in return, without worrying about whether or not it's sensible. It doesn't make sense until you realize that she only wants to do the same for you. She will commit to unconditional satisfaction of your wants.
This makes life seem even more meaningless than I usually think it is. One person does whatever he thinks the other person wants, in exchange for that in return. A silent existence devoid of interaction, sacrificing your happiness so that the other person is happy to sacrifice their happiness.
All that's left after this is reproduction. Is that all human relationships are about?
In my opinion, we males have a tendency to think that the important part of the message is the logic part, the "what we say", in this case being "I would never buy my wife-to-be a diamond". Women have the tendency to look more at the emotional side, the "how do you say that".
It is interesting how you do remember the what but not the how. They are going to wonder why do you say that, if that is an excuse for not doing something...
I have seen real master in action, that no matter what they say to girls is going to work. The secret? The how.
So it is probably inevitable that the price of diamonds will plunge, but there are still amazing possibilities with synthetic gems. It should be possible to create synthetics with careful control of impurities so that they have designer optical properties.
It reminds me of failed business venture by Kary Mullis the guy who got the nobel prize for PCR. He was going to create a business that would embed the cloned DNA of a celebrity or deceased ancestor into a piece of jewelry for a fee. While this business was unsuccessful I think that if people keep experimenting with this kind of thing someone will win big.
What's astonishing is that, in the 28 years since this article was published, De Beers and the retail diamond market have failed to collapse.
I'll readily admit to not knowing one bit of information about the wholesale or investment diamond markets, but given the picture painted, De Beers must have something really special going on.
"...in July 2000, when the famously secretive South African company announced it would stop its efforts to control the world’s diamond supply. In a glorious understatement, chairman Nicky Oppenheimer later explained the decision: 'As new sources of supply opened up—particularly in Canada—it became evident that that role could not be sustained.'"
The BHP Billiton group and Rio Tinto were big players in the Australian discovery mentioned near the end of the Atlantic article.
It's mostly a brilliant manipulation of public expectations. The article illustrates it beautifully: the creation of the matrimonial diamond ring in America and then Japan, the manipulations needed to sell small diamonds one year and big diamonds another.
As I've heard it, when synthetic diamonds arrived on the market, it turned out that they had fewer impurities than natural diamonds. The cartel's advertising changed to emphasize the uniqueness of natural, "genuine" diamonds (which presumably have just the right number of flaws).
I hope people note this: Literally perfect diamonds can be produced for impressively small amounts of money, and the cartel barely bats an eyelid, happily swinging into their next marketing campaign to secure their position. We should all learn from these masters of marketing.
Personally, I got suckered into buying an engagement ring one time, but the engagement didn't take. After lots of searching, I was eventually able to sell the ring for half what I paid for it.
I used the money for gas and moved to California :)
When my wife and I became engaged, she wanted to choose her own ring. Since I was leaving on a business trip, we agreed on a ballpark price range and she went looking.
While she likes diamonds, they are not her favorite gem stone. She ended up buying a very nice emerald ring with much smaller diamonds channel set on either side.
So when an anniversary approached, and I want to give her a bracelet, earrings, or some such item, diamonds don't even come into consideration.
While I don't preach my view to others, I have been asked a few times about gift ideas by other guys. I try to steer them away from diamonds, endeavoring to explain the scam for what it is.
Personally, my wife and I decided to buy a synthetic diamond for her engagement ring. She didn't want me to spend alot of money on it (knowing that whatever I spend is really "our" money once we are married anyways and thought it silly to tie up so much money in something you'd never actually sell). She didn't even want a diamond since they were so expensive in general. In the end we found a company that made synthetics that we liked and were able to get a nice sized stone for very little money. It gets the requisite social oohs and aahs and we don't have to explain why we think spending money on a diamond ring is silly.