Posted on 01/06/2007 7:44:37 PM PST by blam
I always thought that gold was a better investment.
Edward Jay Epstein wrote a great story on the dia,ond biz about 12 years ago in Atlantic. Couldn't find with a quick google, but more effort might produce a copy.
What an idiot this author is. Diamonds are more popular than ever.
Saw the same thing, actually since they started the two diamond mines in Canada, and the ability to make them for industrial purposes, the world is awash in diamond. However, the world government needs to make "debeers" pay for the upkeep of all of those poor maimed people.
Cecil John Rhodes, PC (July 5, 1853 – March 26, 1902[1]) was a British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today controls 60% of the world's diamonds and at one time controlled 90% of the world's diamonds. He was also the coloniser of the state of Rhodesia, which was named after him. Rhodesia (later Northern and Southern Rhodesia) eventually became Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Dr. Szell says the diamond market is not safe ...
Artificial diamonds have been around for a number years. But they have been tiny things, used for industrial purposes (grinding, scratching, etc.). More recently, the high thermal conductivity of diamond has motivated research into making diamonds big enough to use in microchips. There has been progess.
This is from a 2003 article in Wired:
Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye. We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80 percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten, a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the Hasidim.Good. Another example of creative destruction."This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars."
"I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell him.
He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.
"These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much hope.
"No, they're real," I tell him. "But they were made by a machine in Florida for less than a hundred dollars."
Weingarten shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares at the glittering gems on his dining room table. "Unless they can be detected," he says, "these stones will bankrupt the industry."
I read about conflict diamonds from Sierra Leone years ago. It shouldn't come as a great surprise that it took a movie to enlighten those intellectual giants in Hollywood. I guess the literacy rate must be a few points off the median...
I volunteer to take any diamonds in their jerewlry box that they no longer want!!!!
You're probably right. The price won't drop because a few Hollywood types try to feign being noble.
As for the anniversary gift, I'm on a five year renewal contract with my wife. Every five years, I get her something really nice to get her to put up with me for five more years.
Diamonds are a carefully controlled sellers' market. In the usual jewelry sizes around a carat or two they are a cheap and common commodity, worth maybe 5% what you have to pay retail. Don't ever waste your energy trying to sell one on the open market. It's basically worthless.
Well now the are on to diamonds. I guess the global warming caused by man just aint gettin it done.Any bets as to what is next?
I wear a Casio watch ($130, of which about $40 was for a titanium band). Its face is a solar cell, so it has neither stem to wind nor batteries to change. Every morning it tunes into WWVB and sets itself. Keeps perfect time. The only time I have to push its buttons is to change the zone offset when I travel (daylight saving adjustment is automatic). The Japanese have forgotten more about horology than the Swiss know.
I like diamonds and other gems, but my favorite stone is opal in its various forms, especially boulder opals and fire opals. I especially like rings with a nice-sized opal and a much-smaller diamond (or other stone) to set it off.
Diamonds are an endangered species, because they can now be manufactured. Very soon, "artifical" diamonds will be indistinguishable from natural ones. It is absurd for anyone to pay good money for any diamond. However, Gold may never be replicated. Alchemists have been trying for centuries, to no avail.
Yeah, if those idiotic celebs are now too good to wear diamonds, well, I'll join those other folks here who are willing to relieve them of the burden of diamond ownership. ;)
I think I'm acquiring a taste for diamonds.
If Hollywoodies are against 'em...
The number is far smaller than that -- and the wars involved have been over for 10 years. This is pure Marxist class warfare propaganda. Look beneath the surface and you find Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International, Global Witness and several other Left-wing NGOs plus the Hollywood elite trying to stir up trouble.
The Princess Syndrome, where wimmin want to bedeck themselves in jewelry, is set into their minds at an early age. It's hard to fight conditioning like that.
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