Post: #1

Basically, diamonds have an 'invented intangible value', like fashionable handbags versus a 'fake' handbag. Their value does not come from their rarity, and are in fact abundant.

Pretty amazing. De Beers created a massive source of revenue for themselves, not by actually producing anything of value, but simply exploiting the simple nature of people on a massive and sustained scale. Primarily, the 'social proof concept'. All they did is create a socially self-sustaining myth that 'diamonds are the way men propose marriage', and that 'the diamond size (and cost) correlates with implied love'.

This might have been discussed elsewhere here, but I saw no thread title with 'diamond' in it. Every man should know that diamonds are a load of bullshit.

If I ever feel the need to buy an engagement ring, it will contain any gemstone but. My response to 'why not a diamond?' will be 'because you deserve better than that and I respect myself'. Crafty bastards.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...nd/304575/

Quote:The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value—and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.

...

Although it could do little about the state of the economy, N. W. Ayer suggested that through a well-orchestrated advertising and public-relations campaign it could have a significant impact on the "social attitudes of the public at large and thereby channel American spending toward larger and more expensive diamonds instead of "competitive luxuries." Specifically, the Ayer study stressed the need to strengthen the association in the public's mind of diamonds with romance. Since "young men buy over 90% of all engagement rings" it would be crucial to inculcate in them the idea that diamonds were a gift of love: the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women had to be encouraged to view diamonds as an integral part of any romantic courtship.

Post: #2

The only true value of something is how much people are willing to pay for it. So diamonds are valuable because people say they're valuable. Kind of like money. Or bitcoin. I don't see how it makes a difference. Girls will expect you to propose with a diamond simply because they wanna brag about it to their friends. If you think it's worth 10 grand, do it. Somebody once said ''marriage is betting half your shit that you will love each other forever''. If you're gonna propose, diamond should be the least of your worries.

Post: #3

What's funny is that diamond can now be grown fairly cheaply in pretty much any size/shape using CVD, and of a greater quality than ever occurs naturally - yet people still pay orders of magnitude more for naturally occurring diamonds, and there's virtually no demand for the "artificial" kind in jewellery. Go figure...

Post: #4

(05-18-2015 06:37 AM)turkishcandy Wrote:  The only true value of something is how much people are willing to pay for it.

The true value of something is how much the person who just sold it to you is willing to pay if you brought it back 5 mins later.

Post: #5

(05-18-2015 06:37 AM)turkishcandy Wrote:  The only true value of something is how much people are willing to pay for it. So diamonds are valuable because people say they're valuable. Kind of like money. Or bitcoin. I don't see how it makes a difference.

No one used sand for money, they used gold and silver, or salt back when it was scarce. As the article mentions: try selling it back to them and see how much they value it.

The error in your statement is that you have generalized with the word 'people', when in fact there are two groups of people in this case: the clever diamond company shareholders and executives, and the saps fooled or socially pressured into wasting large sums of money on a piece of squished coal.

Post: #6

(05-18-2015 06:37 AM)turkishcandy Wrote:  Somebody once said ''marriage is betting half your shit that she will love you forever''.

Fixed that for you.

Post: #7

College Humor made a great video on the matter:





I also suggest to watch the rest of their "Adam Ruins..." series.

Post: #8

First, don't get married. If you have a burning desire to pass on your genetic legacy, then go the surrogate route to get a child no woman can ever take away from you. The 20-30k you spend may even be about the cost of the wedding a potential wife might demand just to marry her. You can hire a nanny or au pair to get the female influence if you have the money. You as a single father will probably be a better parent then a single mother anyway.

If you must get married despite all the advice telling you not to, don't buy a diamond.

Do movie night with her say a month or two before any proposal. Watch "Blood Diamond" and afterwards become very concerned for the poor people in Africa. Talk about how diamonds from other places (Russia or Canada) still prop up blood diamonds through demand and price. Then when the day comes- Bam! pop out a nice ring with a white sapphire that is much less expensive.

Post: #9

Meh, my ex wife bought her own engagement ring.

Post: #10

Yes, one of the best marketing campaigns of all time. And it could only have happened because the diamond business was a very tight cartel at the time. Otherwise why would De Beers have spent the money helping other suppliers. Much less so now, though I don't think it's harmed prices so far. They are still ridiculously high.

You may be interested to hear that the Oppenheimer family (they were the ones responsible for the campaign) sold their entire stake in De Beers a year or two back. I'm guessing they figured that "the centre cannot hold" and that producers outside the De Beers cartel would dramatically undercut prices. So those wedding rings may soon be a lot less valuable...

Post: #11

I work in the gemstone industry, albeit not diamonds and not in the 'precious' gems.

Diamonds are definitely abundant but there are certainly very valuable diamonds out there. For instance, Ruby. A red diamond is worth a shit tonne of money no way about it. For a clear, well cut red diamond you would need to be royalty or HAM Chinese to get one.

For regular old diamonds though, like the ones guys get pressured into buying for their materialistic status whoring women do tend to be worthless. And its for this reason that diamond companies have been stepping up their game in regards to branding. For example the Polar Diamonds of Canada which are "conflict free".

I work in the jade industry and 7/10 of the most valuable stones ever have been jade. But like all gemstones, there is a wide range of value in the jade itself. We use industrial grade diamond tools to cut our jade as its the third hardest stone in the world. Diamond can be made synthetically so the future is indeed limited to the worthless average diamond purchased by the average consumer.

If a man wanted to take some massive risk and have a lot of fun doing it, buy a boulder of jade from a Burmese jade market, smuggle it out of the country and cut it open. You could be an instant millionaire, or just out a few hundred grande.

One story goes with the Doubly Fortunate necklace that the two brothers purchased the stone for next to nothing. The first cut revealed that it was indeed a waste of money. But on the second cut it revealed exquisite jade, and on every subsequent cut the value of the stone doubled. One of the necklaces sold in 1997 for almost $10 million dollars. The most expensive necklace was from father to socialite daughter Barbara Huston back in the 1930s. The Jade necklace was recently purchased back by Cartier for almost $28 million dollars.

High quality jadeite goes can go for $3 million per carat.

Post: #12

I was going to post the same video that Ch-Toronto did haha.

This diamond campaign isn't the first time that has happened though:

Back in the1920's a man named Edward Bernays was hired by a pork manufacturer to promote bacon consumption. He hired 5,000 doctors to write papers abour the benefit of a fuller breakfast which they dessiminated to their colleagues across the US. Doctort = authority figures= bacon sales soared.

Quote: ...Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company to encourage women to start smoking. While men smoked cigarettes, it was not publicly acceptable for women to smoke. Bernays staged a dramatic public display of women smoking during the Easter Day Parade in New York City. He then told the press to expect that women suffragists would light up “torches of freedom” during the parade to show they were equal to men. Like the “You’ve come a long way, baby” ads, this campaign commodified women’s progress and desire to be considered equal to men

Bernays also successful convince people to buy Dixie Cups by stating they were more sanitary. Who doesn't want to be considered clean?

In the '20 orange growers played on the public fear of excess blood acid condistion (non-existent) acidosis. IN WW2, OJ was associate with strenght and patriotism

You can't innoculate youself from PR, it's everywhere you go. But is anyone else here amazed by the power that Public Relations/ads can have over people?

With the resources you can make any activity or idea be viewed as a normal(homosexuality, smoking, etc). You can promote healthy, productive lifestyles and self-edification for men and women but unfortunately the business of America is business so PR is only used to sell us worthless shit. What a waste...

Post: #13

Diamonds are not really rare. They are just concentrated in certain areas.

At current usage levels we have enough diamonds for the next 10.000-20.000 years - maybe even more. If the Russians and DeBeers just sold the diamond supply freely, then it the stones would be worth about as much as Svarovski crystals. I refuse to pay for crap like that.

Try the resale value of any diamond - unless you are a connected wholesale trader it's an automatic net-loss worse than buying a new car and driving off the show room.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012...morgasbord
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/...sian-find/

Post: #14

A good substitute for diamonds is moissanite.

Post: #15

Exactly. We will have diamonds forever (ha) because we can make them in labs. We need diamonds for cutting tools and sapphire is less abundant than diamond but still used in abrasives. Industry needs hard stones to cut other hard stones.

Its not until gems get to one carat (200mg) that rarity becomes an issue. For example there are a lot of sapphires in the world, but not many red and anything above a few carat is worth a lot.

Even diamonds in a large form are rare. I understand where this thread wants to go but the reality is that all the mediocre diamonds in the world have no impact on the valuable diamonds. Even if thirsty simps keep buying .5 to 5 carat diamonds the supply of 15 -35 carat diamonds of high quality and colour are still so rare that they will have value no matter what.

All gems are hoarded somewhat by the miners. I would love to know how many carats of red sapphire Australia mines each year. It could be a lot, or it could be very few. Either way they have their hands on them and no one else can get a hold of them so therefore they are rare and valuable.

Post: #16

(05-18-2015 06:05 PM)Menace Wrote:  A good substitute for diamonds is moissanite.

A good substitute for diamonds is Game.

Even when you have the funds to waste on that good looking lump of carbon, you should not want to be played by clever businessmen. Your easily manipulated girl is used to part you from your money.

Traditions are valuable and rituals can definitely strengthen our social bonds, but we must distinguish between natural and artificial types. People are easily manipulated and marketing is amazingly effective. Valentine's Day and diamond rings are designed and promoted to manipulate you.

"Don't you love me? What will my friends think?" Only a fool is swayed by that. And it is a clear sign you are not respected by your girl and the direction of your marriage would be out of your control. You can only be manipulated when you care what others think of you. It might be very human, but it's very dangerous.

Post: #17

(05-18-2015 06:05 PM)Menace Wrote:  A good substitute for diamonds is moissanite.

Lol. It turns out moissanite is about as hard and brilliant as diamond but only a fraction of its prize. Kind of like Exactly what diamond would be if it weren't for fucking De Beers.
http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-moissanite/

It's basically worthless, unless you can fool your girl into thinking that it's diamond, in which case it's quite valuable.

Red diamond was mentioned earlier and that it's very rare and valuable. Would you buy it for someone? To me, it can be a sign of statue, like a Rolex. If I truly loved and trusted someone, I would probably consider buying it just to see her face when I opened the box. But the important thing is, before you buy something expensive for a woman, embrace the idea that she will one day leave you and take away all the things you bought her. Treat it like gambling money, only buy what you can afford to lose. After you accept that, if you can easily afford it and you think it's worth making her happy, I see no reason not to.

Post: #18

I didn't know a ruby is a diamond though. There hardness's are different being the ruby is softer if I remember correctly.

Post: #19

(05-18-2015 07:06 AM)Ocelot Wrote:  What's funny is that diamond can now be grown fairly cheaply in pretty much any size/shape using CVD, and of a greater quality than ever occurs naturally - yet people still pay orders of magnitude more for naturally occurring diamonds, and there's virtually no demand for the "artificial" kind in jewellery. Go figure...

Gem quality diamonds from the Lab aren't any cheaper than mining them.
Cheap lab diamonds are for industrial use.

Where you see lab diamonds compete with natural diamonds is in the colored market. But generic "wedding grade" diamonds aren't cheaper made in the lab.

WIA

Post: #20

So lets ask the proverbial question:

Where can I get cheap real diamond rings?

Post: #21

(05-19-2015 07:34 AM)turkishcandy Wrote:  It's basically worthless, unless you can fool your girl into thinking that it's diamond, in which case it's quite valuable.

Of course you can fool her. Of course it's worthless. That's the whole point. The only woman that's likely to ever go to a jeweler to get it checked out is a scheming ass ho, gold digger, or poor girl who is all about the money. All of which are utterly unsuitable LTR material in the first place, so not even an issue.

The typical middle-class girl of any background will never suspect anything and assume it's real. Hell, put it in a Tiffany box and she'll be over the moon.

I don't advocate buying women jewelry at all, so by substitute I only meant that to a very good first approximation, it looks and feels just like a diamond.

Rubies are not diamonds. Rubies are corrundum (aluminum oxide) whereas diamonds are pure carbon. The color is cause by metal impurities in the crystal.

Post: #22

(05-19-2015 08:42 AM)Menace Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 07:34 AM)turkishcandy Wrote:  It's basically worthless, unless you can fool your girl into thinking that it's diamond, in which case it's quite valuable.

Of course you can fool her. Of course it's worthless. That's the whole point. The only woman that's likely to ever go to a jeweler to get it checked out is a scheming ass ho, gold digger, or poor girl who is all about the money. All of which are utterly unsuitable LTR material in the first place, so not even an issue.

The typical middle-class girl of any background will never suspect anything and assume it's real. Hell, put it in a Tiffany box and she'll be over the moon.

Win-win situation.

Post: #23

Today I got a question in my economics exam which asked to mention any legal monopoly firm in the UK. I went blank for a minute and then suddenly I threw in the name 'De Beers' which I got from this thread. If it wasn't for Phoenix posting this thread I would have left half a question behind because I don't know shit about the UK monopolies. You made my day man, thanks

Post: #24

(05-18-2015 10:51 AM)kleyau Wrote:  Meh, my ex wife bought her own engagement ring.

Kevin Federline,is that you?