A photo from open sources
Probably each of us knows that the most precious Diamonds are stones because they have unique properties: it is a surprisingly strong material, cut, becoming a diamond, amazingly beautiful, besides rare as a fossil.
But here it’s worth making a small correction: ruby, emerald, sapphire much more beautiful gems, and they are found in nature significantly less than diamonds. Why are they second class? It turns out that the fabulous price of diamonds is artificial, this is a grandiose world scam about which few knows. But let’s see how it all happened.
Why have diamonds become the most expensive?
Until the second half of the 19th century, the high price of diamonds was quite justified, because these precious “glass” in fact came across to people rather seldom. But … in 1866 in South Africa discovered practically inexhaustible reserves of diamonds, which is why the region Kimberly poured into the thousands of prospectors. Only for the first half a century here, about 3 thousand tons of these precious stones.
A photo from open sources
For this reason, the global market was literally flooded diamonds, and their price has plummeted. I think the value of diamonds would fall further if the entrepreneurial business did not intervene Cecile Rhodes, who ultimately formed a monopoly on this market by founding De Beers and it still sets up artificially high price for diamonds.
Rhodes arrived in South Africa back in 1870 at the height of diamond rush. He soon realized that in the field of a getter you won’t achieve much here, and huge capital will not knock together. And so he organized a service company miners. This turned out to be so profitable that by 1883 Rhodes took control of all Kimberley deposits, and by the beginning nineties De Beers controlled over 90 percent of all global diamond production. Naturally, monopolists easily set artificially high prices for diamonds.
A photo from open sources
The company flourished at the beginning of the next century, but in the middle of XX centuries she began to have problems: sales of diamonds that were less beautiful than the same sapphires, rubies and emeralds, and less rare in the gem market, began to plummet. It was possible, of course, to lower prices in the diamond market, but this threatened lose fabulous income. And then De Beers comes up with fantastic maneuver: the company deployed invisible in its scale advertising company with the slogan – “Diamonds are Forever” (with for this purpose, the film of the same name about the famous James was even shot Bond).
A photo from open sources
Advertising made diamonds the most expensive
De Beers spared no funds for this ad, coming up with more and more new moves to brainwash customers, and it went on for generations and continues still.
As a result of all this, diamonds have been and remain the most expensive and most desirable jewelry, and as for the rich, so for average buyers. At the same time, the principle of diamond prices formulated so that a rather modest pebble should not be below three average salaries of an American, that is, now it’s somewhere around 10 one thousand dollars.
A photo from open sources
The monopolist company De Beers ultimately achieved what it wanted: people began to pay the lion’s share for the status of diamonds, and not for its real beauty and cost. You may be surprised at this fact, even be outraged, but in this world there are a lot of strange and absurd things. For example, if people pay hundreds of millions of dollars for daub paintings in the form of multi-colored blots of Barnett Newman or Jackson Pollock, why diamonds cannot be sold higher how are they worth it? The main thing is to convince the buyer that by acquiring such a decoration, he receives undeniably greater than those considerable the money that pays for him …
Africa Stones
