The Truth About Diamonds

Via Jessica Valenti, I see that recently in Slate Meghan O'Rourke made the case against diamond engagement rings. That seems like as good an excuse as any to help the company out but reminding people that Edward Jay Epstein's classic 1982 article on the diamond trade is available for free on the Atlantic website. It's an absolutely brilliant article, and you just can't look at the diamond engagement ring concept the same after reading it.

Photo by Flickr user beeep used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Another argument for Maine tourmaline.

My wife wears one. Wouldn't have a diamond at any price.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | June 16, 2007 10:58 AM

Really bad, evil people like OBL and Pat Robertson are involved in the diamond trade. That was enough to put me off the idea of a diamond. I got married old though, so all of that stuff was kind of unappealing.

Posted by J Bean | June 16, 2007 11:26 AM

That's why people should use engagement ring-pops.

Posted by Mr. Noah | June 16, 2007 11:30 AM

I don't have the link available but we, as in a few smart humans, have figured out how to make perfect diamonds in the lab.

As I understand it, it is far easier to make perfect yellow diamonds than white diamonds but white diamonds are being made.

They are being priced at about 15% below natural diamonds. It appears the only way to tell the difference is that very few natural diamonds are as flawless as the man-made diamonds.

It seems to me the price of diamonds is going to crash over the next few years as the supply grows of man-made diamonds start to flood the market

Posted by neil wilson | June 16, 2007 12:13 PM

A friend of mine bought an engagement ring from Apollo Diamond. He says you don't save much money, but can feel better about the transaction.

Of course, wily De Beers has begun a campaign to root out synthetic diamonds, distributing laser-like instruments to affiliated sellers that help them demonstrate to customers how a diamond can be too perfect.

Posted by tom | June 16, 2007 12:27 PM

Showed my girlfriend the post as she was walking by the computer. She laughed dismissively and went about daily business. End of story.

Posted by VasyaDC | June 16, 2007 12:46 PM

I remember reading that article in print (how quaint) having just returned from ex-Zaire, and a diamond producing region. I was curious about diamonds, having visited the biggest diamond mine in the world (albeit industrial diamonds) in Mbuji Mayi, and had looked down the Big Hole in Kimberly, South Africa, where Rhodes (of Rhodes scholarship and Rhodesia fame) made his fortune.

People in general have a sketchy idea of economics, and people "know" diamonds are valuable, so it's easy to fool people. I was never able to convince someone who wanted a diamond ring that they are fools, and it stopped being fun when they showed their rocks.

My wife wears 18K gold. Diamonds are pretty, but, as the article says, try to sell one after you've bought it.

Posted by NE PDX | June 16, 2007 12:57 PM

A real effort needs to be made to get the info out about Pat Robertson and other of the folks professing to be religious types that are involved in the diamond trade. I do it when I can, that is, pass the information along when I get a chance, but we need a real campaign because a lot of people don't know about it yet. I'm especially hoping to get it out amongst the evangelical types who need to have their bubble burst in the worst way. I was going to say that they always seem to be the worst of the worst, but then I remembered the Catholic faith (the one I was raised in) and their propensity to hide the baby*uckers amongst them.

Posted by Chris Kaye | June 16, 2007 1:38 PM

Any information about what's happened in the 25 years since that article?

Posted by Cindy | June 16, 2007 3:53 PM

VasyaDC, I think you need a different girlfriend.

Posted by InSpace | June 16, 2007 6:34 PM

...It seems to me the price of diamonds is going to crash over the next few years as the supply grows of man-made diamonds start to flood the market.
Posted by neil wilson

Yes. But: while this will not affect the propensity of many humans to think "diamonds are pretty," much of the big money and all the nastiness that goes with it will decline. Still, you have natural history museums, etc. still plying the rarity/desiribility factor of certain kinds of decorative stones found in nature and throughout history, so the whole concept will not totally go away. Even without that influence, most of us still like tulips and some of us will pay heftily for rare and special ones even though we may not go as crazy as the Dutch of yore.

...Diamonds are pretty, but, as the article says, try to sell one after you've bought it.
Posted by NE PDX

I truly believe from watching collectibles markets for decades and studying the history of them, your best bet on the investment front, if you want to play that game, is not to buy only for the stone (or metal,) of any kind, but to buy something with exceptional or unusual craftsmanship or antique. You will still be paying a retail price, through the nose, a markup that will take decades to recover in resale value, but chances are great that it will eventually have some reseale value. When buyers say they want "estate jewelry" that's what they mean--they are not interested in some dopey solitaire--that's pennies-on-the-dollar pawn shop stuff. But the jewelry equivalent of a Faberge egg has the best chance of resale value, even more so now in an "ebay world."

Even Jessica Valenti cites the effect in her post:

When my friend Lauryn (a Feministing founder!) got engaged, her boy bought her this amazing art deco sapphire ring that he spent forever looking for, and made a little book about the ring's history and how he came to find it.

The cavaet: if your selling in a generation where tastes are "I only like new stuff," you're still screwed. But even then, if the grandkids are smart, they won't through it away but put it away. It doesn't take a lot of effort to keep it in a box even if you don't like it. Jewelry is the biggest money makers for the big auction houses because it doesn't have lots of storage and moving costs. And there are still lots of cultures in the world where women like to have their wealth around their necks and ears and arms. This will not change quickly, as a matter of fact, in times of great turmoil, it revives. But as to resale, it's rather risky to put the emphasis on the value of the raw materials involved and much less risky to have something of great craftsmanship.

Posted by artappraiser | June 16, 2007 6:37 PM

Cubic zirconium is forever.

Why a pair of individual with college loans and or trying to get a downpayment for the first house and or trying to escape from credit card debt should even think about something as useless as a diamond ring is beyond me.

Give a CD (certificate of deposit) to your fiancee, she should be enchanted.

Posted by piotr | June 16, 2007 7:07 PM

VasyaDC, I think you need a different girlfriend.

Half-Thai, gorgeous, a great (and enthusiastic) cook, very intelligent and accomplished, and very considered in most non-diamond-related opinions--I think I'll skip your advice on this one InSpace. Besides, choosing mates on the basis of ideological purity, in my experience, at least, is usually not a good way to go.

Also, the posts here seem to reflect anecdotal experience where the men find the whole subject absolutely asinine and women almost uniformly defending the practice on either traditional or some version of modified feminist grounds (for instance, I've run into a lot of Megan O'Rourke-types who profess ambivalence to the whole thing, but after they're already sporting a multi-carat monstrosity). I would really like to see a broad survey done on the subject (with educational and economic breakdowns), but I suspect that support for the practice is fairly uniform across demographics. I also don't see a successful challenge to this convention in the near future, in part because as women have been intensely re-examining their gender roles over the last two centuries there has not been anything like a corresponding movement on the male side of the equation.

Posted by VasyaDC | June 16, 2007 11:23 PM

Many things:

VasyaDC: It was rude of someone to tell you to get a new girlfriend, but just because someone else doesn't treat something like a moral issue doesn't mean it stops being a moral issue. Demanding thousands of dollars spent to buy a product of war-torn slavery and environmental exploitation with a "ha" is pretty bad, and the fact that many people do it doesn't save it.

Apollo Diamonds: Nice people, they supposedly price their diamons higher than they have to because people didn't take them seriously at low prices. How ironic. DeBeers has already been trying to get a bill through Congress that would require all synthetic diamons to be labelled as so. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Heritage diamonds, or diamonds mined outside Africa, are much less morally questionable, but very darn expensive. Definitely not an option for everyone.

There was an interesting article the other day how modern Diamond demand ISN'T DeBeers doing, but started when courts stopped enforcing "Breech of Promise to Marry" contracts between engaged couples. If anyone could link that, it'd be appreciated.

Among liberals at least, refusal to buy African diamonds is definitely increasing, and I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now it'd be something women are replacing out of guilt.

Posted by Tony V | June 17, 2007 12:37 AM

VasyaDC: It was rude of someone to tell you to get a new girlfriend, but just because someone else doesn't treat something like a moral issue doesn't mean it stops being a moral issue. Demanding thousands of dollars spent to buy a product of war-torn slavery and environmental exploitation with a "ha" is pretty bad, and the fact that many people do it doesn't save it.

The point you bring up is a valid one, but not applicable to my case since our disagreement isn't over the desirability of conflict diamonds but diamonds extracted from, for instance, Russia or Canada (though there's a residual case to be made in terms of overall demand). The point of contention is whether the purty shiny things that girls like to put on their fingers has some kind of inherent value (in terms or tradition, convertability, et cetera) or whether it's just a gaudy and artificially-inflated symbol of allegiance to an antediluvian, patriarchal mindset.

Posted by VasyaDC | June 17, 2007 12:58 AM

[a product of war-torn slavery ]

[diamonds mined outside Africa, are much less morally questionable]

[Among liberals at least, refusal to buy African diamonds is definitely increasing]

perhaps American liberals might care to enlighten me as to precisely which conflicts they are currently protesting against, or alternatively what it is about the current democratically elected governments of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and Botswana appals them so?

Posted by dsquared | June 17, 2007 8:54 AM

Speaking as a member of the female side of the race and as someone with a doctorate in solid-state physics, I'd like to point out not all of us "girls" like the twinkly things called diamonds, at least not as jewelry. (Boring crystal structure. I'm much more enthralled by carbon nanotubes.)

If I want diamonds, I want the stuff to be a meter on a side.

Posted by tzs | June 17, 2007 10:00 AM

Alas, PhDs in physics seem to correspond rather strongly with bad results on irony-detection exams.

Posted by VasyaDC | June 17, 2007 1:10 PM