Friday, June 24, 2011

Why are diamonds so valuable?

What exactly makes diamonds so valuable? The answer to this question perhaps seems to be easy at first sight, but there are more than one reason to explain why diamonds are so valuable in our society. I'm not even gonna start with diamond jewelry like many people would because only small percentage of diamonds are actually used for jewelry purposes (around 20 %), while other end up in industry. Diamond hardness and many other supreme diamond qualities have made today's industry literally dependent on diamonds, and this is the most important aspect of their use.

Diamond jewelry is also one big business built on long diamond history, legends, and excellent marketing campaigns all of which suggest to buyers that only diamonds are worthy enough to express the emotion of love, in most cases in form of diamond engagement rings. Since natural diamonds are so rare, and have supreme qualities that allows them to have a lifespan of few millions years it is really no surprise that they are so valuable, and of course so expensive.

Beauty, rarity, history, various use in industry, mystique, symbolism, these are only some of the factors that give diamonds a prominent place in today's world, making them so desirable.

Diamond industry hasn't just sit back and has exploited all the weaknesses we have for these shiny stones transforming them into "can't live without fashion pieces". This is the reason why we in most cases think of diamonds as strictly jewelry material which is only small part of their total use. But since diamond jewelry is connected with glamour, class, and fashion it is really no surprise that we're not really that interested looking behind that shiny diamond sparkle.


Anonymous,  December 4, 2012 at 2:16 PM  

Actually, diamonds aren't as rare as people think they are and you need a scratch test to tell whether or not a diamond ring is real or fake (diamonds look exactly alike to Cubic Zircona or other substitutes). If you had two identical diamonds, and you sold one for industry use and one for jewlery use, you would get almost ten times as much for the one designated as a gemstone. Diamonds are the most overpriced gem in the world. (Not to offend anyone who likes diamond, diamond represents the high life, like he said, because it's a luxury that you don't need)

Anonymous,  March 2, 2013 at 6:54 PM  

If you were lost in the the mountains, a book of matches would have infinatly more value than a $30,000 piece of pretty glass the size of your pinky nail..They are,for all practical purposes,worthless..yes they have some industrial value because of thier extreme hardness but as a piece of jewelry,they are scandalously overpriced.

Post a Comment