The Diamond Racket

roger said:
If you want sparkle I can break a coke bottle for you in your driveway, I guarantee more sparkle than that little 1 caret diamond on your finger.
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My driveway is small gravel with a fair amount of pyrite in it. Pretty sparkly already.

I'm just sayin'...
 
My partner / girlfriend and I are seriously anti-diamond.

Her and I are very real people, we don't like to just fall into the socially acceptable replies. When people flash their rings in our face we usually do our best to not tell them what complete idiots they are....

:p

We try to say something like "oh, that's nice".... which to them sounds like we are condescending but that is about as close to high praise we are ever going to offer up.

Diamonds for industrial use, fine with us, diamonds as a status symbol is pathetic. $5,000 for a diamond and $10,000 for a wedding... $15,000 would go a long way to starting a good home for most young couples.

Her and I are weird like that..... we look at things in a practical way, yes I am a lucky man.
 
In London I saw a jewelers shop called "Wint and Kidd:Jewelers". I wonder how many people got the joke.
 
To put my cards on the table, my wife's engagement ring was silver with Jet and Ivory inlays, craftsman made and cost under £20 (OK it was 30 years ago). It is however unique and beautiful. Diamonds (except in the £50,000+ bracket) are not unique and neither are the rings they are set in. Marketing and monopolies are profitable things.

Steve
 
not_so_new said:
My partner / girlfriend and I are seriously anti-diamond.

Her and I are very real people, we don't like to just fall into the socially acceptable replies. When people flash their rings in our face we usually do our best to not tell them what complete idiots they are....

:p

We try to say something like "oh, that's nice".... which to them sounds like we are condescending but that is about as close to high praise we are ever going to offer up.
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Well, you are better than I am about that. I got a gal very angry at me back in college when she showed off her engagement ring in class and all I did was ask how many African children were worked to death to get that completely useless and frivolous ornamentation on her finger.

I suppose that's why I get so upset over this is that diamonds, for jewelery, are completely useless in practical terms. Of course I can't figure out why people wear jewelery in the first place.
 
Whose line was it,.... Everything is worth what someone will pay for it.

I know that it's a little piece of nothing, but some women are just irrational on the subject, particularly Asian women. I bought Mart a diamond pendant this year for Christmas.

I described it to a friend as an industrial diamond necklace.

Him: Huh? You bought her an industrial diamond?
Me: No. I got it at a jeweler - certificates and all.
Him: Then why do you say "industrial"?
Me: I used it to break out of the dog house I'd been in since the 9th. You try forgetting the birthday of the woman who just carried your baby for nine months (and a day) and went through 96 hours of labor.

Yep, very useful little baubles.
 
not_so_new said:
$5,000 for a diamond and $10,000 for a wedding... $15,000 would go a long way to starting a good home for most young couples.
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$10k for a wedding? That's pretty cheap to the way my friends have been doing it. Most of their weddings were in the $40k to $60k range. My sister's upcoming wedding is going to be an small, inexpensive wedding on the beach not that far from where most people live, and it is probably going to cost about $15k.
 
Grimoire said:
$10k for a wedding? That's pretty cheap to the way my friends have been doing it. Most of their weddings were in the $40k to $60k range. My sister's upcoming wedding is going to be an small, inexpensive wedding on the beach not that far from where most people live, and it is probably going to cost about $15k.
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Very good point... and there are some things that I remain intentionally clueless on.

While I don't want to get married (neither does my partner... we have been together for 8 years, I don't see a wedding in our future) I don't have a problem with other people getting married, that's all fine and good. But I do have a problem when people spend that kind of money on a one day event that would be much better spent on a down payment for a house, paying off bills etc.

I am a practical person and I think a wedding large enough to be a mortgage payment on its own is ludicrous. If I were to get married it would be because I love my partner. I don’t need to tell that to a hall full of people, it doesn’t make my love more qualified or valid because I said it to 100 or 1000 people.

Back on the economic front…

This goes to the core problem with our economy right now, people not living within their means and not putting smart purchases before starry eyed ones.

I don’t think we are heading for the end of civilization with this current economic downturn, I am not hording food and stocking up the bomb shelter. But I do think this recession is going to curb our spending habits on frivolous expenditures as a society.

I HOPE that diamonds and large weddings are the first to go. Yes yes I know they are industries that provide jobs but I don’t see either as sustainable in a downturn or important. I would much rather a young couple put that $15,000 or $30,000 or $60,000 towards a solid home with good energy efficiency or a fuel efficient car or…. Just about ANYTHING other than a ring and a wedding.

Sorry for the rant…..
 
Travis said:
Well, you are better than I am about that. I got a gal very angry at me back in college when she showed off her engagement ring in class and all I did was ask how many African children were worked to death to get that completely useless and frivolous ornamentation on her finger.

I suppose that's why I get so upset over this is that diamonds, for jewelery, are completely useless in practical terms. Of course I can't figure out why people wear jewelery in the first place.
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Yes, I have had that reaction before as well from pretty much the same comment on my side. "Oh nice ring.... how many severed bloody hands came in the box?"

:deconfus:

It's one thing to be clueless about the diamond trade, it's another thing to not care.

My partner tries to get me to realize that most people are just clueless on this stuff. I feel that even if the knew the history behind their "frivolous ornamentation" they would still purchase it because it makes them feel better..... up theirs.

;)
 
Grimoire said:
$10k for a wedding? That's pretty cheap to the way my friends have been doing it. Most of their weddings were in the $40k to $60k range. My sister's upcoming wedding is going to be an small, inexpensive wedding on the beach not that far from where most people live, and it is probably going to cost about $15k.
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Great googlymoogly people are crazy! $15K for a wedding is "inexpensive"?

I've been married twice, once in 1988 and once in 1995. Both were done for under $1000 and people to this day tell me how excellent they were and how they modeled their weddings on mine (hehe - even my first wife).

I agree with not_so_new that the money people spend on weddings would be much better spent on things that the couple actually need - a house, a car, furniture, etc...
 
oggiesnr said:
To put my cards on the table, my wife's engagement ring was silver with Jet and Ivory inlays, craftsman made and cost under £20 (OK it was 30 years ago). It is however unique and beautiful. Diamonds (except in the £50,000+ bracket) are not unique and neither are the rings they are set in. Marketing and monopolies are profitable things.

Steve
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Spot on.

I very lucky in that my wife does not place value in how expensive the jewellery I buy her is but in how nice it is and how much thought I put into it. She prefers silver to gold and loves semi-precious stones (diamonds are seen as boring - looking just like glass). She now has an extensive jewellery collection full of unusual (often unique) and attractive pieces that regularly gain admiring comment. Don't think I've ever paid more than £60 for an individual piece (don't get me wrong - I buy her lots of jewellery - it's just she / I get a lot for our money!).

Diamonds are a complete con job.
 
Grimoire said:
$10k for a wedding? That's pretty cheap to the way my friends have been doing it. Most of their weddings were in the $40k to $60k range. My sister's upcoming wedding is going to be an small, inexpensive wedding on the beach not that far from where most people live, and it is probably going to cost about $15k.
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Ogden's Law of Marriages "The length of a marriage is inversely proportionate to it's cost"

Steve
 
Vic Vega said:
The artificial creation of the diamond engagement ring tradition was the most successful advertising and marketing campain ever undertaken. Giving one has become an expectation and part of our culture. You might as well complain about the weather, for all the good trying to change this will do you.

On the positive side, diamonds have real value and they aren't going down in price.
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They would if de Beers, et. al. got broken and could not have any effect on the supply. The point is, the supply is controlled. I would happily see it opened so all found went to market within, say, a year of being taken out of the earth - and no halting of the mining until a new, as available price point was located.
 
fuelair said:
They would if de Beers, et. al. got broken and could not have any effect on the supply. The point is, the supply is controlled. I would happily see it opened so all found went to market within, say, a year of being taken out of the earth - and no halting of the mining until a new, as available price point was located.
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That isn't going to happen.
 
Travis said:
Well, you are better than I am about that. I got a gal very angry at me back in college when she showed off her engagement ring in class and all I did was ask how many African children were worked to death to get that completely useless and frivolous ornamentation on her finger.

I suppose that's why I get so upset over this is that diamonds, for jewelery, are completely useless in practical terms. Of course I can't figure out why people wear jewelery in the first place.
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That was incredibly boorish. I hope she slapped you in the face.


Wow, jewelry has no practical use? Hmmmm. Thanks for enlightening us. :(
 
Travis said:
Well, you are better than I am about that. I got a gal very angry at me back in college when she showed off her engagement ring in class and all I did was ask how many African children were worked to death to get that completely useless and frivolous ornamentation on her finger.
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And she said, "None, you moron, it was mined in Canada."
 
For the first 10 or so years of our marriage, I wore a black star sapphire ring, very small, very cheap, very cute. The stone fell out and was lost, so for the next 10 years or so, I wore no ring at all. Then we renewed our vows on the beach in Jamaica for our 20th anniversary, and my hubby surprised me by producing a ring at the ceremony. It has nine very small diamonds in it and didn't cost more than a few hundred bucks. I once showed it to someone, who said, "Oh, isn't that cute?" (Tell me that wasn't meant as an insult...cute is code for small!) Anyways, I explained to her that it was given to me on a Jamaican beach and that the money we spent on that trip could've been spent on a bigger ring, but I much preferred the memory of the Jamaican trip to some gaudy rock on my finger.

Given what I know now, I wouldn't even want a diamond. What's the point?
 
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