Comments on: Diamonds Becoming A Girl’s Best Friend, In a New Way

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:38:07 +0000

While I'd love to see the diamond industry implode, De Beers has been smart in the past, so they have to see it coming and have a plan for keeping their scheme alive. Some approaches come to mind: 1. Create a new marketing campaign that only "unused" diamonds are good and develop a certification (Carfax for diamonds) to prove diamonds are unused. The only reason diamonds ever became popular in the first place was because of good marketing (they have never been rare or inherently valuable). 2. Buy back the diamonds themselves, paying full market value and put them back in the warehouse for when demand picks back up again. The only thing I could ever see killing De Beers is if the cost of "cultured" ever comes down. I seriously looked at this option for my wife but found that machine cultured diamonds were more expensive than earth cultured ones. Jon’s last blog post..Housing Delusion: It’s Not 2004 Anymore

By: Best of Personal Finance: Suggest a link for Wise Bread's Weekly Roundup - Page 6 - Wise Bread Forums

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:56:15 +0000

[...] I’ve got a post that was popular with the commenters and other roundups last week. It is about diamonds and how De Beers may have dug themselves into a hole (pun possibly intended) with their diamond cartel. Diamonds Becomming A Girl’s Best Friend, In A New Way [...]

By: RJ

RJ — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:42:26 +0000

Great post. It would be great to see this “manufactured” industry implode. Regarding an engagement ring I hope to buy a simple diamond-free engagement band and use the money saved on a tandem bike (http://www.litespeed.com/images/double.jpg). In my opinion a tandem bike would provide a lot more smiles than a diamond.

By: Weekly Roundup - Last Week of February Edition | StupidCents

Weekly Roundup - Last Week of February Edition | StupidCents — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:35:39 +0000

[...] at Weakonomics discusses the world’s greatest monopoly of diamonds in his article ‘Diamonds Becoming a Girl’s Best Friend, In a New Way‘. For me, it was worth making my wife happy. A happy wife is a happy life, [...]

By: This Week in Review (2/21-2/27) | The Personal Finance Playbook

This Week in Review (2/21-2/27) | The Personal Finance Playbook — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:01:40 +0000

[...] Diamonds becoming a girl’s best friend @ Weakonomics – This article discusses the intrinsic value of diamonds. I did a somewhat similar post on gold awhile back. This is a pretty well documented almost monopoly that really controls the supply side of diamonds in the market place. Pretty interesting. [...]

By: My Life ROI

My Life ROI — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:43:39 +0000

Gladly my girlfriend hates the diamond industry just as much as me.

And precisely for some of the reasons mentioned in this article/comments.

I find it funny, though, that AdSense serves up a bunch of engagement ring offers… tsk tsk Google.

By: frugalcpa

frugalcpa — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:04:38 +0000

Interesting stuff. I wonder if the middle and upper-class are really going to have to start selling their diamonds, though. If this turns into a full-blown depression, maybe. Otherwise, most people will hoard their diamonds like they’ve always done.

By: the weakonomist

the weakonomist — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:41:47 +0000

@Trevor @Matt I feel you both. I got engaged last fall and bought a diamond engagement ring then.

@Mike Let me know if you get the urge to research that further. That sounds like a good story.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:09:56 +0000

I’m too lazy to google it, but I’ve heard that engagement rings were actually once intended as a sort of insurance for jilted brides. If the guy backed out, then she could still hawk the ring to support herself while she found a new hubby who would take care of her.

By: teeef

teeef — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:04:51 +0000

i would be pretty excited to see the diamond industry implode.