Best Friend?

[mbarrick]

Remember this? It's gone now. I sold it today along with my old wedding ring. The tangible remains of those two mistakes have been removed from the house. And I learned something: the hype they sell you in jewelry stores about the value of diamonds is complete crap. Their resale value is crap because the retail markup is absurd. I did some research on the what I could expect to get for the diamond before selling it and discovered that if you can get 10% of the current retail price you're doing well, and with smaller rocks that goes down. I got 6% of the price I paid Ivana's engagement ring. As it turns out the gold wedding band had a better resale value in terms of percentage of retail.

I've mentioned before that women with the used-car-salemen gene work in jewlery stores, this only goes to confirm that. The whole "a diamond is forever" crap is marketing blather made up by de Beers to get people to buy diamonds instead of prettier coloured stones. Diamonds are not forever, they are not a girl's (or any one else's) best friend, as an "investment" the suck shit. They are most useful ground up and used to make sandpaper.

What I got for the thing was about the same as the last Canadian Springs bill I was stuck with. And that's it.

Comments

[dream-king.livejournal.com]

Actually working in the jewelry industry now well, doing internet fraud for an online Jewelry company, I have learned a lot about it. In all reality, you are going to get your best prices paying case to private jewelers who don't have stores or anthing, who deal with estates. We deal with de Beers and have a site account with them, and you aren't getting good prices from malls or any other store.

I know someone who Thursday bought a retail value diamond worth $14K (1.4C in S1, F colour brillient cut) for $4k cash which the jeweler was selling for an estate.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Which just goes to show how it works even further. The broker working on behalf of the estate account makes his cut, so the proceeds of to the estate are a fraction of that $4K. The retail value of the diamond, in this case $14K is only meaningful for insurance purposes as a replacement value. The "real" value to the owner as a portable "investment" is the resale value, which obviously is a fraction of the $4, in this case probably about $1000-$1400. Hardly what the industry leads the consumer to believe. Certainly the diamond will never be worth less than it's current value, but just as certainly, even with the deal he got going directly through a broker the ring will never be worth what he paid for it.

From the consumer point of view, it bites. The flip side, of course, it is obscenely profitable for the merchant.

[dream-king.livejournal.com]

in the case of the estate sale, they were just trying to get rid of it, the cash was more important.

But you are right, it is only important to the person who is given it and to the insurence.

I do think though that my youth allows me to romantasize the symbolism of diamonds, I do lack the life experiences which you have had...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

> my youth allows me to romantasize the symbolism of diamonds

Which is really what my point comes down to. That symbolism is hollow. There is now real tradition behind it, just marketing that oringinally came from de Beers and later co-opted by the entire industry. Previous to all this a simple gold wedding band was traditional, rooted in a tradition thousands of years old. Those that could afford it had stones set for purely decorative reasons, it was the band itself that mattered symbolically, and usually those stones were of more decorative varieties, like sapphires and rubies. It's only in the 20th century that the stone in the setting became important and that stone *had* to be a diamond. It's really not romantic in the least, it is a soulless tradition based in the greed of the diamond miners and merchants, not love.

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

well considering de beers owns or controls about 85% of the diamond market it's not surprising that you can't believe anything they say...it's truly a crime that the resale value of the stone is such a tiny fraction of its cost to you...i guess that's what happens when monopolies are allowed to flourish...and they wonder why people fear microsoft and the media conglomerates...but it's a good lesson to all of us out there to buy something other than a diamond, though i would've anyway...

[dream-king.livejournal.com]

just slight correction, de Beers isn't a monopoly, they are a cartel. They control the prices and number of stones sold in Africa, but they themselves do not own the mines.

Re:

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

a semantic difference at best...

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

For all that North American laugh at the traditions of other
countries.

How many East Indian men spent three months Salary ...on a Dot
for their wives forhead?

How many wiccians dropped $2K on a handfasting rope?