Now I had not heard this end of the diamond industry. I have heard the dirty DeBeers story ......basically they own it all, every last stone. every year they let out the BOTTOM TEN PERCENT of what diamondare in the debeers vaults. Im not a big wishy washy diamond girl...but I have seen ugly rocks of diamond and I have seen beautifull colorless Harry Winston Diamonds like i saw today. I also know the process of how they get sold.
DeBeers lets out the bottom 10 percent (which is A LOT)
there are about 10 dealers of theis 10 percent around the world.....mostly of the Jewish Diamond community..
You are handed a bag of diamonds....told the price and thats what you will pay, no haggling or bartering over quality....if you do......you wont so much as buy a Cubic Zirconia in a pawn shop ANYWHERE!
Of course some solitares are sold alone, but the mojority is in bulk.
You cant make money as a Genologist unless you live in New York in the Jewish Gem community......(I researched with jewlers here....concensus was resounding) I was thinking of Gemology and jewelers school........Yes its a Racket. Yes its a fad. Yes, the value of diamonds is absurd (you should see some of the shit jewelry we sell for so much). and yes..........the value of diamonds is in the hands of one family and controled by how many are released to the public each year
HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!
http://jewelry.about.com/cs/syntheticdiamonds/
Last year a lab here in america, successfully grew up to 3 carat diamonds in a lab.......................for less than 3 dollars a carat.......this could crash the value of diamonds............
http://jewelry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fsections%2FGMA%2FSciTech%2FGMA030909Diamond_synthetics_hunter.html