12.15.06
Selling Diamonds
Check out this extremely long article on the invention of diamonds. I read this exact article over a year ago. And someone posted it as news again. So it does have some value, so I’m recording it for future reference. In a nut shell: The diamond market is a regulated industry that has created the conditions and propaganda of a valuable commodity.
The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year.