Investing in Diamonds?

diamonds4me · Coal Joined: May 04, 2006 Posts: 1

All this talk about investing in gold, silver, platinum, copper, zinc. etc.... got me thinking, how come noone has ever mentioned investing in diamonds? They are rare and precious... We all know diamonds are forever... but are they forever the same value or do they go up in value?

Micki · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

I am not an expert on diamonds, but some negative aspects are:
-It is hard for a layman to determine quality of the diamond
-For the same reason it may later be hard to sell it, as only expert buyer can check the quality.
-There are more metal dealers around
-Diamond prices are, from what I heard, artificially kept high as oppsed to gold/silver which has artificially been kept low.

With the exception of gold, all the other metals are also valuable in industrial use, so there is an actual need for them.
As much as I am a gold bug, I think gold is good just because everyone perceives it as having value. Just like paper money once was good. (The big difference of cource being that gold can't be printed at the press of a button, which gives gold longer term appeal.)

markam · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 271 Location: PA

I can't imagine diamonds being worth more than an equivalently sized rock in the future.

Carrie · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

Stick with silver or gold. The Straight Dope has an article on the whole De Beers diamond racket:

0mar · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:01 am Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

I invest in conflict stones. It's a helluva rush.
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Pretorian · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:36 am Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

Diamond market controlled by just 1 relativly small company.. DeBirs.. Even 3000 nuclear warheads , mentioned in another post, didn't help Russia for example to enter diamond market on its own.
Belgian Congo tried to skip DeBirs, and they were very sorry shortly after. Noone knows what would be the real price of diamonds, on a free market.
Overall, I think this is a very silly idea, to say the least. You could be far better off by investing in sparkling glass.

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4040

I know of a guy that made a good investment in diamonds. He worked in Brazil for a while. He bought there two diamonds fairly cheaply, one of them pink. They sold him the pink diamond cheaper because they saw the colour as a flaw. Then he came to Spain. He found that pink diamonds are rarer and quite expensive.

He goes around carrying the two diamonds tied around his neck. He says they're his pension plan.

Pretorian · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 6:07 am Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

Well that guy didnt invest in diamonds. He dealt them. I will bet a dollar against rouble that diamonds he bought weren't legal, (i.e stolen by workers or mined illegally) neither he declared them on Brasilian or Spanish border. He could do much better with cocain this way, its also very cheap in Brasil.

mattduke · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 1525

XOVERX · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Posts: 175

Diamonds are grossly overpriced.

You can buy manmade diamonds right now that are flawless for $250 to $350 per carat. That's after profit markup.

Diamonds are for suckers.

MyOtherID · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 4:04 pm Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

The diamond market is rigged. Stay away.

lowem · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject: Re: Investing in Diamonds?

There's actually more supply than demand for diamonds. The cartel is trying to keep a lid on things, and control supply (rate of mining and sale) in order to maintain the price level.

Also, artificial diamonds can and have been cheaply produced by countries like Russia, more for industrial use perhaps but you can imagine what a flood of these might do to the market.

Ever tried selling back a diamond? You won't get much back for it, unless yours is an extreme high-end stone (in the million-dollar range).

And lastly, there *was* an earlier diamond boom (and bust), in Israel. Probably missed it, I guess?
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