In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

Your weight in sandpaper?

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

Your weight in sandpaper?

Yes.
Without the paper of course, and glue … and sand.

It becomes complicated because the presence of so many gems would affect the market price.

A 5 carat (ie, 1 gram) diamond with excellent colour, cut, clarity could have a a retail value of around $800000.

So this 100 kg fellow be 100000 of these gems, worth 80 billion dollars at these prices.

However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet.

Or you could make up his weight with around 4500 Koh-i-noor. I’ve no idea what the KIN would fetch at auction. It is unique, not just because of its size and beauty but because of its history. I assume there is some sum that you could offer. I assume that sum would be over a billion dollars.

But if there were 4500 Koh-i-noors on ebay then it is no longer worth as much.

You are forgetting cv, that cutting diamonds causes quite a bit of the material to be thrown away.

Sorry, dv.

roughbarked said:

You are forgetting cv, that cutting diamonds causes quite a bit of the material to be thrown away.

i don’t quite see the rel. I thought it was “his weight in gems”, not “a single gem of his weight”. I’m talking about his weight in already cut, excellent quality diamond.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

You are forgetting cv, that cutting diamonds causes quite a bit of the material to be thrown away.

i don’t quite see the rel. I thought it was “his weight in gems”, not “a single gem of his weight”. I’m talking about his weight in already cut, excellent quality diamond.

Fair enough. But I was talking about your maths.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

You are forgetting cv, that cutting diamonds causes quite a bit of the material to be thrown away.

i don’t quite see the rel. I thought it was “his weight in gems”, not “a single gem of his weight”. I’m talking about his weight in already cut, excellent quality diamond.

Fair enough. But I was talking about your maths.

and what is wrong with the DV’s maths?

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

You are forgetting cv, that cutting diamonds causes quite a bit of the material to be thrown away.

i don’t quite see the rel. I thought it was “his weight in gems”, not “a single gem of his weight”. I’m talking about his weight in already cut, excellent quality diamond.

Fair enough. But I was talking about your maths.

Okay so what is the problem with my maths. I’ve taken my estimates from public pricing guidelines for 2020.

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz $80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz $80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

the @ symbol does formatting that’s what you missed.

see, it does a weird font :-)

Bogsnorkler said:

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg @ $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz @$80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire 64$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

the @ symbol does formatting that’s what you missed.

see, it does a weird font :-)

Yes, I noticed that after I posted. I’ve fixed it in this post.

btm said:

Bogsnorkler said:

btm said:

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg @ $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz @$80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

the @ symbol does formatting that’s what you missed.

see, it does a weird font :-)

Yes, I noticed that after I posted. I’ve fixed it in this post.

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz $80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

Sorry. Conversion of US dollars to Australian dollars.

> However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet.

Probably not, for diamonds. De Beers has a monopoly on diamonds and a stranglehold on both the price and number of diamonds sold. Everything that De Beers doesn’t handle is labelled “blood diamond” and ownership of these is prosecuted to the limits of the law.

mollwollfumble said:

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz $80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

Sorry. Conversion of US dollars to Australian dollars.

> However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet.

Probably not, for diamonds. De Beers has a monopoly on diamonds and a stranglehold on both the price and number of diamonds sold. Everything that De Beers doesn’t handle is labelled “blood diamond” and ownership of these is prosecuted to the limits of the law.

Either mollwollfumble or Wikipedia seem to have their facts wrong:

“Competition has since dismantled the complete monopoly, though the De Beers Group still sells approximately 35% of the world’s rough diamond production through its global sightholder and auction sales businesses.”

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

i don’t quite see the rel. I thought it was “his weight in gems”, not “a single gem of his weight”. I’m talking about his weight in already cut, excellent quality diamond.

Fair enough. But I was talking about your maths.

Okay so what is the problem with my maths. I’ve taken my estimates from public pricing guidelines for 2020.

You were adding the whole carat weight.

ie: “A 5 carat (ie, 1 gram) diamond with excellent colour, cut, clarity could have a a retail value of around $800000.

So this 100 kg fellow be 100000 of these gems, worth 80 billion dollars at these prices.

However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet”.
In reality you’d have to lose at least one third of every one of the 100,000 diamonds to the cutters’s tray of diamond dust.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

Fair enough. But I was talking about your maths.

Okay so what is the problem with my maths. I’ve taken my estimates from public pricing guidelines for 2020.

You were adding the whole carat weight.

ie: “A 5 carat (ie, 1 gram) diamond with excellent colour, cut, clarity could have a a retail value of around $800000.

So this 100 kg fellow be 100000 of these gems, worth 80 billion dollars at these prices.

However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet”.
In reality you’d have to lose at least one third of every one of the 100,000 diamonds to the cutters’s tray of diamond dust.

why? they are already cut.

mollwollfumble said:

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

In a Peter Sellers comedy today a sultan was given his weight in gemstones. Let’s say I weigh about 100 kg. I was wondering how much this would cost these days and whether I could afford it?

Now let’s not be fussy here. Allow rough lab-created gemstones for example.
eg. from https://www.gemsngems.com/product-category/rough-stones/

Start with cubic zirconia. Rough cubic zirconia costs 80 USD/kg. So total cost $11,500, I could afford it.

Lab created rough ruby. Cost 220 USD/kg. Total cost only $31,500.

Lab created blue sapphire. Cost 870 USD/kg. Total cost $125,000.

Lab created citrine / smoky quartz / amethyst. Cost 70 USD/kg. Total cost $10,000.

What about diamonds? How much would my weight in diamonds cost? Let’s see.
In 1.5 mm diameter cut gem quality natural diamonds, Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight. Hmm.
What about industrial diamonds? https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/industrial-diamond-price.html
Diamond dust starts at about 0.03 USD/carat. 150 USD/kg. Or about $21,500 for my weight.
So I could afford my weight in diamonds.
Sometimes even cheaper than 150 USD/kg. I see one supplier quoting down to 15 USD/kg for industrial diamond powder.

I have some issues with some of those numbers. There are 5 carats in a gram, so $510/ct = $2550/g = $2550000/kg (naïvely ignoring the change in cost due to demand and/or size). 100kg $2550000 is 255,000,000USD. Similarly, picking random examples, lab ruby, $220/kg should be $22,000; cz $80/kg should be $8,000; lab sapphire @$870/kg should be $87,000.

Or am I missing something?

Sorry. Conversion of US dollars to Australian dollars.

> However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet.

Still doesn’t work, unless the AUD is worth almost 10USD; you’ve said Cost 510 USD/carat. That’s about $365,000 / kg. Or about $36.5 million for my weight., but my calculations (above) say 255M USD. mollwollfumble said:

Probably not, for diamonds. De Beers has a monopoly on diamonds and a stranglehold on both the price and number of diamonds sold. Everything that De Beers doesn’t handle is labelled “blood diamond” and ownership of these is prosecuted to the limits of the law.

Any refs for that? The Australian company selling Argyle diamonds has no affiliation with de Beers, but have had no legal issues. De Beers’ monopoly has been considerably reduced over the past few decades, largely because of their anticompetitive business practices and the fact that most of their product is “blood diamonds”.

Bogsnorkler said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Okay so what is the problem with my maths. I’ve taken my estimates from public pricing guidelines for 2020.

You were adding the whole carat weight.

ie: “A 5 carat (ie, 1 gram) diamond with excellent colour, cut, clarity could have a a retail value of around $800000.

So this 100 kg fellow be 100000 of these gems, worth 80 billion dollars at these prices.

However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet”.
In reality you’d have to lose at least one third of every one of the 100,000 diamonds to the cutters’s tray of diamond dust.

why? they are already cut.

Not the 100 kilogram one.

roughbarked said:

Bogsnorkler said:

roughbarked said:

You were adding the whole carat weight.

ie: “A 5 carat (ie, 1 gram) diamond with excellent colour, cut, clarity could have a a retail value of around $800000.

So this 100 kg fellow be 100000 of these gems, worth 80 billion dollars at these prices.

However, if there were suddenly 100000 excellent colour, clarity and cut diamonds on the market, the price would plummet”.
In reality you’d have to lose at least one third of every one of the 100,000 diamonds to the cutters’s tray of diamond dust.

why? they are already cut.

Not the 100 kilogram one.

what 100kg one?

Bogsnorkler said:

roughbarked said:

Bogsnorkler said:

why? they are already cut.

Not the 100 kilogram one.

what 100kg one?

Oh OK. I see what I’ve done wrong, the person is the 100 kilo?

roughbarked said:

Bogsnorkler said:

roughbarked said:

Not the 100 kilogram one.

what 100kg one?

Oh OK. I see what I’ve done wrong, the person is the 100 kilo?

:-)

The Rev Dodgson said:

Either mollwollfumble or Wikipedia seem to have their facts wrong:

“Competition has since dismantled the complete monopoly, though the De Beers Group still sells approximately 35% of the world’s rough diamond production through its global sightholder and auction sales businesses.”

Wow. I’m wrong then. My last information is old. This makes things more interesting. Who are their competitors?

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Either mollwollfumble or Wikipedia seem to have their facts wrong:

“Competition has since dismantled the complete monopoly, though the De Beers Group still sells approximately 35% of the world’s rough diamond production through its global sightholder and auction sales businesses.”

Wow. I’m wrong then. My last information is old. This makes things more interesting. Who are their competitors?

The breaking of the De Beers monopoly and price fixing is interesting.

In the year 2000, Australia and Canada, who had previously marketed diamonds through De Beers, left.

Russian mining company Alrosa stopped selling through De Beers as of the end of 2008.

“In 2004, De Beers pled guilty and paid a US$10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had price-fixed of industrial diamonds. In 2008, De Beers agreed to pay US$295 million class-action settlement after accusations of price fixing. The company appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.”

“De Beers introduced a new brand called Lightbox that are made with synthetic diamonds. The synthetic stones start at $200 for a quarter carat to $800 for full carat diamond. The new lab-grown diamond will retail for about one-tenth the cost of naturally occurring diamonds. The new brand began selling in September 2018.”

USD 200 for a quarter carat, that’s 1/20 of a gram. That’s 400 million USD, ($574 million Australian), for my weight in quarter carat artificial diamonds. No, thanks.

It’s nice when an unethical price-fixing global monopoly falls.

But I still don’t know who De Beers competitors are.

“In 2013, Argyle is estimated to produce 10.2 million carats with an average per carat price of $25/carat.” That’s $125 per gram, 12.5 million dollars for my weight in Argyle diamonds. Not sure whether that’s USD or AUD.

Argyle. “Only 5% of mined diamonds are of gem quality, compared to a worldwide average of 20% (though that’s debatable); of the remaining 95%, they are about evenly split between classifications of “near gem quality” and industrial grade; 80% of Argyle diamonds are brown, followed by 16% yellow, 2% white, 2% grey, and less than 1% pink and green. Despite the low production volume of pink and red diamonds, the Argyle mine is the only reliable source in the world, producing 90 to 95% of all pink and red diamonds.”

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Either mollwollfumble or Wikipedia seem to have their facts wrong:

“Competition has since dismantled the complete monopoly, though the De Beers Group still sells approximately 35% of the world’s rough diamond production through its global sightholder and auction sales businesses.”

Wow. I’m wrong then. My last information is old. This makes things more interesting. Who are their competitors?

The breaking of the De Beers monopoly and price fixing is interesting.

In the year 2000, Australia and Canada, who had previously marketed diamonds through De Beers, left.

Russian mining company Alrosa stopped selling through De Beers as of the end of 2008.

“In 2004, De Beers pled guilty and paid a US$10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had price-fixed of industrial diamonds. In 2008, De Beers agreed to pay US$295 million class-action settlement after accusations of price fixing. The company appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.”

“De Beers introduced a new brand called Lightbox that are made with synthetic diamonds. The synthetic stones start at $200 for a quarter carat to $800 for full carat diamond. The new lab-grown diamond will retail for about one-tenth the cost of naturally occurring diamonds. The new brand began selling in September 2018.”

USD 200 for a quarter carat, that’s 1/20 of a gram. That’s 400 million USD, ($574 million Australian), for my weight in quarter carat artificial diamonds. No, thanks.

It’s nice when an unethical price-fixing global monopoly falls.

But I still don’t know who De Beers competitors are.

“In 2013, Argyle is estimated to produce 10.2 million carats with an average per carat price of $25/carat.” That’s $125 per gram, 12.5 million dollars for my weight in Argyle diamonds. Not sure whether that’s USD or AUD.

Argyle. “Only 5% of mined diamonds are of gem quality, compared to a worldwide average of 20% (though that’s debatable); of the remaining 95%, they are about evenly split between classifications of “near gem quality” and industrial grade; 80% of Argyle diamonds are brown, followed by 16% yellow, 2% white, 2% grey, and less than 1% pink and green. Despite the low production volume of pink and red diamonds, the Argyle mine is the only reliable source in the world, producing 90 to 95% of all pink and red diamonds.”

Huh. I found out who De Beers competitors are simply be typing “who are De Beers competitors” into Google.

https://theeyeofjewelry.com/de-beers/de-beers-jewelry/who-are-de-beers-competitors/

1. Alrosa.

In the 1950s, Russia discovered new mines. These mines were a problem for De Beers, as they tried to maintain global control of the market. Alrosa, a state owned Russian mine, mines over 99% of Russia’s diamond production. Russia leads the world in terms of diamond production. At first, Alrosa marketed their diamonds as De Beers, but they quickly ended that contract. Now, Russian Alrosa markets their own diamonds, which makes them the world’s largest producer by volume.

2. Rio Tinto

In the 1980s, it was the turn of Western Australia to discover new mines. Rio Tinto, which owns the Argyle Diamond mine in Australia is another company that initially sold their diamonds through De Beers. In 1996 they created a department in Antwerp, Belgium, which helped them to end their contract with De Beers.

I note that Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine is running out of puff. Wikipedia claims the mine may be due to close as early as this year.