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Which Country Has The Best Quality Diamonds – “A diamond is a piece of coal that has done well under pressure,” goes the saying. This old adage has probably been used to inspire a few people to aspire to diamond status, but there’s just one problem: a diamond isn’t a lump of coal that did well under pressure.
So why do so many people think that diamonds are made from coal? What is the source of this disinformation? Is there any truth to the myth? With a little digging, we may be able to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Which Country Has The Best Quality Diamonds
You don’t need to do much research to find the alleged source of the quote in question. Almost every online source gives Henry Alfred Kissinger, a Nixon-era American politician, credit for the saying.
Vintage Victorian Large Rose Cut Diamonds Engagement Ring
Of course, the quality of said sources makes the attribution seem misleading. The sites that attribute the quote to Kissinger lack authority and are far from reliable sources of news. Not only that, but these sources don’t even provide context for the quote.
And if Kissinger hasn’t unleashed this beast of a proverb into the world, he can always call us and set the record straight. However, whether or not he actually said the words is technically a moot point for the purposes of our discussion. Kissinger is the generally accepted voice of wisdom espoused in the quote, so we’ll have to content ourselves with that – at least for now.
Anyway, Kissinger’s adage, while motivating, was factually incorrect when he supposedly stated it years ago, and it is still incorrect today. No one can say for sure that he knew this at the time, but we can all say that the saying has certainly become a real gem in its own right, pun intended.
As we mentioned earlier, Kissinger’s motivational proverb has no basis in fact. Despite that, we have to admit that the saying at least tries to understand how diamonds actually form.
Gold: ‘you Can’t Compare Gold With Diamonds’
That is, diamonds have some properties in common with coal, albeit not extremely important ones. To better understand these similarities, let’s briefly discuss how both coal and diamonds form beneath the Earth’s surface.
Like diamonds, coal forms deep underground under high pressure and high temperatures. However, the similarities between the two substances pretty much end here.
Coal is a primarily carbon-based mineral substance, emphasis on the term “primarily.” It also consists of organic plant material that has never undergone the process of biodegradation. In other words, coal is essentially a combination of dead vegetation and carbon.
The chemical process is, of course, much more complex than we have suggested here. However, you only need to know the gist of it to understand why diamonds are not descended from coal.
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As we suggested earlier, diamonds form underground at high pressures and high temperatures, which in a way compares them to coal. However, despite this slight similarity in origin, diamonds are nothing like coal.
Primarily, coal forms much closer to the Earth’s surface than diamonds. That makes sense when you consider that coal consists partly of plant material that comes from the earth’s surface.
Furthermore, diamonds are pure phases or polymorphs of carbon. They consist purely of carbon minerals that were subjected to high temperatures and pressures. Because coal is a combination of plant material and carbon, it cannot be considered a pure phase.
So, what’s the general takeaway here? Does it matter that many of us don’t know how diamonds are formed? If we’re honest, not really.
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Still, it’s always fun to debunk a myth, and the same goes for knowing exactly what’s on your finger. The latter is certainly true if you paid for that diamond out of your own pocket.
So go out and tell everyone you know that, as it turns out, a diamond isn’t a piece of coal that did well under pressure. Your friends probably won’t think you’re fun at parties, but they’ll never be able to tell you that you don’t know anything about diamonds.
Gage Diamonds is Chicago’s premier jewelry showroom and online retailer of engagement, wedding and fine jewelry. We offer a selection of dazzling, hand-picked diamonds, including certified natural diamonds.
We are committed to helping you find the ring of your dreams. Browse our selection for inspiration or make an appointment with one of our trusted employees in our personal showroom. In South Africa, mines are full of more diamonds than humanity could ever want or need. You won’t get a chance to see most of them; few are flawless enough to enter the jewelry market. As the stones are excavated, cut and graded based on the four C’s – color, carat, cut, clarity – they are reduced until only the most perfect remains.
How Rare Is Opal Compared To Diamonds?
Only about 20 percent of mined diamonds are gem-quality, and a significant portion of those still have visible “flaws,” or discolorations. Based on these statistics and these strict criteria, the diamond you might think of, the one that sparkles in the window of Tiffany’s or on the hand of a newly engaged woman, seems rare indeed. After all, it is the perfect stone, meant to represent the perfect relationship. How often would that come along?
“Perfect” diamonds may be less common than their colorful, pockmarked counterparts, but diamonds are plentiful. The criteria used to keep some from the market are made to serve the diamond industry and change when a product needs to be unloaded (think of every celebrity who has worn a yellow or pink engagement ring instead of a white one). And most people can’t tell the difference between a real diamond and something like cubic zirconia anyway. The perfection and rarity of a diamond turn out to be arbitrary.
A single person can achieve moments of perfection: a 100 on a spelling test, a clean house, straight teeth, a clean gemstone. But even then, once it’s achieved, it’s dulled by the end of the chase, or overtaken by the fear of keeping it up. Perfection is harder to attach to a relationship, like a paper label slipping off an oily pot. If perfection is partly determined by its transience, then it seems an abomination for something as permanent and ordinary as marriage. The perfect diamond is a promise of the perfect relationship, because love is supposedly rare and so is this stone. We want the story that tells us our relationship is special. And we don’t want to accept that rarity isn’t all that meaningful.
Until the 19th century, diamonds were rare. But around 1870 they threatened to become commonplace. Huge diamond mines were discovered in South Africa, flooding the market, making the gem available and slightly more affordable to anyone who wanted one. This was no way to run an industry that relied on rarity, so the major investors founded De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. op, a group that took control of the diamond trade to ensure price stability for the exporting countries and companies, owned every aspect of the industry, including how many diamonds were allowed on the market, to perpetuate the illusion of diamond rarity – and to keep prices high.
Resale Value Of Diamonds: What Is My Diamond Worth?
“Diamonds had little intrinsic value – and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity,” wrote Edward Jay Epstein in his seminal 1982 article for The Atlantic, “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?” In it he outlines how De Beers orchestrated a double lie: that the diamond is rare, but also that the diamond is a symbol of devotion and love that should not be missing in any relationship. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, diamonds were seen as a luxury, and most women thought it absurd to spend money on them when there were so many more practical things to be had. De Beers hired the advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son, whose explicit goal was to “create a situation where almost every person who enters a marriage feels compelled to buy a diamond engagement ring.” The diamond ring, which was not a thing, became a thing. The slogan “A diamond is forever” became a reality and by 1951, eight out of ten brides in the US were the recipients of diamond rings.
But De Beers knows that diamonds are only worth what they mean to the buying public, and diamonds could be in crisis again. Americans are waiting longer to get married, and progressive social politics have opened up the idea of who can get married, and made people question whether or not marriage should be the end point of a committed relationship. The recession has once again scared a generation away from such an impractical investment. De Beers knows, perhaps better than we do, that perfection is a moving target.
There was no initial conversation about marriage with my partner, Matt. It had always been there, the supposed outcome from the moment we got together for the third time. The first time was in high school, so it didn’t count. The second time, at the age of 21, I felt the weight of carrying forever
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