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Once upon a time diamonds were a rare commodity acquired only by the rich and royal. Found mostly in rivers in India and later Borneo and Brazil, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that a mass quantity was discovered near the Orange River in South Africa, satiating the market. Founded in 1888 by Cecil Rhodes, the De Beers Company has created a successful and brilliant business scheme. The company has single-handedly caused diamonds to equal true love since 1947 with their advertising campaign "A Diamond Is Forever". Before this, engagement rings were typically the birthstone, seen as more precious because of the quantity of diamonds had increased. De Beers controlled about 90% of the world's diamond mines at the time and therefore gained control of the pricing and supply. The next step was to increase demand, and thus one of the most successful advertising campaigns was born. By telling the public that a diamond was "forever" meant that used diamonds were not being sold back into the open market. This created the demand that De Beers was seeking.

Any man looking to make a lifelong commitment knows by now that it is "traditional" to spend three months wages on an engagement ring, also a ploy by De Beers. Simply brilliant, really. The man gets the stress and debt, while the company pulls in over 7 billion annually. Unfortunately, women have been subtly trained to think that commitment equals a diamond (and the larger the better), and because of the emotional ties to an object have not bothered to realize the retail mark-up of what really is only a semi-precious stone. Other popular successes in the industry have been the creation of De Beers, such as the trilogy ring and eternity ring. To keep up with a time when people are choosing to not marry, the right hand ring was introduced to allow a girl's best friend to remain even without the man.

The De Beers Company has come up against much scrutiny as of late, being accused of monopolizing and fixing prices. Lawsuits have been filed and settlements have been made, not to mention the issues with conflict diamonds. Diamond companies are going to tell the consumer that their diamonds are conflict-free, but with as many hands and unstable governments as the gems go through, who can really be sure? Consumers should be responsibly aware of these situations.

The diamond industry has been guided and affected long term by De Beers, yet the gain in technology towards the production of comparable synthetics since the 1950s has begun to have some affect on the industry as well. Though synthetic colorless diamonds still cannot be made over 0.06 carats, colored diamonds can be created in various carat sizes. Most synthetics are created for industrial use, though some are now equivalent to what is used in jewelry. As the technology progresses, it will be interesting to see what De Beers does to keep its throne in the diamond kingdom.

Learn more about this author, Thayer Devlin.
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