For many years, males in lots of international locations had been anticipated to spend two and even three months’ wage on a diamond engagement ring. This notion – and the enduring standing of this gem – didn’t come about accidentally.
The story goes again to 1870, when an Oxford College dropout named Cecil Rhodes set off to attempt his luck within the Cape Colony – modern-day South Africa, then a key British area.
Seeing the burgeoning diamond mining sector there, he started renting water pumps to diamond prospectors to stop flooding of the mines. Then, over the subsequent 20 years, Rhodes and his companion Charles Rudd proceeded to purchase out tons of, after which hundreds, of small mines and “claims” – landholdings believed to include diamonds – typically for a pittance when their homeowners confronted chapter. Most miners had been small operators, and Rhodes and Rudd had entry to critical monetary capital – notably the Rothschild banking empire – by way of their connections in London. As the 2 companions mixed claims into bigger mining items, overhead prices had been lowered, and operations turned extra worthwhile.
The companions integrated as De Beers Consolidated Mines, De Beers being the identify of one of many mines they took over. By 1888, the corporate had a near-monopoly of South African claims and lively diamond mines. With diamonds making up greater than 25 % of South African exports in 1900, De Beers turned a powerhouse of the nation’s financial system, controlling some 90 % of the world’s whole diamond provide. Rhodes himself turned a number one imperial determine, serving as prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
De Beers was based upon the racist insurance policies of South Africa, which on the time was dominated by a white minority. The diamonds had been extracted by Black miners incomes subsistence wages, whereas De Beers’s white, European-origin shareholders loved the income.
Following Rhodes’s demise in 1902, management of De Beers finally handed to German-born entrepreneur Ernest Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer used a mixture of economic incentives, strategic stress, and diplomacy to influence diamond suppliers in different international locations to promote completely by way of the London-based and De Beers-owned “Central Promoting Group” (CSO), which within the Nineteen Thirties turned the unified gross sales channel for nearly all of the world’s pre-cut diamonds. This enabled De Beers to stockpile diamonds, strictly management the discharge of stones to the worldwide market, and successfully management costs – thereby creating an phantasm of diamond shortage worldwide.
In the meantime, De Beers sought to boost world demand for diamonds. In 1946, the corporate employed NW Ayer, a Philadelphia-based promoting company, which one yr later got here up with the legendary slogan, “A diamond is perpetually”. This reframed the diamond and, particularly, the diamond engagement ring, as a logo of “everlasting love”. By means of mass promoting, product placements in movies, and celeb PR – for instance, lending jewelry to actors for main occasions – the marketing campaign remodeled the diamond market within the US, Europe and Japan.
Lasting 64 years, till 2011, this marketing campaign was an astounding world success, with Advert Age journal naming “A diamond is perpetually” as the highest commercial slogan of the twentieth century. De Beers had manufactured a social norm, with the diamond engagement ring changing into nearly obligatory in each developed market. Whereas beforehand, a fiance may give a locket, a string of pearls, or a household heirloom to his meant, the variety of American brides with a diamond ring climbed from 10 % in 1940 to some 80 % in 1980. In Japan, this determine rose from lower than 5 % in 1960 to 60 % by 1981.
By the early Nineteen Fifties, a diamond ring usually value about $170 – about $2,300 in right this moment’s cash. De Beers commercials initially recommended spending one month’s wage on an engagement ring, however by the Nineteen Eighties, they had been posing the query: “How are you going to make two months’ wage final perpetually?” Customers appeared undeterred by the truth that a diamond’s resale worth was usually simply 50 % of its authentic retail value (in distinction to gold, which has an “official” benchmark value set twice-daily).
By the point Marilyn Monroe sang “Diamonds are a woman’s finest buddy” in 1953 and the James Bond movie “Diamonds Are Eternally” was launched in 1971, the diamond had turn out to be an icon.
The Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa, to which hundreds flocked within the 1870s after the invention of diamonds on the close by De Beers farm (Grey Marrets/Getty Photos)
‘Cartel behaviour’
By the late Seventies, De Beers was yearly distributing some 50 million diamond carats, with gross sales of greater than $2bn within the US alone.
However because the Nineteen Eighties rolled round, issues began to emerge for the corporate.
De Beers got here beneath growing scrutiny because the anti-apartheid motion gained momentum in Europe and america. Experiences of its working situations had been stunning: low pay for mineworkers, minimal security coaching and crowded dormitory housing surrounded by barbed wire and safety checkpoints. This destructive publicity put De Beers firmly within the highlight as one of many prime beneficiaries of apartheid.
De Beers had already fought off allegations of “cartel behaviour” from the US Division of Justice. However in 1994, the corporate was indicted by a US grand jury on price-fixing costs. The corporate was barred from doing enterprise within the US, the place its executives might now not set foot for concern of arrest.
Within the late Nineteen Nineties, studies that the diamond commerce was financing brutal civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo additional soured client sentiment.
Insurgent teams focused “alluvial” diamond mines – comparatively easy-to-extract floor deposits, typically in riverbeds – promoting stones into the casual “gray” market and utilizing the income to purchase weapons. The phrase “blood diamonds” entered the lexicon as investigative articles depicted enslaved youngsters with pickaxes and shovels. De Beers was accused of turning a blind eye, if not outright complicity. The corporate’s gross sales declined greater than 20 % in two years, from about $5.7bn in 1999 to $4.45bn in 2001, with different diamond suppliers similar to Angola’s Endiama and Russia’s Alrosa equally affected.
However because the early Nineteen Nineties, adjustments had been afoot at De Beers. Going through stress from South Africa’s newly elected African Nationwide Congress (ANC), it had launched higher situations and wages for its primarily Black mineworkers. On the similar time, Black South Africans additionally started to occupy some administration roles.
In the meantime, the US indictment meant the corporate had no selection however to terminate its CSO in 2000, ushering in competitors from different producers. Diamond costs, now not set and dictated by the CSO, turned extra unstable, topic to fluctuating demand, financial cycles, and geopolitical situations.
To counter the blood diamond backlash, De Beers helped implement the “Kimberley Course of” in 2003, by way of which diamond sellers can hint the origin of diamonds and authenticate “clear’’ diamonds with a microscopic stamp.
A salesman reveals a diamond ring to a potential purchaser at a jewelry store in Ahmedabad, India, on April 14, 2025 (Ajit Solanki/AP Picture)
Not perpetually?
Right this moment, pure diamonds could have misplaced a few of their attract with the rise of “lab-grown” stones and “diamond simulants” similar to cubic zirconia, that are as much as 90 % cheaper than the mined selection and infrequently distinguishable from the true factor solely by specialists utilizing specialised tools.
Over the previous two years, the diamond trade has been hit by a “excellent storm” of cheaper artificial stones, weak client demand within the US and China, sanctions towards Russia and, extra not too long ago, excessive US tariffs. This has had a widespread adversarial influence: the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) reported that tough diamond imports dropped 35 % in 2024, with general commerce declining by 25 % year-on-year (from $32.5bn to $24.4bn) – and within the Indian gem processing hub of Surat, at the least 50,000 diamond employees had been rendered jobless in 2024. At the very least 80 diamond employees in India have died by suicide prior to now two years.
In 2011, the Oppenheimer household offered its curiosity in De Beers to the London-based mining company Anglo American, one other main shareholder, for simply over $5bn. De Beers is now as soon as extra up on the market, once more with a $5bn price ticket, as Anglo American seeks to exit the declining diamond market in favour of copper, iron ore and uncommon earth minerals.
Regardless of the unstable market situations, whole world client diamond gross sales had been valued at roughly $100bn in 2024, with the common value of $6,750 for a diamond ring within the US, in response to the Pure Diamond Council – about 1.3 months’ customary wage in america, however about eight months’ price of the worldwide median revenue. For these of larger means, London’s Harrods reportedly has a 228.31 carat, pear-shaped diamond accessible to view by personal appointment – with a value estimated to be in extra of $30m.
This text is a part of “Extraordinary objects, extraordinary tales”, a collection concerning the stunning tales behind well-known objects.
Learn extra from the collection:
How the inventor of the bouncy fortress saved lives
How a preferred Peruvian comfortable drink went ‘toe-to-toe’ with Coca-Cola
How a drowning sufferer turned a lifesaving icon
How a father’s love and a pandemic created a family identify
How Nigerians reinvented an Italian tinned tomato model
How a youngsters’s chocolate drink turned a logo of French colonialism
