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Diamonds - Are They Really Worth the Cost?
hardDiamond asks: "I'm going to get engaged. I know my 4 C's. I know I'm going to get screwed by the jeweller, but that's okay: after all, a diamond engagement ring is a time-honoured tradition... NOT. Having checked out the goods, looked for the flaws, I found the biggest one of all. Diamond engagement rings are the creation of a well orchestrated advertising campaign for most of the last century - according to this article.
Would you buy one for the love of your life? I know my girlfriend would love a diamond, but ethically I have my doubts. Diseased-miners, child slave labour, cartel inflated prices... and as if that wasn't enough, diamonds have no resale value. Naddah. Zilch. They'll sell you the shit, but damn it, they're not taking it back at any price. So what have my fellow slashdotters done with regards to engagement rings? What's a good substitute for diamonds? My girlfriend understands my thoughts regarding diamonds, but deep down, I'm sure she would like a diamond. Even a small one." I've never even thought about questioning such a time honored tradition, but now I'm curious. Have any of you looked at the issues surrounding diamonds and found them wanting? What alternatives have you found and were they acceptable?
After researching this a bit, one of the key facts to surface is that 2-4.5% of diamond sales will go to finance terrorism or forms of violence. Such diamonds, for want of a better term, have been named "conflict diamonds". For those of you interested in following up on this subject, here are a few more links:
Fatal TransactionsFor those of you who have a subscription to Science News, the cover story, this month, deals with this issue as well.
Conflict Diamonds: Sanctions and War
The Campaign to Eliminate Conflict Diamonds
The Kimberly Process, which will attempt to track diamonds to their origin. This is to begin in November.
Antique Ring.
I gave my wife a pretty cool engagement ring from an antique jewelry outfit. Sure, it's 2nd hand, but it has the personality and it doesn't get crazy as far as prices go either.
If you walk into a store with cash on hand its quite easy to walk out with a huge discount beyond their regular 50% off sales.
Better yet, see if you can somebody to refer you to a diamond wholesaler. They save you a bundle, and the person who refered you will get a small kickback as a referer's fee. I got my diamond for wholesale, and because the jeweler recommended me, he ended up applying the referer's fee to the price of the ring. Result? The ring appraised the next day for almost double what I paid for it.
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How interesting that this subject comes up just a few days shy of my 15th wedding anniversary.
When Richie and I got engaged, it was back in the day when South Africa was ruled by the Apartheid regime and Nelson Mandela had been doing time for longer than I had been alive. I told him "no diamonds." We went to a local lapidary shop where they had many different options for stones and picked out a sterling silver setting for it. I chose a diamond-cut quartz crystal. It was beautiful, the ring didn't cost much at all, and after someone assembled it Richie proposed to me in front of everyone in the store. Got on one knee and everything. Priceless. Everyone applauded.
However, that ring was short lived. I don't remember exactly how I did it, but the ring's setting got bent and I lost the stone. It lasted only a few months.
Next, sometime around Christmas that year, there were several small jewelry carts that set up in the local mall. One had a ring with a great-looking amethyst point mounted on it. Not too expensive, looked cool. We grabbed it. The ring lasted for about a year before the amethyst point worked its way loose. I Krazy-glued it in and it stayed in for a few weeks more before I lost it for good.
Richie was upset, I was bummed. Two rings given, two down. I decided the next replacement for the engagement ring would not have a stone, tradition be damned.
That next summer I found a sterling silver Claddagh ring. Traditional Irish love token. Symbol from pre-Christian times. Very appropriate. Very cool. I've had it ever since.
Anyway, even with Apartheid over, I wouldn't touch diamonds if they were...well, diamonds. For one thing, I'm not crazy about them aesthetically. I'd rather have a blue topaz or a sapphire or a ruby or emerald or even better, a fire opal. For another thing, unless you can make darn sure where you are getting them from, you could get them from terrorists or Russian mafiosos or any number of other unsavory folks.
And most importantly...I would rather spend my money on geeky stuff. Save that money and get something I really want...like a DVD-RW or a Radeon AIW 8500 video card.
If your intended is a geek grrl, get her something she'll really want. If she isn't...well...maybe that diamond is kinda mandatory. Check up on the provenance of that rock...there are Canadian stones from the Yukon Territory strike that have a polar bear etched next to the laser-inscribed ID. There's nothing morally reprehensible about the Canadians, last time I checked.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Some personal perspective on the issue:
That isn't very many data points, but I think the lesson is that if the ring selection is more of a personal investment than a shopping effort, it's a good sign. Sure, the ring should have some durable value, but anyone who says only diamonds have value as a symbol of love needs to ponder on the primary practical use of diamonds: an abrasive.
Jon
I think not...(*poof*)
You're right, it comes down to what she wants. Keep in mind that the "surprise" diamond engagement ring was invented by DeBeers (who paid for for the placement of said surprises in movies) specifically because their research showed that when the man asked the woman what she wanted, she almost _always_ preferred the man to spend the money on something practical like a down payment on a house or a car. Only by making men believe that women wanted a diamond ring, and didn't want to be asked about it, could they convince men to spend several months' salary on something the woman didn't actually want, and embarrass the woman into not admitting to that fact.
So if you want to donate money do DeBeers (hint: they don't need any more) go ahead and surprise your wife with a diamond ring. But if you have a relationship of trust and communication (i.e. you're not already screwed), talk about it with your wife -- she's an adult, and can tell you herself what she wants. And keep in mind that any diamond you're likely to buy had no significant value until 1938, and there's no particular reason to think that they will in 2038, so the only real value is sentimental (which in this case is up to your wife-to-be). So talk it over. If she thinks that a diamond ring is important, then it is, and you should buy her one. But treat her like an intelligent human being, and give her the chance to talk it over.
Personally, we bought a moderately sized diamond (this was before I knew just how artificial a diamond's value actually was), but more importantly, it's set in a custom ring that we designed and bought together. Instead of surprising her with a ring, we flew to Paris, and I proposed under the Arc de Triumph looking at the Eiffel Tower (after hitting the Louvre and eating an insanely fantastic dinner). She was still surprised (and had a goofy grin for weeks), and this all cost far less than the "two months salary" line DeBeers pitches, and was a lot more memorable because it represented real effort to arrange rather than simply writing a check. We designed and bought the ring a month or two later, together.
Totally agreed, my wife and I designed our own wedding bands. Her folks donating a family heirloom 3 carat diamond (yes her hand drags across the ground, and yes we already knew diamonds are worthless, but the size of the ring is quite uncommon) seated in a suspension band (this allows it to adapt to body weight and still be able to take it off). The jeweler designed the band to allow for additional customizations, kinda of a lego ring :D
As for mine, tiny skulls side-by-side that wraps around my finger molded out of white gold. It was originally based on a cheaply made silver ring I got from OzFest'97. When I first met my wife to be, the ring broke that nite. She offer to repair it and no sooner than after i put it on, it broke. Years later when we decide to marry, she surprised me by recasting the old broken ring into something new and improved. The Jeweler made considerable number of structural improvements and left plenty of room for future customizations (ruby eyes, plenty of surface area to attach additional skulls, etc). Needless to say, I was floored by her surprise.
My point? Why buy stock jewelry at all?? treat it like open source, extend, embrace and wear =)
The uniqueness alone makes it valuable in it's own right, maybe not on the marketplace, or maybe so, but who really cares, it's the sentimental value that matters the most, regardless of cost.
What's that??? some of you are saying i'm blowing shit out my mouth cuz we were able to afford these rings, our tune would probably change if were poorer...HEH...Well remember, her folks gave us the worthless diamond, and all the customizations were under $1000 combined and that's STILL less than 2 months salary, way less,
but worth a million times more than any old piece of junk from a jewelry store.
mindrape
damaged cybernetics
I proposed to my girlfriend when we were both in college, and I had very little money. I was going to go to graduate school, and knew I wouldn't have any money for a long time. The ring was a modestly sized garnet, in a simple gold setting, $50 at Sears. Up to that time, it was probably the most money I'd every spent on jewelry.
/. topic, I know nobody is going to read this. It's like those sand paintings that are created in order to celebrate what *is*, not in the expectation that they will be responded to, or become a permanat exhibit. I just wanted to declare to the world that the quality of your love is so very much more important than the chemical composition of the ring that symbolizes it.
She loved it, because of what it represented. She knew I had more prospects than money, and she was able to see the ring for what it meant, rather than what it was composed of chemically. She told me that she was glad I hadn't blown a ton of dough on a big ring I couldn't really afford, because she didn't want to start our married life in debt for something that wouldn't add to quality of life the way a car, house, blender, etc. would. Our wedding was great, our marriage has been wonderful. I would be a shabby imitation of myself if I didn't have her in my life.
She got a lot of really great reactions to the ring, surprisingly. A red stone for an engagement ring is unusual enough to be eye-catching. It's a dark red garnet, and a lot of people asked if it was a ruby. She's not ashamed of her ring, and always told them that it's a garnet, a semi-precious stone. I suppose there's a certain cache in that, a ring who's value is so purely symbolic, because she often saw women with big diamond rings in platinum settings get jealous.
We've been married 11 years, now. Our third child, a little girl, was born 8 weeks ago, and our two boys are bright, energetic, handsome kids. Our love is flourishing. As for the ring, my wife accidentally dropped it over the railing from the third tier at Wrigley Field a month after we were married, still not used to wearing it. By some miracle, we found it on the pavement outside the park; one of the prongs holding the garnet in place got bent, but the stone was OK. After a few years, the thin gold band was wearing through, and the bent prong would catch on fabric, and she had to be really careful with it. For our 5 year anniversary, I suggested we get her a higher quality ring. OK, but she wouldn't hear of replacing her garnet. We had the stone reset in a better quality band, flanked with a pair of small diamonds. We'd saved up some money, despite both of us being in graduate school at that point, and went with diamonds for an aesthic reason - they set off the garnet and made it appear even more dark and lustrous.
When I finished my PhD, and got a postdoc position, with my first salary that didn't start with a "1", I wanted to adorne my wife, to gild the lily, give her something beatuiful and extravagant and utterly impractical, to make up for the years of more practical and useful gifts. She selected small diamond stud earrings... because our new baby boy kept grabbing at the long, dangling earrings she typically wore. Sensible, even in her extravagances. What a wife.
I got a real job three years ago, and we moved and bought a house. For our 10th anniversary, we were still broke from buying the house. For our 11th anniversary, our 4-week old baby let us sleep for 6 hours straight. It was wonderful. After a few raises and promotions, I've got some money now. I suggested to my wife that we get her some more jewelry, maybe some rubies or emeralds to set off her eyes. With a kiss and a hug, she handed me a stack of brochures about savings plans for college tuition, and said that there were more important things. What a wife.
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