The most famous gemstone, the diamond, has fueled people’s imagination and greed for thousands of years. Who doesn’t know the immortal song lyrics ‘Diamonds are a girls’ best friend’, in which Marilyn Monroe sings about the attraction of the precious stone to every blonde? But for a long time, diamonds were mainly worn by men, ranging from Indian moguls to European monarchs. From a strictly scientific point of view, the glittering gemstones are just a pure form of carbon. Yet to this day, several famous and less famous diamonds remain shrouded in a veil of mystery and stories. For example, the blue Hope diamond is said to carry a curse, and many diamonds, even nameless ones, are said to have medicinal properties.
In numbers
- The oldest diamonds were formed about 3.3 billion years ago at a depth of at least 150 kilometers below the Earth’s surface. The Excelcior diamond weighed 995.2 carats or 199.04 grams, one of the largest rough diamonds ever found. The miner who discovered the diamond in 1893 was given £500 and a horse with saddle and reins.
- It took diamond cutters more than three years to give the Millennium Star diamond its classic 54-face pear shape.
- In 1979, the prices paid by investors skyrocketed, but in 1980 the trade collapsed again and prices for a one-carat stone fell from $60,000 to just $6,000.
- The Argyle diamond mine in Australia produces approximately 30 million carats per year.
Diamonds finance wars
A film made the general public aware of this fact. Blood Diamont, starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Dijmon Hounsou, tells the story of African diamond smuggling in areas affected by civil war. Local warlords use the proceeds from the sale of illegally mined diamonds to buy weapons, further exacerbating conflict. Although 75 countries have now agreed to only allow the sale of diamonds with a certificate of origin, the trade in blood diamonds continues and the proceeds are still used to finance wars.
Inner values
The price of a diamond is determined based on four criteria: carat, color, clarity and make. A very valuable stone should have as many carats as possible and be colorless, perfectly made and without inclusions. Diamonds with these qualities create the most dramatic effect when light hits them.
Harder doesn’t exist
Diamonds make beautiful jewelry, and are also the hardest substance known to man. You can only scratch a diamond with another diamond. However, this extraordinary hardness also makes diamonds brittle, making it relatively easy to divide one large stone into several small ones. Because of this hardness, diamonds are particularly valuable to industry. Up to 80% of diamonds mined annually are not used at all to adorn necklaces, bracelets and earrings but end up in precision drills, cutting tools and polishing paste. It was not so long ago that every household in the Western world had a device containing a diamond. Many people wouldn’t even have known that. The needle of the old, trusty pickup is often a diamond, albeit a tiny one.
Timeline
- Thirteenth century: Diamonds were already known in India, but now they are also appearing in Europe.
- Around 1330: The technique of diamond cutting is developed in Venice. From now on, the full beauty of the stone can be brought to life.
- 1739: Nader Shah comes into possession of one of the most famous and valuable diamonds in the world through a trick. He calls the stone Koh-I-Noor, or ‘mountain of light’. The stone is now part of the British Crown Jewels and adorns a crown of the Queen.
- 1905: The largest diamond of all time is found in South Africa. The stone has 3106 carats and is named Cullinan, after the owner of the mine where it was discovered.
- 1955: General Electric succeeds in creating the first synthetic diamonds.
- 1969: Richard Burton pays more than a million dollars for a diamond he gives to Elyzabeth Taylor. She would later sell the Taylor-Burton diamond, as the stone was known, for $5 million.