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The Diamond Invention

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... and if you ever whant to chat about these with someone for a year or two, just engage the author via website!
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interesting reading.
I got about half way thru it so far.
I hate reading long stuff on the computer so I think im going to print it out at work tomorrow.
 
Having read the whole thing it paints a pretty bleak picture of the diamond industry.
His agenda is also very clear.
How much of it is fact and how much is fiction?
 
It's been a while since I went through that materia... but what do you think the agenda is? I somewhat shun some of those "Cold War" manerisms, but otherwise?
 
He tends to show everything in the worst light.
Some of it is pretty bad no matter how you paint it but in other areas there could be other explainations and in some places he seems to be going out of his way to present it in the worst light.

Over all I got the impression that he started out with an agenda of making the industry look bad then set out to prove it instead of presenting the facts and letting the chips fall where they may.

If his facts are right then in the end I would agree with him on how bad they are but I dont need his pushing to get there.

The WW2 stuff was pretty bad and it really ticked me off.
My dad faught in ww2 in the US navy as did my uncle on his side.
I had relatives in all branches of the US service some of whom didnt make it home from both my Dads and Moms family.
It really ticks me off that they put controll of the diamond industry above my families lives.
 
It is true that the industry has a lot of dirty laundry stretching back a long way. It is also true that there have been a lot of improvements in the past decade or so. But Bismarck's old saying about laws and sausages could be applied to much of the diamond and gem world.
 
I read people saying that it has changed a lot but dont give many details.
I dont really have any way of seeing behind the curtain to see if it really has.
From some of what furthermore and a few others have been saying it hasnt changed all that much.
More players but same game and not consumer driven in a lot of cases.
There are exceptions and you will find them right here on this board.
A lot of the time it seems the goal is to market people into the shops take as much money from them as possible and then show them the door.
When I was looking at B&M stores the first question was always whats your budget.
While it is good for them to know it is rather rude the way it was handled.
When I started looking I didnt have a budget I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and was looking for how much it would take to get it.
A lot of them just couldnt get that into their heads.
It was right then that I decided I wasnt buying at full retail from a B&M.
If Id found pricescope before I bought I might have bought from one of the dealers here.

I sell computer networks that go for likely as much money as the most expensive sale that the local B&M will ever make.
If I treated my customers that way I would soon be out of a job.
Yet people put up with it?!?!?!?
 
There's a recent book called "From Mine to Mistress" by diamond industry journalist Chaim Even-Zohar that more or less gives the trades' side to most of Epstein's diatribes (it's not a response to Epstein, but functions as one anyway since most of what Epstein reports is neither new nor secret). Unfortunately, you'll never find a copy because it's priced at $495 for the specific purpose of keeping it out of the hands of consumers (the author himself said so to a friend of mine). I've read portions, and while the author's agenda is a bit naked in spots, it contains a lot of truly inside information on how the diamond business works.
 
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On 1/2/2004 5:59:35 PM LawGem wrote:


It is true that the industry has a lot of dirty laundry stretching back a long way. It is also true that there have been a lot of improvements in the past decade or so. But Bismarck's old saying about laws and sausages could be applied to much of the diamond and gem world.
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LawGem,
do you know of any gem trade route that does not deserve this? I guess Canadian diamonds would be relatively Ok (maybe some corporate issues, but nothig too outrageous I know of); I couldn't say too many bad things of benitoite and red beryl and Montana sapphire. But anything originating in worse off countries is such a (literally) bloody mess
sad.gif
 


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On 1/8/2004 10:29:43 AM valeria101 wrote:





LawGem,
do you know of any gem trade route that does not deserve this? I guess Canadian diamonds would be relatively Ok (maybe some corporate issues, but nothig too outrageous I know of); I couldn't say too many bad things of benitoite and red beryl and Montana sapphire. But anything originating in worse off countries is such a (literally) bloody mess
sad.gif



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Off the top of my head? Sri Lanka is not so bad, depending on how you feel about the Tamil Tiger business. Among other things, the government prohibits all mechanized mining to a) protect traditional gem recovery jobs and b) limit environmental damage. Madagascar could be a lot worse. Tanzanite has a bad reputation, but a South African company named AFGEM has (so I am told) set up a fairly enlightened mining operation in one block of the tanzanite tract. Compared to everything else going on in Africa, De Beers, despite its reputation, is one of the more respectable outfits (consider the DRC, for example). Russian diamonds are probably no worse than Canadian diamonds, but as yet they aren't being sold by origin so that's not much help.
 
btt for those that missed it..
 
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