Why colored gems are rare and diamonds are not

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I love gems and diamonds, but i get sick of people saying diamonds are not rare.
Diamonds are not rare because they are more desirable. It is very simple economics.

Greenland's first ruby mine is receiving a huge financial boost with an $18m investment from a mining financier.

It said the initial cost of the Jwaneng expansion was $6bn. Diamonds in Botswana.

Diamonds are thousands of times rarer than colored gems.

$18m Finance Boost for Greenland's First Ruby Mine

Underground Expansion at Jwaneng to Boost Debswana Revenue

 

[pokerface]

What? High-quality colored gems like ruby and sapphire are found less frequently in nature than are diamonds. Colored gems are more rare because they are less abundant. Economics has nothing to do with it.

Are you saying more diamonds have been found only because more money has been put into looking for diamonds? If so, I think you'd need some sources to back up that assertion, because every single article I've ever seen states that factually, diamonds occur in nature way more often than colored stones.

 

[JoeQueen]

I‘ve never heard of this. Aren’t emeralds rarer than diamonds, which is part of the reason why the cost per carat is much higher?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I‘ve never heard of this. Aren’t emeralds rarer than diamonds, which is part of the reason why the cost per carat is much higher?

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

What? High-quality colored gems like ruby and sapphire are found less frequently in nature than are diamonds. Colored gems are more rare because they are less abundant. Economics has nothing to do with it.

Are you saying more diamonds have been found only because more money has been put into looking for diamonds? If so, I think you'd need some sources to back up that assertion, because every single article I've ever seen states that factually, diamonds occur in nature way more often than colored stones

 

[pokerface]

Why are you dividing 6 billion by 18 million and what does that have to do with how many diamonds exist? I'm going to stop replying since I'm gonna assume additional replies are going to be equally nonsensical. Be well.

 

[ShinyPink]

My understanding was that diamonds are more abundant than the top CS (sapphire, ruby, emerald) and that the monopoly on the mines and the distribution of diamonds are what drive the price and supply.

I can spend $1b on a ruby mine- doesn't mean I'll find many or that they'll be top jewel quality. Diamonds are used industrially too, so not only is there the supply for jewelry, but for other uses.

I don't think this takes away from diamonds and their beauty. I just don't agree that they are rare per se.

ETA: The title contradicts the thread.

 

[T L]

Diamonds that are colorless to near colorless in sizes around a carat or less, are not particularly rare. The diamond market is heavily influenced by great marketing and control of supply. However, diamonds are some of the most expensive things ever sold if you take into account large size and/or rare fancy color.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

The reason I started this post is because of the misinformation that has been so widely spread. It is a bit like asking people to change religions, I know.
But that is not going to stop me trying to help people understand what really happens and why.
Diamonds are incredibly rare.
No one mines miles below the earth surface for any gem other than diamond.
No one invests hundreds of millions of dollars to prospect for any gem other than diamond.
These are simple facts.

Yes, diamonds are well marketed. Just like any product that has high appeal.

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

Really? Carbon is the most common element on this planet.
DeBeers for example, sat on $5 billion in their vaults and artificially manipulated the market. They were charged with illegal price fixing. They were forced to stop that practice to continue to sell in the US. They can't find buyers now because of the pandemic.
With the advent of satellite imaging and if future development of better deep drillers continue they will hit vast quantities miles thick beneath the earth's crust. We just haven't reached them yet.
There is even a planet called 55 Cancri e made entirely of diamond. It's twice the size of Earth.
Diamonds are beautiful, but they are not truly rare. We are just led to believe they are through marketing and dubious, sometimes criminal, business practices.

Are diamonds really rare? Myths and misconceptions about diamonds #diamonds

Diamonds are popular gemstones surrounded by popular misconceptions. We'll tell you how they became so prized and debunk some of those diamond myths, too.

www.gemsociety.org

Sound waves reveal enormous diamond cache deep in Earth's interior

Sound waves reveal a surprisingly large diamond cache deep in Earth's interior, researchers report.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[Lisa Loves Shiny]

Interesting post. In my observations almost every engaged or married woman I know wears a diamond. I have NEVER in my life visually observed a woman wearing a spinel, chrysoberyl, spessartite, andalusite or zircon. Never. Like never, ever. Yet diamonds are more rare?

 

[T L]

The reasons diamonds are valuable are more than just rarity, perceived or real. It’s timely and expensive to cut diamonds. They’re the hardest substance we know of, and their durability and beauty make them extremely desirable. I think lab diamonds are challenging the market a bit, but I don’t see diamonds going to $50/carat any time soon.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Interesting post. In my observations almost every engaged or married woman I know wears a diamond. I have NEVER in my life visually observed a woman wearing a spinel, chrysoberyl, spessartite, andalusite or zircon. Never. Like never, ever. Yet diamonds are more rare?

Part durability, as T L mentions, part goes with everything and a huge part marketing LLS!

But do not forget that diamond has an exceptionally high refractive index and good dispersion. That makes it look very pretty and sparkly.
Think about the other colorless gems that are attractive? High Zircon would be my favorite, but it is very soft and easily chipped.

 

[LD]

The reason I started this post is because of the misinformation that has been so widely spread. It is a bit like asking people to change religions, I know.
But that is not going to stop me trying to help people understand what really happens and why.
Diamonds are incredibly rare.
No one mines miles below the earth surface for any gem other than diamond.
No one invests hundreds of millions of dollars to prospect for any gem other than diamond.
These are simple facts.

Yes, diamonds are well marketed. Just like any product that has high appeal.

You can walk into most jewellers and they either have (or can obtain) an E/F colour, IF or VVS1 diamond. You can't do the same with the highest quality sapphires, rubies or emeralds. If you want a Paraiba Tourmaline or Alexandrite of the highest quality you have virtually no chance of getting one easily. You have to go to specialist dealers or those who really understand the coloured gemstone market.

So I'm afraid I have to respectfully totally disagree with you.

 

[fredflintstone]

The reason I started this post is because of the misinformation that has been so widely spread. It is a bit like asking people to change religions, I know.
But that is not going to stop me trying to help people understand what really happens and why.
Diamonds are incredibly rare.
No one mines miles below the earth surface for any gem other than diamond.
No one invests hundreds of millions of dollars to prospect for any gem other than diamond.
These are simple facts.

Yes, diamonds are well marketed. Just like any product that has high appeal.

Are Diamonds rare?

Rarer than Quartz? Yes, but everything is relative. Are gem quality white Diamonds rare as compared to Amethyst? I would think so. As compared to top gem quality Amethyst. Probably, but the gap just got closed by quite a bit as compared to your average Amethyst and closed by a mile as compared to Quartz.



Rarer than Aquamarine? Debatable as there are huge Aqua crystals, but do they all produce gem quality Aqua? No. More rare than top gem quality deep blue Aquamarine? No.

Rarer than the big three, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald? No. More rare than top quality Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald. No.

Rarer than Spinel? No.

Rarer than Opal? No.

Rarer than Garnet? Not if you divide Garnet up into its different subspecies.

I think I made my point.

"No one mines miles below the earth surface for any gem other than diamond." - Really??? Maybe no huge corporation, but thousands upon thousands mine underground for Opal, Sapphire, Spinel, Tanzanite, & more. There are also companies the open pit mine for Sapphires, etc.

Let be honest here. Diamond is a product of marketing. Before DeBeers came along, Diamond was not as highly esteemed as the big three. Hell, before the huge Amethyst find in Brazil, Diamond was not as esteemed as Amethyst.

Before faceting, Diamond was tantamount to just being another colorless mineral like quartz.

Before the brilliant cut, Diamond was not hugely popular, but it was gaining.

In the early 1980's, you could not give away colored Diamonds. They were dirt cheap, despite being some of the rarest gemstones in the world. Now look at the prices they get.

No, relatively speaking, Diamonds (white) are not rare at all, if they were, they would have never kept up with the demand. DeBeers controlled the market and made them into what they are today by limited distribution. The King sitting on his treasure making it more valuable by only releasing a little bit at a time to his loyal subjects, while the others went without.

You can walk in any jewelry store and find hundreds, sometimes thousands of perfectly eye clean white Diamonds. Oh sure, DeBeers and the GIA came up with the great scheme of color/clarity grading colorless Diamonds in effect making each grade much more expensive than the other, when most people could not tell you the difference between a H or G, G or F, F or E, E or D. Hell, most would not know a H from a D. You have to loupe an SI to see the difference from a flawless, and again a big jump in money. All for money. All for marketing to make that money when there is a glut of Diamonds.

Sure, they dig them up, but only through companies like DeBeers with their marketing strategy could they afford to dig them up and 50 years from now Diamonds may fall out of grace with the western world that loves them so.

 

[musicloveranthony]

I'm not sure that I can get behind this without some major caveats. If we're talking material to material, maybe. If we're talking quality for quality, I have a hard time believing it. I've seen innumerable D VVS1 or D IF diamonds (museum quality) for sale or auction over the years. In those same years I have only seen 1 or 2 rubies of museum quality and maybe a handful of emeralds of museum quality.

So, I could probably be willing to entertain the idea that diamond of any quality is of the same common nature as corundrum or beryl of any quality. But, museum quality is another story I'm not ready to believe without some heavy convincing.

This is not to account for the colored gemstones that come from one mine, or one vein, or one country in the world.

 

[distracts]

I'm not sure Garry is being as clear as he could be. I THINK what he is saying is that we simply expend way more money, time, and effort mining diamonds, and that if we spent equivalent amounts on mining other gems, there would be even more of them than diamonds. I would definitely need more evidence to believe this - do we know about a lot of gem-quality deposits of valuable material that aren't being mined due to the expense, or is this speculation? I would think diamond is more abundant solely due to the physical makeup, and I haven't seen evidence that says otherwise. Given then current popularity and rising prices of a lot of colored gems, if deposits exist in abundance, why aren't they being mined? idk admittedly I'm not an expert but I have never seen any evidence that would support this.

 

[voce]

Colored gems are more complex in their chemical composition than diamonds. To make a lab colored stone, you have to have a lot more elements in the right proportions, whereas for diamonds all you need is pure carbon and enough pressure and heat to induce them to form the crystal structure. In the natural world, it's less likely that all those elements required to form colored gems would be there randomly under the right conditions to form crystals. From a materials science point of view there's no way diamonds are rarer, when they're so much simpler.

Not to mention the low grade diamonds that get ground down into tiny bits for the tips of power drill bits and sandpaper.

You could say that pearls get ground up and used in beauty creams, but pearls being farmed and all that, it's like comparing against the most common quartz gems. There's such a wide range of colored gems any broad claim that diamonds are rarer than all or any colored gem is surely false.

 

[MjK1]

I love gems and diamonds, but i get sick of people saying diamonds are not rare.
Diamonds are not rare because they are more desirable. It is very simple economics.

Greenland's first ruby mine is receiving a huge financial boost with an $18m investment from a mining financier.

It said the initial cost of the Jwaneng expansion was $6bn. Diamonds in Botswana.

Diamonds are thousands of times rarer than colored gems.

$18m Finance Boost for Greenland's First Ruby Mine

Underground Expansion at Jwaneng to Boost Debswana Revenue

 

[MjK1]

"I'm not sure Garry is being as clear as he could be. "

* makes tipping motion in front of mouth with hand*

 

[Pysix]

If diamonds were “thousands of times rarer than colored gemstones” you wouldn’t see literally every married girl and her mother walking around with a 1+ ct gem quality one on her finger. You can walk into almost any jewelry store in the world and find good quality natural diamonds. The same cannot be said for many other gemstones, and it’s not for lack of demand. Some of these stones easily command higher retail prices per carat than diamond and the reason for that is that the demand is much higher than the actual physical supply (not the perceived supply created by the DeBeers). The whole point of marketing diamonds as stones for engagement rings is that they’re plentiful enough that just about everyone can be sold one for generations to come. They knew the supply was there. It wouldn’t be effective marketing if the supply of your product was going to run out in the near future and only a niche market of elite could afford one. I suggest you do more research on the subject.

 

[PrecisionGem]

Gary fails to point out that he is considering minerals specimens and rocks when talking about colored stones, not gem quality material.

 

[fredflintstone]

One other point I forgot to make that basically cements that white Diamonds are not rare as compared to many colored gemstones is this.

Why would DeBeers, or any other large mining concern spends the millions upon millions (100's of millions) to dig deep for Diamonds and to market them?

The answer is they know their product is plentiful, not only in existing above ground mined stockpiles, but also underground waiting to be dug up. No smart business will spend this amount of money when there is a chance the supply has run out. They know it is there in the ground. They know they have the supply to spend immense money on prospecting, mining, and marketing. They know there is more than enough Diamonds to saturate the market for years to come. But they will not spill it all at once. That would be financial suicide. But they do know it is there when they need it.

But like I wrote before, 50 years from now what will the market be? With synthetic Diamonds growing in popularity as a cheaper alternative. Colored gemstones growing in popularity, and the public's (young public) interest waning in natural Diamonds, the future is uncertain.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

You can walk into most jewellers and they either have (or can obtain) an E/F colour, IF or VVS1 diamond. You can't do the same with the highest quality sapphires, rubies or emeralds. If you want a Paraiba Tourmaline or Alexandrite of the highest quality you have virtually no chance of getting one easily. You have to go to specialist dealers or those who really understand the coloured gemstone market.

So I'm afraid I have to respectfully totally disagree with you.

Not if you want most types fancy shapes. Let alone a pair with the same cut appearnce color and clarity.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Are Diamonds rare?

Rarer than Quartz? Yes, but everything is relative. Are gem quality white Diamonds rare as compared to Amethyst? I would think so. As compared to top gem quality Amethyst. Probably, but the gap just got closed by quite a bit as compared to your average Amethyst and closed by a mile as compared to Quartz.



Rarer than Aquamarine? Debatable as there are huge Aqua crystals, but do they all produce gem quality Aqua? No. More rare than top gem quality deep blue Aquamarine? No.

Rarer than the big three, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald? No. More rare than top quality Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald. No.

Rarer than Spinel? No.

Rarer than Opal? No.

Rarer than Garnet? Not if you divide Garnet up into its different subspecies.

I think I made my point.

"No one mines miles below the earth surface for any gem other than diamond." - Really??? Maybe no huge corporation, but thousands upon thousands mine underground for Opal, Sapphire, Spinel, Tanzanite, & more. There are also companies the open pit mine for Sapphires, etc.

Let be honest here. Diamond is a product of marketing. Before DeBeers came along, Diamond was not as highly esteemed as the big three. Hell, before the huge Amethyst find in Brazil, Diamond was not as esteemed as Amethyst.

Before faceting, Diamond was tantamount to just being another colorless mineral like quartz.

Before the brilliant cut, Diamond was not hugely popular, but it was gaining.

In the early 1980's, you could not give away colored Diamonds. They were dirt cheap, despite being some of the rarest gemstones in the world. Now look at the prices they get.

No, relatively speaking, Diamonds (white) are not rare at all, if they were, they would have never kept up with the demand. DeBeers controlled the market and made them into what they are today by limited distribution. The King sitting on his treasure making it more valuable by only releasing a little bit at a time to his loyal subjects, while the others went without.

You can walk in any jewelry store and find hundreds, sometimes thousands of perfectly eye clean white Diamonds. Oh sure, DeBeers and the GIA came up with the great scheme of color/clarity grading colorless Diamonds in effect making each grade much more expensive than the other, when most people could not tell you the difference between a H or G, G or F, F or E, E or D. Hell, most would not know a H from a D. You have to loupe an SI to see the difference from a flawless, and again a big jump in money. All for money. All for marketing to make that money when there is a glut of Diamonds.

Sure, they dig them up, but only through companies like DeBeers with their marketing strategy could they afford to dig them up and 50 years from now Diamonds may fall out of grace with the western world that loves them so.

You clearly never visited Tucson show.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Condsider this. Flawless diamond rough is incredibly rare.
The technology used to plan what to cut from diamond is expensive and ultra high tech.
Consider the grading of diamonds. I have yet to see a symmetry grade on a coloured gem.
Etc etc
Color is locked in ancient Roman times.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

One other point I forgot to make that basically cements that white Diamonds are not rare as compared to many colored gemstones is this.

Why would DeBeers, or any other large mining concern spends the millions upon millions (100's of millions) to dig deep for Diamonds and to market them?

The answer is they know their product is plentiful, not only in existing above ground mined stockpiles, but also underground waiting to be dug up. No smart business will spend this amount of money when there is a chance the supply has run out. They know it is there in the ground. They know they have the supply to spend immense money on prospecting, mining, and marketing. They know there is more than enough Diamonds to saturate the market for years to come. But they will not spill it all at once. That would be financial suicide. But they do know it is there when they need it.

But like I wrote before, 50 years from now what will the market be? With synthetic Diamonds growing in popularity as a cheaper alternative. Colored gemstones growing in popularity, and the public's (young public) interest waning in natural Diamonds, the future is uncertain.

LGDs or synthetic diamonds will make natural rarer and more valuable since its harder to raise money for prospecting.

 

[ShinyPink]

I have a feeling we can discuss this til the cows come home, with zero change in opinions.

 

[fredflintstone]

You clearly never visited Tucson show.

LOL! Please...I don't think you absorbed a word I wrote and I'm not going to go over it again.

Have a nice night.

 

[fredflintstone]

LGDs or synthetic diamonds will make natural rarer and more valuable since its harder to raise money for prospecting.

LOL! Please...

Just read this.

LOL! Now how can synthetic Diamonds make natural Diamonds rarer? Abracadabra, natural Diamonds are rarer.

The only reason it will be harder raise money for prospecting is that no one will want to invest in a dying market and if the market is not there, prices will dive. Either the money is there or not, and the future of Diamonds as we know it is a coin toss at best.