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Price Of Diamonds Essay

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Since the discovery of diamonds, the precious gem has always remained an item of luxury and great beauty and one that requires a great deal of financial sacrifice in order to acquire. Prices of diamonds have remained relatively stable over the last 100 years while prices of other commodities have fluctuated heavily (Hauser, 2002). Diamonds are a relatively rare commodity which gives them a high value and with the help of De Beer’s advertising campaign, spanning the last six decades, that high value appeal has been sustained. However, the high price of diamonds cannot be solely down to its rarity as the discovery of new deposits over the past decades has led to an increase in the number of diamonds available and thus since they aren’t as …show more content…

To control the supply and demand of diamonds, and thus prices, Rhodes signed agreements with local and international distributors to form “The Diamond Syndicate” which included “The Diamond Trading Company” in London and “The Syndicate” in Israel (Goldschein, 2011). Diamond claim holders and distributors linked up with De Beers through a common interest which was to create a scarcity which would lead to higher prices. The agreement stipulated that distributor would buy diamonds exclusively from Rhodes and sell them at agreed upon prices and quantities (Spar, 2006). Merchants would also feed Rhodes with crucial information concerning the diamond market so that he could adjust his production (Hauser, 2002).
By the time of Rhodes’ death in 1902, De Beers controlled 90% of the world’s rough-diamond production and distribution, however, it was under Ernest Oppenheimer’s leadership that the company became and empire. Oppenheimer, the then owner of Anglo-American Corporation, essentially bought his way onto the board of directors and by 1927 he was the chairman of the board. Under Oppenheimer’s leadership, De Beers and its Central Selling Organisation (CSO) made it impossible to deal with diamonds outside De Beers for much of the 20th century. Whenever De Beers’ monopoly was threatened by new discovery of diamond deposits, as was the case with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, De Beers would buy almost everything being produced and thus maintain their system of

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