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DIAMONDS COME TO AMERICA
A
jewelry store official will telephone him and say he has a chance of
selling it to a customer; will the importer please send it over right
away? The $100,000 diamond is wrapped in a piece of paper, placed in
the pocket of a delivery boy, and he walks casually uptown or downtown
to the store and delivers it. All the jeweler has to do is sign a
memorandum which signifies that he has received the goods; he would do
the same if he were acknowledging the receipt of a package of
typewriting paper. If a store out of town wants to see it, it is sent
in a small cardboard box by ordinary registered mail. Faith.
Since
the advent of the second World War the American importer needs
considerable faith. It has dealt him a severe blow. Indeed, he always
has been faced with more difficulties than the other units of the
trade. Today it is the shortage of imported cut diamonds due to the
war. Before that it was a plethora of stones on the market, with
consequent dropping of prices due to smuggling. To discourage
smuggling he had to fight for a reduction in tariffs on cut and rough
diamonds.
Smuggling
long was a headache of the trade. Several years ago it was testified
before a congressional committee that nearly half of the diamonds
coming into the United States yearly were smuggled in. In 1935
wholesale jewelers, importers, and manufacturers complained to the
Customs Division of the Treasury Department in New York that they were
being undersold by jewelers of questionable character; they had
reduced prices to the breaking point, yet could not meet the
competition of this rival and shady group which was selling below the
rock-bottom legitimate cost prices.
The Customs Division got busy. One of its operatives, posing as an out-of-town diamond buyer, dropped into a
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