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DIAMONDS COME TO AMERICA
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jewelers'
shelves relatively bare, as such goods were procurable only from
Germany under license. It is stated that the Nazi leaders have invested
large sums in diamonds and other fine gems. Hermann Goering, according
to British gem dealers, has several million dollars' worth in gems in
Italy or in neutral countries.
Now
all that is very well with respect to Europe, and even for experienced
importers to dabble in. But average Americans may be making a grave
mistake if they buy diamonds purely for "investment purposes" in the
ordinary sense of the term. In Europe the purchase of diamonds was not
for investment as we understand it. Our idea of investment is something
that produces more capital; it produces interest. We invest in real
estate, in insurance, in savings accounts, stocks and bonds, government
treasury stamps, home and loan building organizations, and the like. We
expect interest from them. Or, if we do not invest, we put our money
into places that we are reasonably sure will yield us at worst nothing
less than what we put in—such as checking accounts, safety deposit
boxes, or under the mattress.
But
diamonds do not fit into those categories. They are not an
investment—they are cyclone cellars. Go back to the Empress Eugenie,
wife of Napoleon III. Diamonds provided her with a "cyclone cellar."
She was at one time the owner of the famous 51-carat oval-shaped
diamond named after her. Once it was the center of a hair ornament in
the possession of the Empress Catherine II of Russia. She gave it to
her favorite, Potemkin, along with a palace and a few other odds and
ends. The stone was purchased by Emperor Napoleon III from a
grand-niece of Potemkin and he presented it to his bride, the Empress
Eugenie as a wedding gift. During her entire reign, the empress wore it
in a necklace of diamonds. But with the collapse of her regime, fol-
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