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lowing
the Franco-German War of 1870, her fortunes dwindled. Desperate, she
sold the diamond to the Gaekwar of Baroda for a price reputed to be
between $75,000 and $100,000. It was one of the few possessions
salvaged that enabled her to live modestly for the rest of her long
life, after everything else had gone royally haywire.
So,
too, we can understand the value of diamonds to the French and Dutch
and Belgian refugees of the second World War. But the American
situation is different. We have no immediate fears about reverting to
cyclone cellars. Invasion is always possible, but it is improbable, and
by the time it comes there won't be any other country to flee to,
anyway. In our personal affairs we may head into financial disaster,
and then a diamond proves highly useful.
But
one should understand this: When you pay $300 for a diamond ring, that
doesn't mean you are going to get back $300 when you want to sell it.
Anyone who buys diamonds for this sort of investment purpose is
unwise. There is such a thing as a mark-up in every business, not
excluding diamonds. Think of the cost of mining a diamond; then it goes
through the London Trading Company, then it comes to a cutter in the
United States. There is the cost of labor of cutting the stone (by men
earning from $150 to $235 a week, or about $7 an hour); then it must be
sold to a manufacturer and he, in turn, has a setting designed for it
and it is placed in platinum or gold. It is now sold to a retail store,
which had to employ people to advertise it, to display it, to sell it.
And
then you buy it. Should you expect to realize the full sale price for
that diamond ring when you want to turn it in? The mark-up on a diamond
is necessarily about 50 per cent, more or less, depending upon the
quality of
(136)
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