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ON BUYING A DIAMOND
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stone
to produce perfect smaller stones. If the idea was to produce a large
number of large stones it could have been done with less sacrifice—and
less resultant beauty. But remember that behind all this is the fact
that the production of one carat of so-called blue-white or perfect
diamond necessitated the removal from varying depths below the earth's
surface of a mass of rock comparable in size to an apartment building,
or more than 160 times as large as a one-car garage.
What
does all that mean? When a sacrifice such as that is made, you can be
certain it means a correspondingly high value—and price—in the final
gem or gems, whether they came from the Cullinan or from an obscure
rough stone of only 10 carats. Do you suppose that such a diamond is going to appear in some cheap-selling jewelry store down the street that cries: "Blue White Perfect Diamonds"?
True,
the public, through no fault of its own, has been ignorant of these
things. A certain segment of the trade has advertised blatantly about
its "perfect diamonds," thinking only of the perfectly balanced
ledgers at the end of the month. The great majority of jewelers, who
are honest, nevertheless cannot escape blame since in the past they
have done nothing to educate the public and, with comparatively few
exceptions, are doing little to educate them now. They have only
themselves to blame for the fact that, the average American's, desire
to own nothing but the best being what it is, the retailers have
considered it necessary to offer little but "blue-white perfect"
diamonds. They have failed to correct such practices, on the part of
certain jewelers, as selling as blue-whites, diamonds in which the only
body hues observable by scientific examination were
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