Navel gazing

(polishedprices.com) - Whatever is or is not going in the domain of the producers, the world outside has changed, and my visit to Surat really brought it home to me by just how much and how much it is continuing to change. The internet means that information is almost instantaneous to one and all, everyone is constantly rushing about buying goods from here and there, technology provides boundless possibilities, which the cutters seem to have taken to with enthusiasm, producers more with a yawn of ennui. Therefore, why not end the fixed cycle for selling. Why shouldn’t producers sell on a continuous basis as and when various goods are available rather than having to wait for everything to be available. Why not sell the goods by individual mine rather than going for mixes? As diamonds fight against losing even more ground to other luxuries let alone other commodities, could not the whole issue of provenance be used as a powerful marketing inducement. Selling by mine would also stop cross subsidisation from mine to mine, that might work, for example, in particular for Namibian’s high quality but marginal production. This in turn might make producers look harder at the numbers of individual mines and prevent the hiding some of their more costly mistakes, i.e., Snap Lake which everyone knew was a dog when it opened, indeed everyone knew it should not have been opened but too much ego had been invested in it. An added rationale for this would be to put a premium on higher quality mines, which often have lower grades.