An Opportunity to Strengthen Connections

Image credit: Gerd Altmann (Pixabay)


(diamonds.net) - A rough diamond changes hands at least five times before it reaches the cutting wheel, an industry veteran explained to my amazement when I first started writing about the market. A polished stone is traded even more often before being set into a piece of jewelry, he continued. The journey a diamond undergoes from mine to finger is truly a global one. It can be unearthed in Lesotho, sold at a tender in Johannesburg, traded in Antwerp, and perhaps laser-cut in Israel before being polished in Surat and graded in Carlsbad, California. Once polished, it is likely to be sorted in Mumbai, subsequently sent to a Hong Kong show for display, and sold to a jewelry wholesaler who sets it in an engagement ring at a factory in China. The ring is exported to a dealer on New York’s 47th Street, where it might shift from office to office before finding a buyer — say, a jeweler in Bloomington, Indiana, who sells it to a couple planning to settle in Toronto, Canada, after their wedding.