Theory Behind Diamond rings

Hello hello, it's Time for a trip down memory lane, to how people started buying rings with major blings, 

Let's get started make sure you read to the end,

19th Century American men gave a tumbler normally used for sewing. The bride was supposed to cut the top off and use what was left as a ring. And Roman men? They were even cheaper! They gave iron rings, not very romantic, eh? The ring either denoted strength of the union or man’s authority over his woman is not clearly mentioned. So if we see the story again…

“Will you marry me?” he asked getting down on one knee and holding a bronze ring

“Yes, George I will,” she happily gleamed, “Oh and the ring is so lovely!”

Oh what the world had been back the! To be honest, it was not really till 500 years that this tradition began. Engagement rings without diamonds have been around for millennia.

The history tells how Archduke Maximilian of Austria was the first person to give his fiancé, Mary of Burgundy a diamond engagement ring in 1477. The diamonds, even then were exceptionally rare and pricey, so our Maximilian didn’t make it cheap, aha!

After that,  it took an unusual discovery in Africa to turn diamonds into a more affordable gift. In the year 1871 an 83.5 carat stone was found on property belonging to two brothers called De Beers and this is when those bad boys came in the market.  The surface deposits were depleted quickly, but the real treasure was found in a volcanic plug, a single massive volcanic rock that had propelled itself near the surface in an eruption hundreds of millions of years earlier. It contained the largest reserves of diamond ever discovered. Between 1871 and 1914 over two tons of diamonds were extracted from it, so many that for the first time in history the price was low enough to make diamonds affordable to more than just kings and queens. The mines themselves, after numerous mergers, came under control of an emerging giant, a conglomerate named De Beers Consolidated Mines. To this day it retains a monopoly over the world’s diamond market, gaining control of new mines as they are discovered.

De Beers had a product, but it needed a market and so the company invented one. They used massive advertising campaigns to convince middle class families in Europe that they too could now possess a status symbol previously reserved only for the very wealthy and it worked brilliantly. Almost overnight the market for diamonds increased exponentially. “Diamond is forever” was the brilliant campaign that did the trick.

However, by WWI, demand in Europe had plateaued, but the rise of the giant American middle class created new possibilities. By the 1930’s, De Beers, recognizing the shift in wealth from the old world to the new, switched their marketing efforts from Europe to the US. Every American bride, they said deserved a diamond ring. Despite the Great Depression, America was rapidly overtaking Europe to become the most affluent society in the world and Americans began to buy diamonds in massive numbers. They did it partly because they could afford it and partly because, perversely, the depression encouraged them to. In a time of economic uncertainty, people sought investments to last and diamonds after all, are forever. It was at this point, only 80 years or so ago, that the diamond market really became a mass market and giving diamond engagement rings became embedded as a universal culture.

But this was not all that it took to land diamonds in our lives and on the woman’s finger, it was De Beers genius advertising that really got to people. The slogans ‘Diamonds are forever’ is one such famous one which was coined as one of the most influential slogans of all time. Though it meant strength and love but what people did not fully understand that a diamond was actually for forever since it had no return value, and still does not have one. Another advertisement that made these rock studded rings so famous was that a man should spend his months’ salary on such a great possession.

So now when you go to a jewelry store to buy a diamond engagement ring for your lady, you are but following a surprisingly recent tradition.

And what's the "Ring code", how much is too when buying an engagement ring? Do people insure there engagement rings? To add more Value to it? Let me know what you think in the comment section...

Until next time… Talk soon. Xoxo