Argyle Cushion Diamond

The Argyle Diamond Mine, located in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia was first explored by Ashton Mining Ltd in 1972. Following a merger with CRA Ltd and a subsequent merger with Rio Tinto Ltd, diamonds were first produced from the mine in 1983. Diamonds extracted from the Argyle Mine are marketed as Argyle Diamonds.

The Argyle mine is the largest diamond producer in the world by volume, however produces only a small number (5%) of gem-quality diamonds (predominantly cognac). Annual production averages 35 million carats (7,000 kg), or about one third of global production of natural diamonds.

The signature stone of the Argyle Mine is the natural fancy color pink diamond. Over 90% of the natural fancy color pink diamonds produced in the world emanate from the Argyle mine. Additionally, Argyle provides a large proportion of other naturally colored diamonds, including champagne, cognac and rare blue diamonds.

Beginning in 1985, approximately 35 carats of polished pink Argyle Diamonds are offered as part of an exclusive annual sale known as the Argyle Pink Diamond Tender. Since 1985, more than 750 stones have been offered for sale at the tender at a total weight of almost 600 carats. Access to event is invitation only and even the tender catalog and website access are highly sought after.

In 2009, Argyle announced their first ever tender of rare blue diamonds. The “Once in a Blue Moon” collection was sourced over several years and comprised a range of preci

Argyle Diamond Mines

ous blue and violet diamonds weighing a total of 287 carats (57 g).

The majority of Argyle Diamonds are sold as “rough” or uncut stones. Initially, the majority of tones between the years 1983-1996 were sold to De Beers. This association set the imprimatur of the established De Beers name on the new production from Argyle. It helped provide consumer, investor, and industry confidence in the Argyle product.

Following the expiration of the sales agreements with De Beers, Argyle Diamonds had established their name and reputation in the marketplace and Rio Tinto was ready to forge a direct path in the marketing and sales.

The Argyle Mine has been producing diamonds for almost 30 years. The transition from open-cut to underground mining has taken place, and the next 30 years of reserves of famous Argyle Diamonds are soon to be accessed. What awaits diamond lovers from this yet to be mined ore is a complete mystery. One thing is known with total certainty though, the bounty of Argyle is a once in a lifetime discovery that has both defined and redefined the diamond industry.

What makes a diamond an antique diamond? It certainly isn’t its age. All natural diamonds, be they antique diamonds or just recently yanked out of the Earth’s crust, are all in the billions of years as far as their age goes. Could what makes an antique diamond be how long ago it was mined? Not quite. A rough diamond mined 50 years ago and just recently cut and set could just as easily be considered new. Rather, what makes antique diamonds in fact antique diamonds are how long ago they were cut and set. In other words, what we are really talking about is antique diamond jewelry.

Antiques have to do not with geological eons, but with traversal through human history. So antique diamonds are diamonds that have sailed through human time and are attached to human events. For example, the ever infamous Hope Diamond is in fact an antique diamond not because of its physical age, but because of the human history associated with it. It can be safely assumed that most diamonds ever mined are still around in collector’s basements and constitute antique diamonds with rich histories. Royal treasuries of the Habsburg dynasty are among the largest sources of the world’s antique diamonds. On a more common level, antique diamonds are usually found within family lines, passed down from generation to generation, sometimes with intense histories surrounding them. In fact, one of the most amazing stories I have heard involving antique diamonds involves a set of diamonds that survived the Holocaust.

The story goes that before being shipped off to the ghetto, a mother instructed her daughter to literally swallow the families antique diamonds and trade them for food if it ever came to that. The daughter ended up surviving concentration camp after concentration camp and repeatedly swallowed the antique diamonds. When the horror was finally over, she moved to America and had them set in a single piece of jewelry, now a family heirloom and antique diamonds full of such a haunting past it sends chills down the spine.

Antique diamonds constitute a lucrative market in diamond trading. This is simply because the most basic allure of diamonds is nested in its connection with the earth. To deepen that connection with human history makes the attractiveness of diamond all the more intense. Not only has the stone been around for billions of years, it has seen history that one couldn’t possibly see even over the course of several lifetimes.

This article was contributed by Zohara

Synthetic Diamonds

Since 1953, it has been possible to take graphite, smush it really hard at really high temperatures, and come out with some sort of synthetic diamond, that looks and behaves much like a real diamond. There are generally two ways to do this. One is High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) synthesis of synthetic diamond, and the other is Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). The former results generally in bigger synthetic diamonds, but the latter is a much simpler and cheaper design. If we are to analogize, I’d say that the former synthetic diamond production method is an application of brute force. Enclose the carbon in on all sides, squeeze it mercilessly and heat it up way beyond civil temperatures, and force it to bind to itself. 

The second method is more of a finesse. You get the carbon excited a bit and introduce some carbon-based gas, usually methane, into a chamber, energize it with some sort of concentrated energy source like an electron beam, and you activate all of the bonds at the same time, while they are all willing to bond to the next atom they see. The goal is carbon, though this is what makes the CVD method less reliable for bigger synthetic diamonds. Any impurity will be immediately bonded to the carbon. 

 As one may guess, the advent of synthetic diamond had DeBeers freaking out about market prices. But as we all know of mother nature, she never disappoints. Much like bread, when made without artificially freeze-dried yeast and allowed to ferment and rise on its own over a period of weeks tastes much better, so too with natural diamonds over synthetic diamonds. A stone lying in the earth’s mantle for billions of years allowed to naturally grow will generally have a lot less impurities than one produced over a matter of hours or days. 

As a matter of fact, they even have a word for sythetic diamond that is of such low quality as can be seen by the naked eye. They call it bort. Synthetic diamond bort is used mostly as an abrasive tool in cutting machines. So is most of synthetic diamond. Just because it don’t look as pretty don’t mean it’s not the hardest substance on the planet anymore. It still is, making the industrial applications of synthetic diamond very diverse and necessary. I bet when a construction company CEO is going home after a long day of scratching out the foundations for a new city with synthetic diamond, he feels he has accomplished much more than the Jeweler who sold a six figure stone to a rich guy getting married.

Diamonds New York

The Diamond District in New York City dazzles as one of the world’s largest centers of diamond business.  Roughly 90% of all diamonds in the United States enter through this concrete jungle.  Although there are a handful of other centers for diamonds New York offers consumers and suppliers in the United States the most concentrated array of diamond shops.  One of the greatest reasons to visit the New York City Diamond district is for the wonderful discounts the shops offer, in comparison with larger department store prices.  But another aspect that might draw in an interested diamond customer, is the history the district is rooted in.

Located on 47^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, the NYC Diamond District has its own street name called “Diamond Jewelry Way.”  Customers can browse along the diamond shops and end up at Rockefeller center to catch a mid- day matinee performance!  This row of diamond shops concentrated on this particular street in the 1920’s after a number of social and economic factors affected the location of the New York City Diamond Stores.

Prior to the 1920’s the NYC Diamond District was located downtown, near Canal Street and the Bowry.  This downtown location moved to the financial district in 1931.  The diamond center for business was located on a street called Maiden lane.  New York residents and out- of towners visited Maiden Lane when they were searching for jewelry pieces such as diamond necklaces, engagement rings, earrings, and other fine jewelry pieces.  During that time period, New York City had a rough reputation, but the world was taking notice of the special diamonds on Maiden Lane.  Immigrants from Europe began to immigrate to America, and a large influx of Orthodox Jews took the market by storm with a slew of new diamond shops.  In 1924, the New York Times stated that “the bride-to-be who could show a ring from Maiden Lane was thrice happy.”

In the late 1800’s some jewelers tried to move their stores away from maiden Lane in order to differentiate themselves, but wound up moving back to the row because of the loyal customer flow that often filtered through the diamond shops.  In the 1910’s the big move to 47^th street started when financial companies bought out space on maiden lane, driving the diamond district closer to the posh Madison avenue.  There continues to be a heavy flow of consumer traffic today in the diamond district.  Currently under construction, the “International Gem Tower” will add a high-rise appeal to the area with 34 beautiful stories studded with diamond sellers.

When considering how important the diamonds New York district is, it is important to consider this area among the top diamond centers in the world to understand how the global distribution affects the consumer market.  The major centers of the diamond industry are located in London, Antwerp Belgium, Mumbai, India, Ramat Gan, Israel, and Johannesburg South Africa.  Important to note, is that the India and South Africa diamond industries are primarily based on the mining and refining aspects of the diamond selling process.  Controversy has clouded these major diamond exporting centers due to the conditions laborers face in these countries.  The world’s eyes have been opened to the issue of blood diamonds and the serious problems many diamond workers face in the field.  Currently there are a number of certifications and preventative measures being put into place in order to save the lives of those diamond workers who are in such a terrible position.  Other diamond importers and distributors are becoming more and more aware of the dangerous diamond conditions and hopeful steps are being taken.

New York City and Ramat Gan, Israel have similar roles in the diamond distribution and consumer market.  Once the diamonds are mined in Africa or India, large companies distribute final jewelry products or loose diamonds to stores and consumers.  But undoubtedly, if you want to take a stroll down the street and choose your own dazzling diamonds New York diamond district can’t be beat.

Engagement Ring

When I proposed to my wife, I didn’t really propose. I actually told her she had no choice and she had to marry me because I said so. (You can only do that power play if you’ve been in control of the relationship and you’re confident of the resulting answer. Otherwise, don’t even ask. I know from experience.) That’s when I gave her a diamond engagement ring.

Months before, I’d been asking myself why people even bother to purchase diamond engagement rings. I mean, assuming you have some sort of ancestry and keep your lineage on record, you can easily have them passed down from generation to generation. Does anyone really want to be buried in their rings? Maybe, but that’s icky. Nobody throws a diamond engagement ring away, and very few lose diamond engagement rings because they never take them off unless they’re asking for trouble.

But then I thought about the math. Let’s say each couple has three children. That means only 33% of diamond engagement rings, maximum, can be passed down, whereas in practice it’s probably less than that, people being buried in them and losing them and what not. So let’s make a liberal estimate of 25%. The means diamond engagement rings have to be continually manufactured in order to satisfy demand. And there’s always the mess of divorce and remarriage that just messes with the statistics.

That being said, I was exceedingly lucky not to have to purchase a diamond engagement ring. My late grandmother’s was more than handy even though I am the youngest of three children, and last to be married. When my brother was married, my grandmother was still living, though my grandfather had gotten her a bigger and better diamond engagement ring when he became successful. (Though by that time they were already married. This is confusing.) Meaning, my grandmother’s “spare”diamond engagement ring was still available, but for some reason he didn’t want it. My sister, being a female, wasn’t about to give her husband-to-be a diamond engagement ring with which to propose to her, so I got the heirloom. It’s nothing too swanky, just a simple ring with a few shiny diamonds in it, but luckily my wife doesn’t know or care about jewelry so much, one of the reasons why I married her. She just wants people to know she’s taken, which I’m not against, and a diamond engagement ring along with a wedding ring does the trick well enough.

So much for DeBeers’ marketing ploy that a man should spend 2-3 months wages for diamond engagement rings. I’ll spend it on a house, thank you very much.

Diamond Settings

When buying diamond rings, many people often neglect to think about the diamond settings. Diamond buyers often investigate the different types of diamonds, the 4 C’s, reliable places from which to buy diamonds. While this is great and surely recommended for everyone, you should remember that the diamond settings are also very important and can even serve multiple functions. Pavé settings are made up of lots of tiny gems, often diamonds but not always, set close together. These little diamonds are separated and held in place by little beads of the setting metal. The result is a diamond setting that looks like a continuous surface of diamonds or other gems. This, in turn, causes the diamond to actually appear bigger than it is! Since it is the pave diamond setting make is difficult to distinguish each stone, it looks as if there are more diamonds. Of course, take into consideration the fact that pave diamond settings sometimes make the ring altogether a more expensive affair. Another way to make your ring appear bigger is by choosing a Bezel Set Diamond, which has a metal rim or collar encircling the sides of the diamond. White gold setting will blend in with the diamond and make it appear bigger than it is. Diamonds are often heirlooms, and the great thing about diamond settings is that, while diamonds cannot be replaces, their settings sure can. So, people who inherit diamonds with damaged or undesirable settings often choose to reset their jewels. A different setting can make the ring look like a whole new ring altogether! For instance, if the diamond you currently have has a tall and pointed setting, you can remove it and place it on a different diamond setting, with which your ring won’t bump into everything. The prong setting, also known as claw setting, is the most commonly used one. It is especially popular as a diamond engagement ring setting. Some of the advantages to take into account before buying a prong setting are: due to the prong’s small size, the diamond will appear bigger; prong settings are usually less expensive; prong diamond settings make is easier to clean the gem. A disadvantage a prong setting has is that the girdle areas is not covered, so the prong setting offers less protection.