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Articles > A Diamond is Forever |
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Photo By: Mr. Ukit Tangsubkul, Mr. Amnuay Janthatadchothe
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A Diamond is Forever
History
Diamonds were first introduced to the world in India where ownership was restricted to the royal family and almost exclusively to males.
An interesting story starts in 1866 when Mr. Erasmus Stephnus Jacobs discovered ‘Eureka’, a 21.25cts diamond – the first diamond found in South Africa. South Africa then began to boom in what was known as its diamond era. This was a time when a large shift of money and interest transferred from gold to diamond mines. Two important businessmen paved their ways to own the majority of the diamond mines: Mr. Barney Barnato & Mr.Cecil Rhodes. Mr. Barnato owned the ‘boxing theatre’ while Mr. Rhodes was selling ice in that sawanna tropic. With their cooperation, “De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd” was founded, which today is known as the Diamond Trading Company (DTC).
Once there was enough supply, DTC was ready to present to the world this precious and beautiful treasure. Royal families as well as rich and famous movie stars owned at least one of them – a start up of the world’s consumption. “A diamond is forever” & “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” were jingles in everyone’s mind since then.
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Behind the scenes
Diamonds form under the earth in the molten area. It takes more than a billion years before a diamond can travel up to the earth’s surface through volcanic activity and man is able to locate it. There are two types of soil where diamonds are usually found: kimberlite and lamproite. It often takes more than 500 tons of these soils to find 1cts fine quality cut diamond (or around 2cts in rough form). A cut diamond’s weight loss is around 50-70% of its original weight when found in the ground. The major sources for fine quality are in Boswanna, Russia, Namibia, and South Africa. Australia is also a big player in industrial quality diamond. Since it is difficult and expensive to mine diamonds and demand is high, diamond prices usually rise every year. This is a major reason why diamond lovers search so hard and treasure their own collections.
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Physical appearance
Diamonds are made from pure carbon, which forms under a combination of very high pressure and temperature (around 3 million pounds of pressure per square inch and 5000C). Its crystal structure is cubic, where one carbon bonds with another four within the same distance. Its perfect rough form has a square base with bi-pyramid up and down. It is in this form where diamonds are usually cut into a ‘round’ shape. Diamonds have a comparative hardness of 10, which make them the hardest gems on earth. This means that if you are wearing a diamond and accidentally hit it on tabletop glass, you can be certain that your diamond will be safe with no harm since glass, which is silica, has a comparative hardness of 5. Only the same or harder gems could scratch one another.
With its 2.17 reflective index, a diamond will show its best brilliance, fire, and scintillation in a round brilliant cut. With a proportion of 1:2 to 1:3 (compared from table to pavilion’s depth), most light that goes in to the diamond will reflect back to our eyes showing its beauty.
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a perfect form of diamond in square base with bi-pyramid.
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To Trade
Diamonds are sold by weight (carat), color, clarity, and cutting. The higher the quality and bigger the size, the more unique and expensive it is. What is interesting is that almost everything we use as a standard to grade diamonds has its own story. For example, the word “carat” derives from “carob” – a name of a seed that every one uniform ally weighs around 0.18 – 0.2gram. Or the term of “VVS” refers to diamonds’ clarity where it is very very difficult to find inclusions by 10X loupe.
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Rough Diamond from Premier Mine, South Africa
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“Carob” Flower
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