In 1890 (just two years after the founding of De Beers) in England, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "Girdlestone Trading House" was published. One of the plotlines of this book is directly related to the diamond market, and here the creator of Sherlock Holmes made two amazing prophecies: in fact he predicted the possibility of discovering colossal diamond deposits in Russia and formulated the hypothesis that the diamond market is in reality not a commodity market but a market Information. The main character, a large speculator from the City, is going to arrange a corner on diamonds. "Corner" in this case - the term of stock slang, meaning the situation in the market, when control over certain assets completely passes to one player, thus receiving the opportunity to arbitrarily manage the price, While the rest of the market participants are forced to play on its terms, being as if driven into a corner, hence the corner (in English "corner"). To the question of the amazed companion "How can you control the prices of diamonds, this requires at least the capital of Rothschild?" The hero responds with an elegant combination - in Russia the expedition that he organized "opens" a huge (alas, virtual) diamond deposit, and the second expedition intensively purchases real diamonds from the prospectors of the Cape Colony in South Africa, panicking at the news that the market is about to be flooded with Russian products , And therefore ready to part with the crystals at bargain prices. After the news from Russia turns out to be a bluff, prices will return to the previous level and the required profit will be provided.

Of course, any commodity market is sensitive to information about the discovery of new deposits, the political situation in the extracting countries, the improvement of technologies for processing this raw material, the creation of new industries where it can be claimed, etc. But any raw material eventually turns into a product with a use value. And if the use value of a gallon of gasoline or a bushel of rice is quite obvious to the final buyer and certainly correlates with the price, then it can not be said with respect to the diamond. It would be incorrect to say that diamonds do not have any use value at all - they, of course, satisfy the social and aesthetic needs of their customers and owners. But, filling in the tank of his car with gasoline, the consumer, as a rule, is able to realize themselves, Why forty liters cost twice as much as twenty, and why the types of fuel with different octane numbers differ in price. At the same time, any gemologist will confirm the possibility of a situation where two diamonds of almost equal diamonds with the same type of cut have differences in color, purity and cut quality that are not discernible to the naked eye, but account for a significant difference in price, up to several tens of percent. This circumstance fundamentally distinguishes the diamond market from any commodity market. The ultimate buyer of diamonds may be concerned about the need to demonstrate their status, romantic feelings or the need to experience aesthetic pleasure from playing the stone. But in any case, the realization of these needs does not involve a situation where gorgeous diamonds in rings, earrings or necklaces, Consecrated by famous jewelry brands, will be exposed at the reception by the owner's choking girlfriends with research using a binocular microscope while simultaneously consulting a pair of gemological laboratory experts. Thus, in the diamond market, a situation is possible when two pieces of goods, equivalent in use value, have a different price. And the difference is determined by the expert, i.e. To a certain extent subjective, information about subthreshold conditions for ordinary vision, in which the diamond is "operated", color boundaries, microinclusions and defects, angles of inclination and corrugation of faces, etc. It's about the same as if the car salesman told the buyer: "Here are two serial cars of the model you have chosen: they are exactly the same in everything - the body type, color, Engine, salon ... But by methods of non-destructive testing we found that here this car hub metal left front wheel contains carbon at 0.00003% more. This does not affect either safety, or power, or speed, in fact this does not affect any consumer property. But since there is more carbon, we ask for this sample at $ 1,760 more! "At best, a car dealer will find that the seller spent a stormy night in the nearest pub.

However, the reasoning about the two diamonds, the difference in the price of which is conditioned by the parameters that do not affect their "exploitation" properties - is a very soft example in our time, when the concepts of traditional values tend to their negation. Absolute proof of the lack of a connection between use value, gemological characteristics and price is the commercial success of the so-called "black diamonds", which can be observed over the past ten years. A piece of crystalline carbon, saturated with graphite inclusions until it is completely opaque, gets a diamond cut and becomes a market hit, whereas just a decade ago this gemologist's nightmare could only claim the category "board" and was traded as a technical raw material with a red price of $ 1 per carat.

But what about the case when the end user of a diamond considers his acquisition as an object of investment? Maybe then the certification characteristics come in accordance with the use value? Alas, if you do not take into account the innumerable texts of glamorous publications inspired by the famous formula "A diamond is forever!", And confine yourself to professional research of the investment potential of diamonds, then it's easy to come to a disappointing conclusion: a profitable investment in diamonds is a myth. Of course, diamonds belong to irreplaceable natural resources, and, indeed, the price moves upward on long timeframes and on certain categories of diamonds and diamonds at a rate faster than inflation. But this is not enough - to make the asset attractive to investment, a mechanism is needed, Guaranteed to ensure its instant liquidity. Purchase and sale of the "blue chip" is carried out in a fraction of a second anywhere in the world from any computer connected to the exchange system. And how long will it take and what will be the procedure for selling an investment diamond in the event that its owner finds that the price has reasonably grown over a certain period of storage? It's not that time will be required more than the stock market, the fact is that this time is not defined at all. As the mechanism of sale is not defined, so-called "diamond exchanges" have nothing in common with modern exchange trade and in essence are medieval urban markets. The truth is that sellers, who provide the end user with diamonds, In general, do not act as dealing structures in the secondary market, and simply speaking, there is simply no structured market for investment diamonds. The only exception is historical stones - this is really an investment product, but its liquidity is provided by the mechanisms of a completely different market - the antiques market.

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