Are diamonds forever?

Following the recent sale of a $US9.5m diamond, Matthew Wu ponders the ridiculous price people are willing to pay for carbon.

By Intelligent Investor · 6 May 2013

By Intelligent Investor ·
6 May 2013

Diamonds are forever. So says the iconic DeBeers quote, but it is missing one word: diamonds are not forever (as this YouTube video shows), just forever expensive.

Recently Bonhams sold a 5.3 carat fancy blue diamond for $US9.5m, or $US1.8m per carat – breaking the previous record of $US1.68m per carat.

Source: Bonhams

This ridiculous price is because blue diamonds – especially those above 5 carats – are extremely rare.

One carat is equal to 200mg, so the price works out at about $9m per gram of carbon. With that much money I could buy 175kg of gold, sponsor 12,000 African children for a year or buy 2.58m shares in Sydney Airport – the annual distributions from which, at a cool $542,000, would be enough to buy you around 50 decent quality 1 carat diamonds each year.

Though, if I was a diamond I would definitely want to be blue and over 5 carats.

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Are diamonds forever?

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