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kleinbl00  ·  2430 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Millennials are buying diamonds, as it turns out.

Yeah, de Beers pretty much makes Monsanto look like Oxfam. Back when I took gemology (back before the Internet) the instructor took 45 minutes to explain the diamond buying process and touched on some of the wars and slavery de Beers propagated in pursuit of exclusivity and profit. And then fifteen years later, Blood Diamond came out.

I didn't wanna give the fuckers any money, so my wife's wedding ring has a high-grade Alexandrite instead. Carat-for-carat it was maybe double what diamond would have been, but it didn't go to de Beers. Of course, the jeweler said "if you want to do Alexandrite I'm going to have to go get a few stones to choose from from the Russian mafia so come back next week" so there's that.