Pasadena Magazine is the bi-monthly magazine of Pasadena and its surrounding areas – the diverse, historically rich and culturally vibrant region that includes Glendale, the Eastside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley all the way to Claremont.
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diamond production became centered in Paris and Antwerp where it remains today, with 80 percent of the world's diamond's being cut in that Belgian city. The desire of Europe's aristocracy for ostentatious displays of wealth seemed insatiable and diamonds soon became the preferred method of flaunting one's status. So much so in fact that by the beginning of the modern age, as Pliny foretold, diamonds had become the most sought after good on earth. Such rapacious demand led to significant destruction in the name of diamond extraction, but also with the English colonization of India, resulted in the wholesale looting of Indian temples and the Royal Dynasty of vast of amounts of diamonds that were then sold throughout Europe. To some degree, ethical dilemmas regarding sourcing dogs the diamond trade to this day. By the 1700s India's diamond supply was essentially exhausted. Serendipitously, in the 1720s, diamonds were discovered in a Brazilian river bed. The new supply proved abundant and Brazil went on to dominate the diamond trade for the next 150 years until the Brazilian supply, like India's before, began to decline precipitously. Once again a new even richer supply was discovered seemingly just at the right time, in Kimberly South Africa. Also at the same time, following the French Revolution, the rise of a prosperous middle class in Western Europe and America gave rise to a new broader demand. Thus did the birth of the modern diamond trade begin. The first South African discovery had been an alluvial (river) deposit, as in India. However soon enough the first "kimberlite pipe" was discovered, a geologic formation created by the force of volcanic activity, where diamonds are brought up from the depths where they are formed. This discovery was soon followed by more discoveries across Africa in Congo, Namibia, Tanzania, Angola, and Ghana. Then in the '30s yet more deposits were found in Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. By the middle of the 20 th century, 99 percent of all diamonds came from Africa. One of the original South African discoveries took place on a farm owned by the DeBeers brothers. While the brothers themselves soon abandoned the area their name lives on as the dominant force in diamonds today. As the South African diamond rush began, a local politician name Rhodes began renting pumps, vital to mining operations, to the influx of minors coming to the area. He shrewdly plowed his profits back into the purchase of new mining claims, consolidating his claims under the moniker De Beers Consolidated Mining. By the 1890s, Rhodes and DeBeers had monopolized the diamond trade, and were able to maximize profits with rigid supply and price controls. When Cecil Rhodes died in 1902, DeBeers controlled 90 percent of the world diamond trade. By 1927, a man named Ernest Openheimer was chairman of the DeBeers board, and DeBeers control of the trade had became nearly absolute. Then the 1930s and the Great Depression ushered in a worldwide decline in the demand for and thus the price of diamonds, prompting DeBeers to aggressively move to open the huge potential represented by the United States market. Ultimately this move took the form of one of the most well known, enduring, and successful advertising campaigns of all time. A diamond, as we all now know, "is forever." But it wasn't always so. Until DeBeers and the N.W. Ayer agency launched the campaign, there was no universal, default understanding that a diamond was the de rigueur engagement stone. With relentless advertising equating a diamond with true love DeBeers sought to convince men that a diamond, and the bigger the better, was the best way to express and symbolize the depth of their affections. By giving diamonds to movie stars and prominent celebrities, DeBeers solidified the idea of diamonds as the preeminent gem, and a symbol of indestructible love, in the minds of the public. In 1947, the tag line "A Diamond is Forever" was born, and became the company's official motto. Today, DeBeer's grip has been loosened with the discovery of additional world wide deposits in Russia and elsewhere, though the company still enjoys a 30-40 percent market share. It's push into the American market was a huge success, with the US now purchasing 35 percent of the world's diamonds, making it the world's largest consumer. While uniquely hard and lustrous, dia- monds are no longer particularly rare in com- parison to some other precious gemstones. Yet they retain their special place at the top of the gem hierarchy. Over a thousand years, the perceived value of a diamond has shifted from its status as a natural object of mystical power, to a beautiful, unalterable symbol of enduring love. Over all time however, for whatever reasons, this fascinating stone has continued to shine, perhaps more brightly than all others, in the imagination of people everywhere. FEBRUARY 2016 59 feature1_Feb16.indd 59 1/20/16 6:46 PM