1 ct diamond ring

1 ct diamond ring

As a teenager, I loved  photography and over time I acquired some really decent photographic equipment. As you all know, other than natural earth mined diamonds, nothing last forever, so when digital photography with its fancy TFT screens, CCD chips, CF and CD cards hit the markets, the analogue photographic equipment just had to go.  I then started the incline toward digital. So in a nutshell, I had a good understanding of depth of field, aperture correction, shutter compensation and lenses etc, basically photography in general. Meanwhile, I've been a photo journalist for some time, but that was a really long time ago. 

My wife is a professional wedding photographer who has been plying her trade for more than 35  years.  As an electronics engineer, I really don't consider myself as a photographer, since I don't earn a living from photography like my wife does. I refer to myself as a "happy snapper" and most weekends I assist my wife as a backup wedding photographer, shooting cutaways.  So, what does photography got to do with diamonds you may ask. When Photographing Weddings you do get to see a whole lot of diamonds.

After having said all that, I must admit that between my wife and I, we've never ever seen 1kg of diamonds in toto.  We've done more than 1000 weddings and if we could hypothetically, collect all the natural earth mined diamonds perching on the rings of the brides and the occasional natural diamond embedded in the  rings of the grooms we've ever photographed, it would certainly weight less than a a litre of water, neither would all those little stones fill a litre bottle. 

I have yet to attend or photograph a wedding with a natural earth mined solitaire diamond bigger than 2.1ct because we've done one with a 2ct princess cut diamond ring. We've even done a wedding with a 5 ct ring but it wasn't a solitaire but rather a quad princess-cut diamond double frame bridal set. like the one below. Now that's a sparkly worth taking a photo of. Anyway weddings with diamond rings above 5 ct are rear but they do occur.

5ct quad princess-cut diamond double frame bridal set

Natural earth mined diamonds larger than 1 ct have a much higher value than smaller stones because they are found less frequently in nature. Meaning that the average wedding ring / engagement of the average couple, sports a single diamond of under half a carat which is physically about 4mm in diameter. In fact, most solitaire natural earth mined diamonds on most wedding / engagement rings range between .2ct and .5ct and are typically, 2mm to 4mm in diameter. (Diamond mm to ct Conversion Table) It takes 5 x 1ct natural earth mined diamonds to weigh 1 gram, so we are really talking negligible weight. There is a tendency in the jewelry market to make rings appear larger by clustering 7 x .20ct stones to form a halo ring. Or to use several smaller chips peppered on a 6mm setting and pass it off as a 1 ct ring. Tough the total diamond weight would equate to 1ct, its value is a far cry from a 1ct solitaire natural earth mined diamond. 

1 gr = 5.00ct
2 gr = 10.00ct
3 gr = 20.00ct
4 gm = 25.00ct
5 gm = 30.00ct

Anyway, can you just image the value? Pessimistically speaking, if we had to value said diamonds at $200 per carat (.2 g) then 5000 carats which would equate to 1 kilo which would be worth a $1,000,000. But, like I said pessimistically, because the grades of some diamonds are far greater than others. To mention an incident, a few years back, I'd  been to a jewelry auction where a single stone, 10ct diamond was sold off for as much as $125 0000; and according to some pundits, this was a real bargain.  Comparatively speaking, what this means is that the contents of the "1 liter bottle", with its tiny pebbles are almost worthless, because it represents the "chaff of the wheat" after the diamond sifting and sorting processes.

Chips, Mackle & Melee Diamonds - "offal" the entrails of the diamond trade

So if you were to buy a natural earth mined diamond, settle on a 1 carat for anything less is considered,  chips, mackle, melee diamonds, which are the names given to diamonds between .001 carats to 0.18 carats in weight. In one word, its  "offal", the entrails of the diamond trade that nobody really wants.

Natural earth mined diamond are real diamonds as opposed to the synthetic stuff they're selling at all jewelry stores and online. Stay away from lab diamonds, made made diamonds and cubic zirconia because  they have even less value than "offal."

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5 movies about diamonds

5 Movies about Diamonds

Throughout the entire world, Diamonds are sought after for their allure, their brilliance, their value, their fascination and the temptation they present. The temptation I refer to, is to steal them, purely because they cost way too much to buy and a handful of diamonds can equate to hundreds of millions of dollars.  As such several movies have been produced highlighting how people are tempted by the value of Diamonds. The following movies are not necessarily in any particular order but depicts the extremes some people would resort to, to get their hands on those valuable and sparkly gems. 

Admittedly most of these films are fictional  but there is a few of them based on true events, for example the  'Antwerp Diamond Center heist'. The snatch-and-grab at the jewelry shop in the 'Carlton Hotel, Cannes, France' and the diamond heists at the 'Millennium Dome, London, England' worth $700 million and the 'Diamond exhibit Heists at the Museon', a science museum in The Hague, Netherlands are all actual events upon which Holywood movies are based.

1) 'Flawless' is a unique property of the most expensive diamonds and is also the name of a movie. This British fictional crime movie by the name 'Flawless' is about, a soon to be retired janitor (Michael Caine) who convinces a frustrated diamantaire (Demi Moore) to help him steal a batch of diamonds from their employer, the London Diamond Corp. 'Flawless' has a timid plot but over all its a a rare gem.

2) 'Blood diamond' is a movie set during the civil war in Sierra Leone in 1990s. It depicts a story of human suffering and violence and how the guerrilla insurgency rape women, exploit  and enslave children to pan for diamonds. The main plot revolves around a pink diamond the size of a bird's egg, that draws the attention of a South African mercenary played by Leonardo DiCaprio who has been smuggling diamonds across the borders embeded in the flesh of live sheep. While the sub plot is about a journalist intent on fingering the white-collar criminals in the diamond trade.

3) The 'Pink Panther' is a movie about a fictional pink diamond with an internal flaw shaped like a leaping panther. The movie stars police inspector Peter Sellers and David Niven and his nephew Robert Wagner as  thieves. Both thieves  intending to steal the diamond, the nephew attempting to setup his uncle for the theft. However there is a real pink panther diamond better known as the 59.60 carats oval pink star that sold on auction in Geneva for a whopping $83 million.

4) 'Diamonds are Forever' stars Sean Connery as investigator extraordinaire MI6 agent tracking the mysterious activities in the world diamond market by impersonating a diamond smuggler. The movie was first flighted in 1971. In the movie, it turns out Charles Gray is stockpiling South African diamonds  in order to depress prices by dumping the gems in his space-based laser satellite weapon, intent on auctioning off nuclear supremacy to the highest bidder. Several smugglers who pass on the diamonds from one to the other are killed in the process but professional smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) Tiffany.



5) 'Diamond Cartel' is the newest upcoming action movie about diamonds, directed by Salamat Mukhammed-Ali and written by Magamet Bachaev. However this movie was made in 2011-2013 but recut and redubbed by US based Cleopatra Entertainment, for the english market in 2017,  Movie stars Armand Assante, Peter O'Toole, Bolo Yeung and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, etc. Assante makes a deal with Hong Kong triad crime boss to purchase the "Star of East Diamond". but before the deal is made, his former lover and her new man robs him. They are hunted down my  Assante 's henchmen  and the couple have to fight for their lives.