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The idea that diamonds are worthless, or should be much cheaper than they are, is incredibly misinformed. People talk about them being “common.” As in, there’s a lot of them mined out of the ground. That is true in a technical sense, but reflects a lack of understanding. 90% of diamonds that are mined are industrial grade and not suitable for jewelry. Of the remaining 10%, about 2/3 to 3/4 are of such low quality that you won’t ever see them being sold (color grade below K-M, clarity below I1). For people who don’t know what those grades mean, color has to do with the presence of nitrogen in the carbon chains that makes it look yellow and clarity is about imperfections in the crystal formation. The price of poor color and clarity jewelry quality stones will be accounted for later in this comment. Of the remainder, they get much rarer as they approach being “perfect” (D colorless, FL flawless color/clarity respectively). Size itself plays a huge factor, because while it’s true that numerically a lot of diamonds are mined, only about 1% are a carat or above in weight. I did the math on this once, and a flawless, colorless, 1 carat Diamond is a 1 in 10 billion stone. Really changes the understanding of what makes a diamond “rare.” Most diamonds also have some degree of fluorescence, which is as undesirable trait, so add in no fluorescence and it gets closer to 1 in a trillion.
However, all that aside, there’s elements of pricing strictly related to diamonds as a commodity. The cut quality of a diamond is absolutely crucial to how it looks and how it sparkles (no one wants a dull diamond). Cut quality is graded to microscopic specificity when it comes to angles and proportions (literally hundredths of a millimeter can effect the symmetry grading). As you probably already know if you read this far, diamonds are also the hardest substance on earth. Long story short, it takes an extremely skilled individual with extremely specific and expensive equipment to cut and polish a diamond and there are not that many of these people left, either. As you can imagine, they are paid very well, and that cost is incorporated into the stones.
