2007

The Wall Street Journal and Rough Diamond Jewelry

September 2007

The Wall Street Journal’s  Weekend Edition, called “Pursuits,” recently noted that jewelry with rough diamonds is becoming very stylish..

An article, “That’s Quite a Rock” notes that  DeBeers three U.S. stores began offering rough diamond jewelry two years ago, and now one out of every five pieces sold there feature rough diamond jewelry two years ago, and now one out of every five pieces sold  there features rough diamonds. In addition, the article notes that a $45,000 rough diamond is now displayed prominently in the window of the company’s Fifth Avenue store in New York . 

The same article features a nine carat rough diamond ring for $20,000, a $34,000 rough diamond necklace, and $45,000 for its Talisman jewelry.  “For jewelers these stones have another appealing quality,” the article said. The wholesale costs of uncut diamonds are far below that of cut and polished gems. Yet some customers are proving willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for them.” The reporter, Ying Wu interviewed us and we told her that the Diamond Registry has sold rough diamonds since 1972, under the trade name of the “Back to Nature” collection. Many of these pieces were featured in the De Beers advertising programs for several years, until in the early 1980’s, a directive came from the Consumer Advertising Division to cease all advertising of rough cut diamond jewelry, probably because they thought it would hurt polished diamond sales. At the same time, they asked their then ad agency, NW Ayer, to cease all advertising of fancy colored diamonds.

The Diamond Registry noted in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal of August 18th, 2007 that we were first to introduce and promote rough diamond jewelry.