Diamond Buying Guide

Diamond engagement rings and fine jewelry, loose diamonds, engagement rings, proposal, wedding rings.

Diamond Buying Guide
Before you start diamond shopping, you want to have an understanding of what you're buying. This guide simplifies the four Cs of diamonds - cut, color, clarity, and carat weight, so you can select your diamond based on the same criteria jewelers use to grade them.

Cut
The cut of a diamond has the most effect on its sparkle, or brilliance. Even if the diamond has perfect color and clarity, a poor cut can make a diamond look dull. Blue Nile carries only the highest grades of diamond cut, for the most sparkle. Learn how to choose the right diamond cut with the most brilliance for your budget.

Color
Diamonds with very little color are the most highly valued and are priced accordingly. A little color can diminish a diamond's brilliance. To help you choose the most brilliant diamond, Blue Nile offers diamonds with the highest grades of color. Learn how to choose a diamond with no color noticeable to the unaided eye.

Carat Weight
The weight of a diamond is measured in carats. Since larger diamonds are more rare than smaller diamonds, diamond value tends to rise exponentially with carat weight. Read more about carat weight and learn how to balance diamond quality with the size of your diamond.

Certification
The most important step in choosing a diamond is reviewing the diamond certificate, referred to by diamond grading labs as a grading report. A grading report documents the characteristics of a diamond, like the four Cs. Before purchasing a diamond, review a copy of its grading report, as this is proof that it has undergone an unbiased, professional examination. Learn more about the diamond grading report

De Beers | diamond

Cecil Rhodes, the founder of De Beers. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea. De Beers and the various companies within the De Beers Family of Companies are in the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. It is by far the largest company in all these categories.

Cecil Rhodes, the founder of De Beers, got his start by renting water pumps to miners during the diamond rush that started in 1871, when an 83.5 carat diamond was found on Colesburg Kopje (present day Kimberley), South Africa. He invested the profits of this operation into buying up claims of small mining operators, with his operations soon expanding into a separate mining company.
He soon secured funding from the Rothschild family, who would finance his business expansion. De Beers Consolidated Mines was formed in 1888 by the merger of the companies of Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes, by which time the company was the sole owner of all diamond mining operations in the country. In 1889, Rhodes negotiated a strategic agreement with the London-based Diamond Syndicate, which agreed to purchase a fixed quantity of diamonds at an agreed price, thereby regulating output and maintaining prices. The agreement soon proved to be very successful - for example during the trade slump of 1891-1892, supply was simply curtailed to maintain the price.

De Beers is well known for its monopolistic practices throughout the 20th century, whereby it used its dominant position to manipulate the international diamond market.
The company used several methods to exercise this control over the market: Firstly, it convinced independent producers to join its single channel monopoly, it flooded the market with diamonds similar to those of producers who refused to join the cartel, and lastly, it purchased and stockpiled diamonds produced by other manufacturers in order to control prices through supply.
However, the transformation of the company, from the late nineties to present, to a more responsible one is starting to become more widely known. A range of factors contributed to the need for change in the De Beers model in 2000.
In the 1990s, it became increasingly evident that De Beers’ industry custodianship and supply-controlled model was no longer viable. De Beers was also unable to conduct business in several jurisdictions where it had interests or a corporate presence due to their dominance in the diamond industry. In addition, more producers from varied locations such as Russia, Canada and Australia chose to start distributing diamonds outside of the De Beers channel, thus effectively ending the monopoly.

Also, diamond jewellery markets had fallen in comparison to other luxury goods. The behaviour of consumers had changed and the diamond industry had been slow to respond to market dynamics.[citation needed] To address this, on behalf of its own interests and that of the industry as a whole, De Beers conducted a strategic review with Bain & Company, consequently changing its business model from a supply-controlled industry to one driven by demand. De Beers also implemented their Supplier of Choice sales strategy.

The diamond industry of today is markedly different to that of a decade ago, and is a complex and constantly evolving geo-political phenomenon. Current major players in the diamond industry are the African producer countries (i.e. the Government of the Republic of Botswana and the Government of the Republic of Namibia), De Beers, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Lev Leviev, Harry Winston, and Alrosa.

Blue Nile

Blue Nile: As the largest online retailer of certified diamonds, engagement rings and fine jewelry, Blue Nile offers outstanding quality, selection, and value.

Blue Nile Inc is an online retailer of jewelry, including diamonds. Blue Nile was founded in 1999 and today is the largest online retailer of certified diamonds. Internet Retailer magazine listed Blue Nile as the web leader in the Jewelry category for 2007, and Forbes magazine has listed Blue Nile as its favorite online jeweler 2000-2006.

Blue Nile is based in Seattle, Washington. Blue Nile competes with traditional jewelry stores such as Tiffany & Co., and Cartier and also online retailer stores such as Abazias.com, WorldJewels.com, AnzorJewelryCorp.com, Ice.com and TowerOfJewels.com.

The key feature of being able to search through thousands of diamonds by carat weight, cut, clarity, color and other characteristics, is what attracts many customers to the website. Unique until relatively recent time, the search function has since been replicated at other websites, such as OvernightDiamonds.com.

Blue Nile
Type Public (NASDAQ)
Industry Retail
Founded 1999
Headquarters United States Seattle, Washington, USA
Key people CEO: Diane Irvine
Products Diamonds & Jewelry
Revenue $319 million USD (Dec 2007)
Website www.bluenile.com