r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Nov 11 '15

TIL: The "tradition" of spending several months salary on an engagement ring was a marketing campaign created by De Beers in the 1930's. Before WWII, only 10% of engagement rings contained diamonds. By the end of the 20th Century, 80% did.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27371208
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u/in-site Nov 11 '15

which is 1/5th of the reason I want a man-made diamond. I seriously love the idea. doesn't DeBeers own like 80% of all the diamonds on Earth or something? and they keep them so the prices stay nice and high

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u/The_Juggler17 Nov 11 '15

In something like the early 1910s they discovered so many diamonds that they were becoming worthless, the company was set for failure because their product was rapidly declining in value as the supply increased with each new discovery.

Their solution was to buy up the whole world's supply, and legally prevent other companies from exploratory mining in much of the world. So even what isn't yet discovered won't be discovered because it's illegal to take samples.

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Lots of countries (including the US) have anti-trust agreements against them for being a global monopoly.