Precious Jewels

This is the seventeenth post in a series entitled Currency, Money and the Economy.

Who says that precious metals are the only thing of value? How about precious jewels, such as diamonds and emeralds? Similar to platinum and palladium, the supply of precious jewels is erratic and not dependable. For example, unless you are a professional dealer, you cannot simply trade diamonds and rubies like stocks. South Africa controls the supply of diamonds to the rest of the world and thus can dictate the price. It is rumored that if DeBeers released all the diamonds stored in their vaults, they price of diamonds would fall by over 50%.

The quality of precious jewels is also erratic. As many know when shopping for a diamond ring, the price depends on clarity and color of the stone, not just weight. Gold and silver, on the other hand, can always be readily obtained in their purest form (although there are lesser qualities out there in jewelry form).

In addition, technology has begun to create synthetic jewels. These are not fakes, but real diamonds and other jewels created through artificial processes of heat and pressure. If man can create something on a replica scale, it limits the value the object has. Gold and silver cannot be recreated, although the legends and myths of alchemy continue to persist.