Why is it that you consider diamonds to be so valuable. There could be three possible reasons, i) they are the hardest substance known to man (only partially true) ii) they are visually brilliant and iii) they are very 'rare' (that's where De Beers got us all).The supposed rarity of this mineral is the leg on which the diamond industry stands upon. For much of the human history, diamonds remained extremely precious because they could only be mined in a few select locations on earth with excruciatingly laborious extraction process. In the late 19th century, vast reserves of diamonds were discovered mainly in the African continent. Initially, the decentralized diamond industry accelerated mining activities and the rarity of diamonds were set to become a thing of the past, along with its insanely high price tag. Facing with permanent devaluation of diamond prices, the owner of diamond mines decided to merge together to form a multinational cartel and an evil one at that. Today we know them as 'De Beers'. Together they kept the mining rate in check and the diamond prices rose through the roof, which earns them billions every year. This coupled with advertising campaigns that ran for decades, they successfully engineered the perception that diamonds are a rare commodity, and that you need to burn through several thousand dollar before you can even think of a proposal.

In the 1930s, De Beers took to hollywood to change the image of diamonds in America. They placed diamond rings on the fingers of actresses to make the association of diamonds with romance in the public's mind.