A rough diamond looks like a diamond rock which has not been through the cutting process. They come in a variety of natural shapes like octahedrons, cubic and triangular in diffrent colors. The white specimens in our photograph will become fine white polished Round brilliant diamonds. Our yellow piece of rough will be polished into a natural yellow fancy cut stone like a Radiant cut. Most natural rough diamonds are aged from 1 billion to 3 billion years old. Volcanic eruptions forced these rough crystals through pipelines in the earth as they moved closer to the surface. Different types of mines were created by man to bring these rough crystals to market. Companies like Debeer's and Alrosa were created to distribute the rough goods to dealers throughout the world.New companies have also come about once the Debeer's monopoly was broken up. These are in the Northern territories of Canada such as Canadamark diamonds,Dominion diamonds, and Lucara diamond.Today you have many independant diamantaires such as Graff Diamonds buying the trophy rough and cutting it themselves for their own clientele. Diamonds are becoming more rare as new mines are tremendous capital expenditures and it takes years to get a return on capital. These big giant mining companies are also digging for rare earth minerals and metals and they get a greater return on their investment. Less mines mean less quality natural diamonds and this in turn has helped spark the synthetic diamond market.
That we will talk about in our next blog.