I'd guess that kind of thinking is reasonably common - anecdotally, my girlfriend and I are both in our early 20s and have been dating long enough that we've started discussing marriage. In one of our earlier discussions about it, I told her she shouldn't expect a mined diamond, because I'm morally opposed to the business and mining practices employed by diamond companies. She added the possibility of getting a recycled gemstone (which I didn't know about before!), agreeing that she wouldn't want a newly-mined stone.
I'm sure there have been attempts, but I've always wanted to create a startup that really directly goes after the "vintage diamond" market.
Diamonds and engagement rings in general have a really low resale value (despite being sold as an investment). This should create a market where you can buy low and then sell at a substantial mark up that is still _less_ than what's charged by the cartel.
That won’t work. The reason they have a low resale value is because the retail markets have a 100% markup. So, immediately after buying the diamond you cut its value in half. So you’re proposing buying diamonds at this price (wholesale price) and then selling them at a big mark up - who are you selling to??? Why would anyone buy a diamond from you instead of Zales? You can say “because mine are cheaper”, but how are you marketing? You may have noticed, those jewelry retailers have quite a marketing budget.
* there is no diamond cartel, this myth needs to die. DeBeers isn’t even the top diamond producer by volume any more
Significantly more than 100% last I checked if you don’t buy wholesale. I went to Bloomingdales 7 years ago and they had “50% off” diamonds and the markup after that discount was still roughly 500% considering the very poor quality of the gemstones. People really get ripped off unless they do proper research. Even Tiffany’s was 2-3x markup, although at least I will say they only had high quality diamonds so that’s a point in their favor.
