Buying Diamonds for Engagement Rings

The ancient Romans called a ring given to promise a future marriage a Truth ring and were the first to choose the third finger on the left hand as the significant location for such a ring. It is thought they got this idea from the Egyptians who believed that this finger was a direct route to the heart. It was also the Romans who initiated the practice of engraving a sentiment onto the ring. The tradition of presenting a ring set with precious stones to one’s betrothed dates back to medieval days. It was in 1477 when Archduke Maximilian of Austria presented a gold ring set with raw, uncut diamonds to his intended bride, Mary of Burgundy. This is possibly one of the first examples of the tradition of diamonds being used for engagement rings. The recent practice of a ring with a single diamond arose as a creation of Tiffany’s in New York City around the turn of the twentieth century. After the recent movie, Blood Diamond (2006) with Leonardo DiCaprio, many people wondered if the diamonds they had purchased and were wearing on their fingers were in any way involved in the kind of bloodshed depicted in the film. In fact, the United Nations first recognized the phenomenon of “conflict diamonds” in 1998 as a means both countries and rebel groups were using to finance war and other atrocities. By the spring of 2000, the diamond industry was already working on the problem. They decided to arrange a series of meetings to plan the protocols necessary to stop the trafficking of blood diamonds.

They developed a system by which all diamonds could be certified assuring buyers that the diamonds that they were choosing for their engagement rings were not connected in any way to the carnage. In July of that year, the World Diamond Congress passed legislation aimed at making it easier to stop the sale of these tainted diamonds. This involved an internationally recognized certification on the import and export of diamonds requiring all countries to allow only sealed packets of diamonds to cross their borders. It also required that anyone caught buying or selling conflict diamonds would be banned from ever trading on the world’s diamond markets as well as being charged with a serious crime. These regulations resulted in the incidence of blood diamonds being reduced to less than 1% of all diamonds sold today so there is almost no chance of one of these diamonds being set into any engagement rings. Each year the occurrence of these ethically “polluted” diamonds gets less and less even though the actual number of diamonds sold to glamorous consumers on rings, earrings and pendants is increasing. Both the international industry affiliates who import and export diamonds and the many reputable jewellers who buy, cut and set the stones into a variety of beautiful pieces of jewellery are committed to eliminating this practice. It will not be too long before the label and connotation are a thing of the past.