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Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? And Other Investigations of the Diamond Trade by [Edward Jay Epstein]

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Edward Jay Epstein

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? And Other Investigations of the Diamond Trade Kindle Edition

by Edward Jay Epstein (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Edward Jay Epstein investigates the most brilliant illusion in modern history: the illusion that diamonds are so rare that they will maintain their value forever. He explains how the the De Beers cartel, backed by a syndicate of Jewish diamond dealers in London, created an artificial scarcity by controlling the worldwide supply and used modern advertising to establish it in the mind of the public. In this book, comprised of six essays, we also learn about the secret workings of the cartel over the past century, including:

+ Why you cannot always sell diamonds for the price you paid?

+ Why Russia is now taking over the cartel operation?

+ How De Beers now uses the concept of blood diamonds to control prices?

+ Why Nicky Oppenheimer exited De Beers in 2011?

Praise for Edward Jay Epstein:

"Brilliant Expose of the International diamond monopoly"
--Telegraph (London)

"Full of readable if somewhat garish descriptions of diamond mines, diamond traders, and the activities of governments. If Ian Fleming were alive, he would have found much rewarding material here."
-Woodrow Wyatt, Sunday Times

Length: 92 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Language: English

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Product description

About the Author

Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fifteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN : B0050CM1K0
Publisher : EJE Publications Ltd,Inc.; 2 edition (3 December 2013)
Language: : English
File size : 1677 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 92 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 1494372215

Best Sellers Rank: 864,949 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 4,084 in 20th Century U.S. History
- 66,133 in Business & Economics
- 453,577 in Textbooks & Study Guides

Customer Reviews:
16 ratings

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4 star		15%
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Varanasi Hadjmali

The editing is not so good but the articles are very interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 July 2016

Verified Purchase

The editing is not so good but the articles are very interesting. However, they can all be found online for free.

BRUNO S.

Diamante ilusório

Reviewed in Brazil on 30 September 2015

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Gostei do livro. Explica como funciona mercado de diamantes e como ele deve ser considerado uma semi-jóia. A tática de marketing do cartel é impressionante e funciona até hoje. Que mulher não gostaria de um diamante? Diamantes são eternos, compre e nunca venda. O valor de recompra de diamantes me impressionou. Realmente um péssimo investimento.

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Kindle Customer

Out of date, badly edited, very interesting information.

Reviewed in the United States on 26 January 2014

Verified Purchase

It's... odd to see a takedown of the diamond industry, dating back to the early '80s. A lot of the information in it is still applicable today, especially the part about trying to resell diamonds - you'll NEVER get back what you paid for it, much less make money on it.

As another reviewer pointed out, it's badly edited, with sections duplicated, sentences breaking off and resuming a couple of paragraphs later and the like.

Still - it's an interesting look at an interesting subject, and a cautionary tale - don't invest in diamonds. Buy them if you want because they're sparkly and pretty and your significant other will love you for it, but the idea you'll make a killing on them as an investment is a fool's hope.

5 people found this helpful

Seth Roberts

Why We Believe What We Believe

Reviewed in the United States on 24 February 2012

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By sheer force of advertising, De Beers managed to convince roughly everyone that a diamond is the best token of affection and that diamonds are a good investment. You might think that what constitutes the best token of affection is something that was determined long ago but, to Epstein's (and my) surprise, this is a relatively new idea, so recent that it was possible for Epstein to find out how it was done. The notion that big companies are able to control something as intimate as what a man gives a woman to show his love might be straight out of Orwell except that the story told here is considerably more detailed than anything Orwell imagined -- and is true.

To me it is a story about how we can be made to believe something not because the belief has a basis in fact but because the belief would benefit someone (in this case, the De Beers company). Now the belief in diamonds as a great investment seems to be coming to an end, as the last chapter in the book describes. I can't think of another book that so clearly shows how and how much our beliefs can be controlled.

9 people found this helpful

HeavyG

An engrossing read with some serious errors

Reviewed in the United States on 19 February 2014

Verified Purchase

I purchased the book based on Epstein's reputation and previous works. The book is a very engrossing read about how the diamond was formed and how they manipulate and control the supply and cost of diamonds. Having said that, this particular Kindle edition appears to have some serious editoral flaws such as paragraphs out of order or being repeated. If you can get past these flaws, Epstein has written a book that will make you think before you buy that next piece of diamonf jewelery,

2 people found this helpful

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Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? And Other Investigations of the Diamond Trade Kindle Edition

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