Wholesale Diamond Prices

Mr. Got Rocks goes to China

On this big night out, Gisele Bündchen, darling of the cameras, is decked out in diamond earrings from Van Cleef & Arpels. The cover girl Shalom Harlow wears rocks from Harry Winston. And Madonna, that proto-Gaga, is bejewelled in Cartier.

But none of the gems belongs to them.

At the May gala of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, these A-listers are simply borrowing their baubles from some big names in diamonds, a common PR tactic in the high-glitz business of gems.

Yet jewels from Laurence Graff, perhaps the biggest dealer in seriously big stones, are rare this evening.

“The people who wear Graff jewellery own it,” says Henri Barguirdjian, who heads Graff’s U.S. sales operation. “I think it is a bit of an insult to our clients who actually purchased our jewellery,” he adds, referring to the notion of nonowners wearing Graff jewels.

“If you spend $1 million, that is a lot of money. Do you want a little model wearing it?”

It might seem remarkable that anyone would spurn a little free fashion buzz, particularly in a business like diamonds, and particularly in tough economic times. Lending jewels to boldface names is standard practice.

Standard, perhaps — but not at Graff Diamonds. The retail business, however, is only part of an empire that extends from luxe showrooms in London to gritty diamond mines in southern Africa to cutting rooms in Antwerp, Belgium, and beyond.

It is a world that at times seems impervious to the fortunes of mere mortals, though not, it turns out, to the shifting sands of the global economy.

Beneath the headquarters of Graff on Albemarle Street, in the Mayfair section of London, is a warren of workrooms. There, 170 people produce the jewellery that Graff sells worldwide.

But now Graff is pushing into China, where the number of billionaires is climbing annually — and ranks second only to that of the United States.

Everyone else is piling in, too. The exploding market for diamonds in China, it seems, is yet another sign of its rising economic might, or at least the willingness of its ultrarich to spend — and spend big.

“We make more sales to newer money than to older money,” Graff says in explaining China’s appeal. “Americans are not attracted in the same way in spending money on jewellery as in the Far East.”

Let others fret over a mere carat or two. Graff’s purchases of giant gems awe the diamond world. Over the decades, he has sold many major stones, including the Magnificence, a 244-carat white diamond, and the Maharajah, a 78-carat yellow diamond.

Where to Get Wholesale Diamonds | motherplant.org

Many people believe that buying wholesale diamonds is a way to get a better price for these very expensive stones. However, getting in touch with a whole-seller and convincing him to give you just one, small diamond is almost impossible. These people only sell several diamonds at once or one big and expensive diamond. They don’t deal with that cheap diamond rings stuff at all. Whole-sellers are usually located in small offices and they only have two or three staff members. They never have a showcase and they don’t sell to public, otherwise they would have been retailers. Their main business is to supply jewelry stores and other retailers with several diamonds at once which cost upwards to several thousand dollars per order. So don’t think that if you manage to get a hold of a whole-seller you will be able to buy just one tiny diamond and pay half the price for it.

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