Diamonds are the greatest possession any woman could always dream of.It is not an exaggeration to say that there will be no woman/girl in the world that doesn’t like diamonds and diamond jewelry.As the song by Nicole Kidmann goes “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.Not only the females but diamonds do attract even the male sect.You could see many men sporting their diamond wear in the form of rings,watches, pens etc.So, the song can itself be rephrased as “Diamonds are a human’s best friend’.So what exactly is a diamond?

To say in a blunt way a diamond is just pure carbon—the most  most common element on the Earth.It is the same material as what fireplace soot or the graphite in a  lead pencil are made up of.The only difference is that it is formed into crystal patterns.It is formed by coal which was intensively pressurized for millions of years in the internal layers of Earth.One day, they come out of the internal layers by some incidents like volcanic erruption , earth quake etc and thus make us blessed with the diamonds.

Of all those mined crystals only one-fifth of them are considered to be of gem quality.To recover one rough diamond from the diamond mines, it takes anywhere from 40 to 250 tons of gravel and sand to be processed.There are estimations that all known supplies of diamonds will be depleted within the coming 30 to 40 years.This scarcity is the main reasons why diamonds are of such a high prices.

The first practical use of diamonds was as early as in the days of early man.He used to  shape his tools and weapons with the diamonds.Because of their scarcity and unique qualities, man started to think that diamonds possessed some supernatural powers. So he used them in amulets to shoo off evil spirits. Historians say that it got the name diamond because of this specific reason.The word is derived from the ancient Greek word “adarnas” which means invincible or unconquerable.

When the  nomadic tribes in Africa and the Middle East expanded their trade with one another, these stones being very rare turned out as a medium of exchange.In that way, diamonds are  the world’s first hard currency.

History is filled with lots of stories of emperors who amassed treasures of diamonds, whose lust for these precious gems made  them to take to vioent activities like murder and mayhem.It is also filled with the stories of young lovers who kissed the preci ous stones and shared their beauty  which symbolized their  undying affection and great happiness.

Coming to back to the current day, man still craves for  these brilliant,precious and attractive gems. Though the meaning of their value and their use has changed little they are still used in critical applications, helping us to shape the newtechnology tools. As always, they are still used as symbols of beauty, tokens of love, and investment opportunities.It has even become of part of tradition with the arrival of engagement rings.

Diamonds are available in Blue, pink, white, yellow and many more colors. The diamond  industry rates the brown diamond to be a very high priced one.This comes in three varieties called  as Champagne, Cognac and Coffee.

Most people think that diamonds are used mainly for jewellery.In contrast to this myth,most diamonds(around 75-80% of all the mined ones) are used for  industrial applications like drilling, grinding, or sawing.Only the remaining of it is used as for jewellery or investment. Only 2% are of very high quality and can be considered to be of investment quality.