I am making my first trip to Namibia and was curious if there is any savings in purchasing diamond jewelry in Namibia? I have done some reading on the subject on the web but wanted to know if any of you have had direct experience with diamond purchases in Namibia. Are there any unobvious pit falls to avoid?

I was hopping to get some thing nice for my wife while we are there and save a little money doing it. .

Thanks
Will

Will:

Lack of knowledge about diamonds while purchasing them anywhere but especially in a foreign locale can be quite expensive and possibly dangerous. Be sure to buy from a reliable store or use a PROVEN reliable source/guide for your purchases. Even if you don't save any real money, it will be a nice "memory" piece for both your wife and you.

There is a related thread here where the topic police moved it.

Diamond pricing based on quality is a hoax to begin with. Since diamond pricing is entirely artificial and based on no market fundamental (artificial demand and eqaually artificial supply) I can guarantee you that you will NEVER recover the money you pay for any diamond. So, IF you can purchase a diamond that your wife (or whomever) wants AND its cost after paying any import duties will be less than you would pay for its (perceived) equivalent, then by all means get it in Namibia and make someone happy.

I've never understood the urge to buy something while traveling as it simply complicates your life, but many people, especially females, seem to be stimulated to spend when sleeping somewhere other than home. If she wants a friggin diamond from Namibia, fine, but remember that any money you spend on any diamond is, in economic terms, simply assets thrown down a rathole. As an economic investment, diamonds purchased anywhere on earth stink, notwithstanding the fact that their purchase may allow the purchaser to reap other, perhaps even more important, non-economic rewards.

If it takes bringing her a diamond back from Africa in order for you to get to go back to Africa, then do it and don't worry about whether you got screwed. If you buy a diamond, whether in Windhoek or the Windy City, you got screwed.

There you go again. You're only mostly wrong, not completely wrong. It is completely possible to buy diamonds and have them appreciate in value, but, as in any investment, one has to buy them right and that certainly is not at a retail jewelry store. I have dozens of diamonds that are worth multiples of what was paid for them. They are a store of value, just like gold, while the dollar is shrinking in "value" everyday. I will agree that I wouldn't recommend diamonds as an investment for most people. OTOH there is almost nothing else which can be carried in a vest pocket and be converted to real cash or gold worth millions when you arrive at your destination.

Please define "artificial demand" while you're at it. Geesh.

You have asked about diamond jewelry, but in Namibia you might do much better and, of course, cheaper with colored, even semi-precious stones, perhaps the lady's birthstone unless you are so unlucky that she is born in July (ruby).

One reliable dealer in Windhoek, although a retail operation, is Adriaan Meyer who is on Independence Ave., opposite the Kalarai Sands but several blocks downtown. Another high end shop is in the Arcade same side of the street as the Kalari sands, but a few blocks down and below, if I recall, the Gourmet Restaurant.

A superb shop for design as well as stone quality is in Swakopmund just next door to the Hansa Hotel. Again it is a retail shop.

Regards

I would agree with the idea of staying with something other than diamonds. My wife bought a beautiful piece of "watermelon tourmaline", I think at the shop kinda below the Kalahari Sands, had it mounted there, found some stones for matching earrings at the shop next to the Hansa Hotel in Swakopmund. No idea if it was a bargain, except I/we never saw that stone elswhere and it is, even to my gun loving eye, beautiful.

quote:

Please define "artificial demand" while you're at it.

Glad to: Artificial demand is demand that is manipulated by the seller and would not exist were it not for the seller's effort to establish the demand. It is a demand that lacks any fundamental.

While small children are naturally attracted to shiney objects, adults must be manipulated in order to be so attracted, and must further be manipulated to be attracted differentially to the same shiney appearance depending on the perceived molecular structure of the shiney object. Other than a very limited set of industrial or laboratory applications (the demand for which is extremely limited), diamond is only useful as a shiney object; and as a shiney object it is no more efficicacious than any number of much less costly shiney objects (starting with glass and extending through cubic zirconia). The only reason your wife will respond more positively to the presentation of a diamond than to the presentation of some other shiney object identical in appearance is due to manipulation by the suppliers of diamonds; you're wife, unless she is a physisist or trained jeweler, can no more tell the difference in a diamond and any number of similar baubles than she can two very similar pieces of stainless steel.

You will certainly argue that any demand is real demand, no matter its origin, and you would be right. I didn't say that the demand for diamonds is not real; what I intend to imply by labeling it "artificial" is that there is no fundamental underlying the demand and thus it is the highest speculation to assume that the demand for diamonds is in any way predictable, or that the owners (potential sellers and buyers) of second-hand diamonds have can have any influence on the market by either witholding or placing their goods with the market.

Another caution against "investing" in diamonds: Unlike guns, which are supplied to the ultimate consumer at something like 200% of the producer cost, diamonds reach the consumer at a huge (and unknowable) multiple of producer cost. A more managable comparison might be the multiple at the distributor/broker level, which is probably something like 500 to 1000 percent for diamonds. It's hard to make money on something that someone else can buy for a fifth of what you can.

Unlike gold and other precious commodities, the market for diamonds is both thin and nebulous. When times get really tough, the very strategy that creates demand for them suddenly evaporates. Carrying around a pocketful of diamonds as a hedge against monetary/economic upheaval is a poor strategy.

Thanks for the inputs so far! Just so you all know I am not so uneducated to believe I am going to make a huge profit on a diamond purchase. It is a gift for my wife. And it will have more monetary value than the thousands of dollars of taxidermy and animals I will have hanging on the walls. Tania will be able to look at a nice piece of jewelry purchased on the trip and have her own set of memories to reflect on about a trip with her husband and children, just like I will have when looking at a Kudu hanging on the wall. And in the end the diamond will most likely be worth more than the Kudu either way.

This has nothing to do with value or investment. It is consideration for my wife. If I can make it an investment or a stable return on my dollar great! If I pay 5000.00 and now it’s worth 3000.00 oh well. How much are all the mounts in our homes worth if we tried to sell them? They are worth the memories attached to them and nothing more to me.

quote:

Originally posted by 458Lottfan:
Thanks for the inputs so far! Just so you all know I am not so uneducated to believe I am going to make a huge profit on a diamond purchase. It is a gift for my wife. And it will have more monetary value than the thousands of dollars of taxidermy and animals I will have hanging on the walls. Tania will be able to look at a nice piece of jewelry purchased on the trip and have her own set of memories to reflect on about a trip with her husband and children, just like I will have when looking at a Kudu hanging on the wall. And in the end the diamond will most likely be worth more than the Kudu either way.

This has nothing to do with value or investment. It is consideration for my wife. If I can make it an investment or a stable return on my dollar great! If I pay 5000.00 and now it’s worth 3000.00 oh well. How much are all the mounts in our homes worth if we tried to sell them? They are worth the memories attached to them and nothing more to me.

Great attitude and very realistic. If you have the time, go to www.bluenile.com or other similar sites and get an idea of the general price range of diamonds in the size(s)/shape you're looking for. The prices there are probably about 1/2 way between true wholesale and retail, depending on the value of the rock.
Again, buy from a reliable source, and enjoy your wife's pleasure and the memories. Makes a helluva lot more sense than dead heads on the wall to me. I'm not knocking trophies, but if Stonecreek thinks diamonds are a bad deal, just try to sell some "used" mounts sometime.

quote:

Originally posted by 458Lottfan:
Thanks for the inputs so far! Just so you all know I am not so uneducated to believe I am going to make a huge profit on a diamond purchase. It is a gift for my wife. And it will have more monetary value than the thousands of dollars of taxidermy and animals I will have hanging on the walls. Tania will be able to look at a nice piece of jewelry purchased on the trip and have her own set of memories to reflect on about a trip with her husband and children, just like I will have when looking at a Kudu hanging on the wall. And in the end the diamond will most likely be worth more than the Kudu either way.

This has nothing to do with value or investment. It is consideration for my wife. If I can make it an investment or a stable return on my dollar great! If I pay 5000.00 and now it’s worth 3000.00 oh well. How much are all the mounts in our homes worth if we tried to sell them? They are worth the memories attached to them and nothing more to me.

I couldn't agree more, with both you and Gato. Last night was mine and my wife's anniversary and we ate at a nice restaurant. She picked the wine and thought she was ordering a bottle for $18. The wine steward misunderstood her to be ordering a wine with a similar name. When the bill came, the bottle of wine was $96. Illogically, she was thrilled to have accidentally had a bottle of $96 wine, much more so than if I had bought her the $1000 HD movie camera I had considered for her anniversary gift. Go figure.

Count the money you spend on diamonds as a non-economic investment that pays great non-economic returns, and if there is any residual monetary value it will be just like finding money laying on the ground.

Now that Gato and I are agreeing, maybe we can also reach a compromise on Leupold scopes.

Stoney:

I thought we had agreed on Leupold scopes, to wit, they're not bad for the money, just not as good as some similarly priced competition, like Conquests.

It doesn't concern me in the slightest if some people's hunting requirements allow them to work with 3rd level glass.

quote:

I thought we had agreed on Leupold scopes, to wit, they're not bad for the money, just not as good as some similarly priced competition, like Conquests.

No, we've only agreed that that is your position.

You have basically agreed that Leupolds are not "throw aways", while I have agreed that Conquests and similar scopes may produce nice images -- if you can put up with their various drawbacks.

But more closely related to the topic at hand, a buyer would be able to recover more of his investment in $10,000 worth of Leupolds purchased at retail than with $10,000 worth of diamonds purchased at retail, wouldn't you agree?

While I don't keep up with the market for Conquests, I suspect the same may be true when comparing Leupolds to Conquests.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

quote:

I thought we had agreed on Leupold scopes, to wit, they're not bad for the money, just not as good as some similarly priced competition, like Conquests.

No, we've only agreed that that is your position.

That's because I like to hold the high ground.

You have basically agreed that Leupolds are not "throw aways", while I have agreed that Conquests and similar scopes may produce nice images -- if you can put up with their various drawbacks.

Your imaginary drawbacks are just that, imaginary. I've measured them side by side, the Conquest is consistently better.

But more closely related to the topic at hand, a buyer would be able to recover more of his investment in $10,000 worth of Leupolds purchased at retail than with $10,000 worth of diamonds purchased at retail, wouldn't you agree?

While I don't keep up with the market for Conquests, I suspect the same may be true when comparing Leupolds to Conquests.

That depends on your time frame. In two years, you'd probably be able to get more for the Leupolds and in 40 years you'd certainly be able to get more for the diamonds. It also depends on how good a "retail" shopper you are AND what size diamonds you're buying. In general, the larger the diamond, the smaller the markup. Buy a super large diamond for a decent price and it is quite possible to sell it for more than you bought it for in a year or two. That is basically impossible for Leupolds, but I admit most people aren't going to be shelling out a million or more on a diamond.

I see used Conquests selling closer to retail than used Leupies myself, but I don't follow it on a day to day basis.