Vendors: Does supply of colors and clarities match demand?

[kenny]

We all know D IFs are rare.
But so are people who want to pay for them.

Most people don't actually prefer low color and clarity but the price is lower so people get them to afford larger stones.

Are there combinations of color and clarity that you vendors just can't keep in stock?

What color and clarity is most popular?
(I'd guess around H SI1.)

Or are prices always adjusting adjusting to keep demand and turn over about the same for all colors and clarities?

 

[strmrdr]

Well cut H vs2 asschers are almost impossible to find.
They are reserved before they are cut by a couple designers.

In the pricescope world it varies, for a long time i-si1super-ideal rounds were snatched up as soon as they showed up then it was j-si2 after the price increases and now its pretty much anything goes for a while.

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

There is a global flavour to your question. Let me try to put it in perspective.

A company like ours, which targets the American super-ideal-market knows that the most popular goods are around colours, as white as possible, and around clarities that are just eye-clean. Depending upon the various consumers'' eyes and mindsets, this is generally a market for G-VS2 down to J-SI2, with a top around H-SI1.

Now, rough of high quality tends to be sold in parcels, based upon a quality-assortment of the rough, and this is not entirely in line with how our demand is structured.

In a parcel of high colour/high clarity rough, the lowest stones are around H-SI1, but depending on the producer country, such a parcel will also contain a lot of stones of D-E colour, and VVS or better clarity. So, for each stone that we have of a very desirable combo, we also have a number of stones which sell more difficultly. Especially combinations of H colour with very high clarity tend to sell slower.

Of course, we also have possibilities of buying rough parcels with a lower assortment. If we buy a parcel of ''second colour rough'', there will be I and J colour, but also a lot of KLM and lower colours. And if we buy a parcel of ''spotted'' (higher colour rough with clear inclusions in the rough), this will yield a number of SI-clarities, but also a high number of I1 and lower. Both these possibilities are less interesting for us, since cutters of medium-cut-quality will be able to pay more for the rough, since we cannot get sufficient premium for our quality on these combinations.

I hope that this was not too confusing.

 

[oldminer]

The supply of diamonds is somewhat monopoly controlled and the non-monopoly supplier march to the same tune DeBeers creates. They are very smart in not oversupplying the market and support prices by keep supplies tight enough, in general.

Supply is metered out by measuring demand.

Have you ever heard of anyone who could not find a certain diamond after a search. There are a few categories, like the suggested Asscher cuts, that are really scarce, but for the majority of the population a diamond can be found readily which suits their needs and budget.

Where do the undesirable diamonds go? There are different needs in other markets besides those of the USA. Other types go there or DeBeers and other sources simply store them to keep them from being virtually without value. You can''t make people buy what they prefer not to buy and value arises from marketing and personal preferences. No seller wants to fight personal preference so long as there is sufficient desirable goods to be offered. It would cost a lot more to force people to consider buying something they don''t initially want to buy.