A Diamond Is Forever..and Ever...and Ever...

You will, of course, recognize one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time - the "A Diamond Is Forever" shtick developed by a young advertising copywriter in 1947. In the year 2000, Advertising Age magazine named it the best advertising slogan of the twentieth century. It's been parodied, too - Mad Magazine years ago ran a full-page ad showing a flat-broke young man over the caption "Paying for a Diamond Is Forever."

This is true.

We all know that diamonds are hellaciously expensive, and the degree of expense is based on the famous "Four C's" - color, cut, clarity, and carat weight. The fifth "C" that is never mentioned is the most important one - cash - large piles of which you must bring to the jeweler in exchange for the miniscule piece of flashing carbon that symbolizes both your undying love and your indenture to the bank. And there's a sixth "C", the one on which the profits of the diamond industry actually rest - control.

The truth the diamond companies don't want you to know is that raw diamonds are just about as common as dirt, and prices are kept artificially stratospheric by manipulating the supply that eventually reaches the consumer. Whether they are "ordinary" diamonds, "conflict" diamonds, "blood" diamonds, "baseball" diamonds, or the Ace of Diamonds, isn't really important...the key to the success of the industry is control of the supply of diamonds in order to keep the price up.

But the ultimate fear of the diamond industry has recently been uncovered: astronomers have discovered a star they've nicknamed "Lucy" (from the Beatles' song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), about 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Lucy is actually the compressed heart of an old, collapsed star - a gigantic lump of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, weighing in at an estimated 10 billion trillion trillion carats.

Now that's a diamond.

So, consider this ...

Men, you can save a great deal of money on a 10 billion trillion trillion carat diamond. Just go to the International Star Registry, pay a modest fee, and have Lucy (her actual name is BPM 37093) renamed in honor of your beloved. How cool is that?

Of course, no self-respecting woman would let you get away with a dodge like that, but it's nice to dream, isn't it?

A 10 billion trillion trillion carat diamond. Now that's forever.

Have a good day. Consider cubic zirconia ... it may not be forever, but it's a lot cheaper.

More cheap thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo