WAR ROMANCES

Evening Star, Issue 25226, 13 July 1944, Page 9

WAR ROMANCES

AfJD DIAMOND BOOM NOTHING LIKE IT IN HISTORY The little man in love in Britain and America has in the past 12 months piayed a major part in the Diggest diamond boom in history. He has paia £14,000,000 for diamonds to adorn rings,* brooches, and pendants.

His huge purchases helped to swell total sales all over the world to £20,000,000, which far exceeds the boom figures after the last war.

In 1933 world sales were £4,000,000, and in 1942 they were £10,500,000. The boom enabled the great South African company of de Beers to announce gross profits of £5,240,231 for 1943. Fortunes are being made in diamonds; fortunes for the brokers, merchants, ami salesmen, fortunes for shrewd investors who hold diamond shares.

The little man in love is behind them—the American soldier and the American war worker, and to a lesser degree, the British war worker, buying diamonds for' their wives and girl friends at the local jewellers. Demand is so great? that diamond output cannot keep up with it. The small diamond is making these fortunes. In America the £75 gem is tho best seller. In Britain, single-stone rings from £2O to £25 are, in keenest demand. •

Hatton Garden merchants with whom I talked yesterday told me they were staggered by last year's figures, wrote a. ' Daily Mail' man, but added: "The demand for diamonds, particularly the smaller stones, is still rising. " Wealthy people are still buying more expensive stones as investments. They take expert advice before they buy. But the biggest trade is in the small stuff." Almost, the eutire world output of dittmonms comes from South Africa and is marketed through London. ; At the next diamond sales—they are called " sights " —in Hatton Garden, merchants and cutters here have been warned that prices will again advance from 7i to 10 per cent.

" By far the greatest proportion of diamond comes from South Africa and is America," I was told, " and largely they are the smaller stones.

"In Britain it is chiefly the small, jewellers in the side streets and in the provincial towns that are making huge sales '* And with the £20,000,000 world sales last jear, £6,000,000 came from the sales of industrial diamonds to the British and United States Governments for use in war industry. From Johannesburg, 63-year-old Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, head of de Beers, arid the greatest figure in the diamond industry, reported: "Record sales were effected last year. The demand for diamonds 'continues."

Yesterday (April 20) on the Stock Exchange de Beers. Consolidated deferred shares rose another 5s to be quoted at £l9 15s per £2 10s share. Investors who bought the shares as. recently as 1940, when they were in- the market at £2 10s, were able to make £l7 5s profit per share if. they wished to sell. V

Final dividend for these shares, announced yesterday, made their dividend for 1943 70 per cent—against 40 per cent in 1942.