In March of 2020, diamond mines closed. Unlike closures in other sectors of the luxury economy, however, mine closures gave the diamond market the jolt it needed after years of stagnation. Though sales volume suffered in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the demand for rarer and fancy diamonds soared in the following months. As a result, prices have risen dramatically.
the last five years. The pandemic, however, resulted in a 20% larger decrease in 2021 than predicted. Consequently, prices for diamonds above three carats rose approximately 20% between 2019 and 2020. Raymond SancroftBaker, Jewelry Consultant at The Fine Art Group and former European Jewelry Director at Christie’s, says that this decrease in global production caused a disproportional surge in demand specifically for large, colored diamonds, the rarest of all mined diamonds, “of which there are only about ten sold at auction per year.” Notably, this contrasts with the lesser demand for small “commercial” white diamonds, for which consumer purchasing power was more negatively influenced by the pandemic.
BESPOKE LUXURY MAGAZINE
According to the Zimnisky Index, a popular tool used to analyze global diamond prices, formulated each year by industry analyst Paul Zimnisky, global diamond production fell approximately 23% between 2019 and 2021. Before the pandemic, experts had already expected diamond production to decrease between 2021 and 2025, due to oversupply over
Rough Diamond Price Performance by Size Over Past 6 Years 5 - 9 C A R AT
3 - 4 C A R AT
> 1 . 5 C A R AT
120 *Data curated by Paul Zimnisky, Zimnisky Diamond AnalyticsTM.
PRICE INDEX
110
100
90
80
70
Q1
2015
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
2016
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
2017
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
2018
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
2019
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
2020
Q2
Q3
Q4
2021
The price growth for diamonds above 3 carats is starkly greater than for diamonds below 1.5 carats, signaling a higher demand for large, fancy diamonds over commercial ones.
64