The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-08-12
LEMON DIAMONDS.
Bpecimsns OF the Popular Tint Bring High
Prices Among Connoisssurs.


Prices Among Connolsseurs.
"Here," said the jeweler, lis lemon
diamond. I'll bet as much as you please
you don't know anything about lemon
diamonds"
IF You bet that you win," replied,
for l never heard of them before"
THE lemon diamond" he proceeded,
lis of the exact shade of the outside
peel of lemon. 1t isn't yellow or
orange, it is just lemon colored. 1t is
the fashionable stone of the day, and ii
is sold as high as $500 carat, being a
little more rare than the blue diamond.
Thirty years ago blue or lemon
diamond was rejected as off color by
diamond merchants and disposed of as
inferior stock at the rate of SIS or $40 a
carat. To-day they rank as high as the
white stones, though to my way of
thinking the white diamond, which is
nothing more or less than the fac-simile
OF a drop of pure, sparkling water is
the finest on earth. Put one of these
stones in glass of spring water and
you won't be able to find it. it so closely
resembles the water.
Its popular fallacy that the size
of the diamond counts most. 1t doesn't.
l can sell you a diamond weighing one
carat for $50, SS5, $40, and at Is advance
on those prices all the way up to $500 a
carat. | once owned stone weighing
carat and quarter that bought in
London for $3.50.
The big stones of the common sort
are worth only the same price as the
small ones. Thus a 70 carat stone of
the $50 per carat variety will be worth
only 5000. But 20 carat stone of the
kind that is valued at $500 for the single
carat would be sold for 100000.
"The reason for this is that there is
an abundance of the poorer stones.
They come from the African mines,
which are inexhaustible, and which
will supply the world with all the dia-
monds it needs for 1000 years or more.
But the more valuable stones are not
found in such large numbers, because
they come from the East Indies, where
the supply is exhausted. and from Bra
I'll, where there are few good diamonds
left
The popular impression of a dia-
mond merchant is that he is rolling in
money, but he isn't. I tell you why.
A man brings me u paper of diamonds
containing, perhaps, 81 900 worth, and
| buy them from him, and the rate
pay him is not more than per cent.
above the cost of importation. His
profit is small and mine is correspond
ingly so.
1.-The man who makes money out of
diamonds is he who sells them by the
paper, unset Just as soon rs you begin
to set the diamonds you embark in a
speculative business. Fashions change,
and setting which has cost you hun
dreds of dollars for the labor in it you
find is worth only the intrinsic value of
the gold you put in it, because it is out
of date and you cannot market it.
Few people realize this dead loss in
the jewelry business. There is another
point too. AS soon as you set a diamond
and try to dispose of it at promiscuous
sale you find it harder to do SO than if
the diamond were loose. The unit for
the diamond broker is paper of loose
stones, and when you begin to offer him
diamond pins, rings and brooches, just
80 soon do you lose on the transaction.
"When jeweler fails he is able to
pay generally only 25 per cent. divi-
dend. A dry goods dealer pays so per
cent The reason for this is that the
jewelers. assets consist generally of
lot of played out machinery and obso-
lete jewelry which, though it cost him
a large sum of money, is valuable only
as so much gold and precious stones.
1.-The price of diamonds fluctuates all
the time, and this is another source of
dealers is making any money now.
Most of them are dealers merely and
not biologists and experts and they are
likely to overestimate the value of a
stone. can give you no better exam
pie than the fact that when parcel of
stones has reached the custom house
and the officials there have suspected
that they were undervalued they have
appointed a committee of six experts
and the experts in their valuation have
varied as much as $40 a carat. In case
like that the matter is settled by strik-
ing an average, but it shows how hard
it is to determine Vie worth of stone.
1.-The yellow diamonds, not being
more valuable on account of their size,
are split up into small stones. 1t is re-
markable how much individuality dia-
mond has. No two that ever existed
were ever alike. Take fve-carat stone
and cut it into two and the halves
will be entirely different in every way.
Everything, may remark, depends on
the cutting. The faces must be accu-
ratcly made and the angles must be ge-
ometrically correct
You can color Il diamond to any
shade, but not SO that it will stand ex-
animation by an expert"
"What do the street dealers in imita-
ton diamonds do to make their pins and
rings shine?"
dip them in alcohol generally lust
before they sell them. But it wears off
soon. IN. Y. Herald.
sanitary Wall Papers.
The sanitary wah papers, which are
. L