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Premieres 21 October 2026 at 9:44am UK time
Who's Tricking You? · Episode 1
Who decided a ring should cost two months' wages?
Who told you an engagement ring should cost two months' wages? Not your grandmother.
How a 1938 advertising campaign sold a feeling, not a stone: film stars, school talks, 'a diamond is forever', stockpiles held back, the salary rule, and the same trick repeated in Japan. Plus why lab-grown diamonds change the sum.
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What the fox said
Who told you an engagement ring should cost two months' wages?
Not your grandmother. A diamond company.
1938. Sales are falling, so they hire an advertising agency.
It doesn't sell stones. It sells a feeling. Film stars wear them. Schools get talks on engagement rings.
Within three years, American diamond sales were up by more than half.
Then, in 1947: a diamond is forever.
Meaning: never sell it. You'd find out what it's really worth.
And they weren't as rare as you were told. The company held huge stocks back, and let out just enough to keep prices high.
The salary rule? That was in an advert too.
It worked so well, they did it again in Japan. In 1967, hardly any brides there wore a diamond. By 1981, most of them did.
Today, a laboratory can grow a diamond identical down to the atom, for a fraction of the price.
So if the price feels like a test of love, ask who wrote the test. Keep your nose to the wind.
Sources
- After De Beers hired the New York advertising agency N.W. Ayer in 1938, US diamond sales rose by more than half between 1938 and 1941 (Edward Jay Epstein, 'Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?', The Atlantic, 1982).
- In Japan, where De Beers began advertising in 1967, about 5% of brides had a diamond engagement ring in 1967; by 1981 it was about 60% (Edward Jay Epstein, The Atlantic, 1982).
- De Beers held stocks of diamonds back and controlled how many reached the market, to support prices (widely documented; e.g. Edward Jay Epstein, The Atlantic, 1982).
- A diamond typically resells for far less than its retail price, although there is no single reliable figure for how much less (widely reported).
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