|
CHAPTER XV
|
||
|
|
||
|
HOW TO BUY DIAMONDS
THE first
thing that one should do when he intends to buy diamonds, is to
disabuse his mind of the idea that he is about to purchase another form
of current exchange with his greenbacks. Notwithstanding the elaborate
advertising they have had as an investment, diamonds are not an
investment, in a business sense, for the consumer, but a luxury. They
are probably the most economical form of luxury in existence, for they
do not wear out as sealskin sacques do, nor go out of fashion as fine
clothes do, nor do they have to be fed like horses. They do not require
chauffeurs and a good income for up-keep. They can be used as
collateral without a search or a lawyer's fee, and will bring nearer
cost at a forced sale, on an average, than any other form of wealth,
except the stock of corporations in which the directors invest their
own money. They raise a man several hundred per cent, in the
estimation of the woman to whom he gives them, but their money value
seldom rises above the price he paid for them. One wearing diamonds
will be more generally recognized as a person of some means than he
would by carrying about with him the price of them out of sight in his
pocket, but if he thinks they will buy as much money as it took to buy
them, he deceives himself.
339
|
||
|
|
||