For some people, brilliant cut diamonds are nothing more than shiny bits of clear stone. For these people, the mention of brilliant cut diamonds brings forth images of, quite simply, clear gemstones with no real inherent value. However, people such as this are in the great minority when it comes to the way most people perceive brilliant cut diamonds. For most individuals in the world today, diamonds create images of beauty, style, enduring love, elegance, art and wealth. For even most of those who do not have any desire for diamonds themselves, such gemstones still hold forth a scintillating allure of shining, aesthetic brilliance.
The prevailing idea regarding diamonds in most human societies is that they are beautiful, scintillating, elegant symbols of endurance and lasting love. In addition to this, they are also held as being simply astoundingly beautiful in and of themselves. Due to these deeply entrenched and strongly held beliefs, brilliant cut diamonds are given an extremely high value throughout the world, both monetarily and symbolically. With this being the case, diamonds have become, throughout the centuries, objects of many people’s desire, whether that desire is for beauty, love or wealth.
With such a strong emphasis on the tremendous value attributed to diamonds by most of humanity, it should come as no surprise that the gemstones attract the attention of many who are not as respectful of legal and social laws as most of us are. In London in July of 2007, Graff, one of the most elite shops in the world that offers brilliant cut diamonds, was visited by some rather less than welcome guests. According to police reports, Graff was robbed in broad daylight by two thieves who made off with over 10 million pounds worth of diamonds and other jewelry. There was a bit of difference in this particular diamond heist, however.
According to all reports, it would seem that the thieves arrived at the front door of the famous jewelry store in a Bentley. The vehicle, worth approximately $230,000, was driven by a chauffeur and dropped the pair of well-dressed men off at the front door. The two men then proceeded to make their way past the main door, the airlock and several security guards, on their way to their goal: the millions of pounds worth of brilliant cut diamonds available on the premises. Once past the bulk of the security system, they even engaged the store salespeople in conversation, maintaining their pose as affluent customers. It wasn’t until the two men pulled out silver guns and made their demand for the store’s hoard of diamonds that the store employees realized that they were being robbed.
At this time, the thieves of the Graff’s brilliant cut diamonds have still not been apprehended. The police state that they have the thieves’ images on CCTV cameras from when the thieves got out of the Bentley Continental Flying Spur at the front of the store. While the police are assuring the public that the diamond thieves will be caught soon, it is not that difficult to imagine that these particular thieves may have been obscuring their real features enough to hide their real identities from a closed circuit television camera set in the street. Of course, the Bentley could be traced, but if they rented that with false identification as well, such a lead could prove to be a dead end.
In the end, whether or not the police are able to catch the diamond thieves is secondary to the main point of this piece. The point is that brilliant cut diamonds continue to hold a tremendous allure for most of us. While most of us would not even imagine trying to steal 10 million pounds of diamonds, or steal any diamonds at all, it doesn’t mean that most of us cannot understand why it would happen, or why anyone would try to do so. The diamonds themselves are all marked by Graff, and so cannot be sold on the open market, which decreases their value. The thieves were bound to have been aware of this, and yet committed the act regardless. Diamonds may not have for each of us the same meaning and value, but the nearly irrational thinking and behavior that they can bring out in some of us, and the fact that most of us can understand such aberrant behavior, is further evidence of the power of diamonds.
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