Why Are Engagement Rings Diamonds?

Engagement rings are diamonds for three reasons that have almost nothing to do with each other. A royal proposal in 1477 set the precedent, South African discoveries in the 1870s made the stones available, and a De Beers advertising campaign in the twentieth century turned availability into expectation. The hardness of the stone gave the story something true to stand on.

That is the short version. The longer one changes how you shop.

We are Stelios Jewellers, a family workshop at 145 Scarborough Beach Road in Mt Hawthorn, with more than 200 years of combined bench experience. Stelios trained for eight years before working unsupervised on a client’s stone, and our lead designer Isabelle Pontis has spent 27 years designing rings for Perth couples. We set diamonds most days in the engagement rings we build for clients. We also set sapphires, Australian pearls and Western Australian pink diamonds, so we have no reason to tell you a diamond is the only answer.

Diamonds: The Iconic Symbol Of Love And Commitment

The link between diamonds and marriage is old, but not as old as people assume. Engagement rings predate diamonds by thousands of years. In ancient Egypt couples exchanged reed rings woven from rushes along the Nile, the circle standing for something without end. Roman betrothal rings were iron, and some carried small keys, usually read as the household a wife was entering rather than ownership. Gold rings arrived with wealth, and by 850 CE Pope Nicholas I had recognised the ring as a declaration of intent to marry.

Diamonds entered much later, at the very top of society. For centuries a diamond engagement ring was something European aristocracy wore. What changed was supply, not sentiment.

How Diamonds Became The Choice For Engagement Rings

The first diamond engagement ring on record was given in 1477, when Archduke Maximilian of Austria proposed to Mary of Burgundy with a gem studded ring, the diamonds set in the shape of an M. It was a political match as much as a romantic one, and it was widely copied, because that is what European aristocracy did with royal gestures.

For the next four hundred years the tradition stayed rare. Medieval couples exchanged posey rings, plain metal ones with a line of verse inside the band. The Victorian era brought ornate engagement ring designs mixing diamonds with coloured stones and enamel, and the Edwardian era refined that into the filigree settings people still ask us to recreate in our art deco jewellery. In both periods diamonds were one option among many, with rubies, sapphires and pearls alongside them.

Then in the 1870s prospectors found diamonds in South Africa, near a town that would be named Kimberley. Within decades the world had more diamonds than it had ever seen. Cecil Rhodes consolidated the mines into one diamond company, De Beers, in 1888, and the problem shifted from finding diamonds to selling them.

There is a coincidence Western Australians enjoy here. Our own Kimberley later produced the mine that supplied roughly nine tenths of the world’s pink diamonds until it closed in November 2020. Two Kimberleys, a century apart, both of which reshaped what a diamond ring means.

The Symbolism Of Diamonds: Strength, Purity, And Eternity

The symbolism works because the material cooperates. A diamond forms over a billion years or more from a single element. Carbon, nothing else. Every other gemstone on a jeweller’s bench is a compound of several elements, which is part of why diamonds behave so differently under a loupe.

Hardness is the quality everyone cites. Diamond sits at 10 on the Mohs scale and nothing in nature will scratch it. On a ring worn daily for forty years, that matters more than any romantic reading of it.

The 4Cs of diamond grading are often mapped onto a relationship: cut as care, colour as purity, clarity as honesty, carat as the size of the feeling. Here is the useful version. Cut is the only C the cutter controls, and it does more for how a stone looks in Perth daylight than the other three combined. We would rather sell you an excellent cut in a lower colour grade than the reverse.

One caveat on the eternity theme. Hardness is not toughness. Diamond has cleavage planes, and a sharp knock on a thin girdle can chip a stone no amount of scratching would mark. We see it a few times a year, usually from a car door or a gym bar. Choose the setting accordingly.

Why Diamonds Stand Out Among Other Gemstones

Diamonds hold their position for reasons that are partly physical and partly commercial.

The physical case is straightforward. Diamond’s cubic crystal structure and refractive index produce a return of light no other jewel quite matches. Sapphire and ruby sit at 9 on the Mohs scale and make excellent coloured stone rings. Emerald is softer, around 7.5 to 8, and almost always heavily included, which is why we talk carefully with anyone wanting an emerald in a ring they will never take off.

The commercial case is consistency. Diamonds are graded to a published standard, most commonly by GIA, so two stones with the same certificate are broadly comparable anywhere. Coloured stone pricing depends on origin, treatment and a colour judgement no chart fully captures. That makes diamonds easier to value and insure, which counts when you are spending thousands on something you cannot personally assess.

Where we push back is on the word investment. A standard white diamond is not one, and resale is a fraction of retail, which is worth knowing before you decide what an engagement ring costs you. Certified fancy coloured diamonds, particularly Australian pink diamonds with original certification, are a different market.

The Lasting Popularity Of Diamond Engagement Rings

The modern custom of pairing diamonds with a marriage proposal is a twentieth century creation, and the paper trail is unusually clear.

By the Great Depression, diamond sales in the United States had collapsed. De Beers responded with an advertising campaign that did what advertising rarely manages. Rather than promoting a brand, it promoted an idea: that a diamond ring was the correct way to propose. Glamorous movie stars were photographed wearing diamonds, and proposals appeared on screen with a diamond in shot.

In 1947, a copywriter named Frances Gerety wrote four words at the end of a long night. A Diamond Is Forever. It became the classic slogan of the century, and the numbers are worth quoting. Reported sales rose by around half within three years of the campaign gathering pace. By 1951, roughly eight in ten American brides received a diamond engagement ring. American wholesale revenues near twenty three million dollars in the campaign’s early years reached around 2.1 billion by 1979.

That is not a story about geology. It is a diamond company solving a distribution problem, and it worked so completely that most people assume the tradition originated in antiquity. The Cape Town Diamond Museum runs tours on cutting and the South African rush if you want the trade’s own version. None of this makes a diamond a worse choice. It means the choice is yours to make deliberately rather than inherit.

Cultural Practices Around Engagement Rings

The fourth finger of the left hand is standard in Australia, and the reason given is the vena amoris, the vein of love, believed to run from that finger to the heart. The belief is traced to Rome and often attributed further back to ancient Egypt. Anatomically it is not true. Every finger returns blood to the heart the same way.

The custom is more varied than people expect. In Germany, Norway and much of Eastern Europe the ring goes on the right hand, and plenty of couples through our door wear theirs on the right because they are left handed and tired of catching the setting. There is no wrong finger. Our wedding ring finger guide covers hands, orders and how an eternity ring sits alongside your wedding band.

Ethical Sourcing And The Rise Of Lab-Grown Diamonds

Lab-grown diamonds have changed the conversation in the last five years, and in Perth we notice it most among couples in their late twenties.

A lab-grown diamond is chemically and optically a diamond. Carbon in the same cubic structure, grown by high pressure high temperature or chemical vapour deposition, graded on the same 4Cs. It is not a simulant. Cubic zirconia and moissanite are different materials entirely.

The honest position, which not everyone in our trade will give you, is this. Lab-grown offers more size and clarity per dollar, and its environmental footprint is generally lower than mined equivalents, though the energy source of the growing facility matters more than most marketing admits. Against that, lab-grown prices have fallen sharply and continue to fall, so resale expectations should be close to zero. If the stone’s job is to look extraordinary on a hand, no problem. If you are thinking about heirloom value, better to know now.

We work with both. Compare the trade-offs on our lab grown diamonds page, and if provenance matters most, Australian sapphires and Broome South Sea pearl rings are worth a look.

The Timeless Appeal Of Diamonds

Strip away the marketing and something real remains. A diamond survives being worn daily for a lifetime and handed on. Few objects a person owns can claim that.

In the workshop we resize, retip and reset rings that came through this door in the 1980s and 1990s, sometimes for the children of the original clients. Metal wears, claws thin, settings need rebuilding. The stone comes out looking exactly as it did the day it was set. That is the part the advertising did not have to invent, and it is why the setting matters as much as the stone in it. A modest diamond in a properly engineered mount will outlast a spectacular one in a thin, mass produced setting. You can see how we build ours in our custom gallery.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions we are asked most often at the bench.

Who Gave The First Diamond Engagement Ring?

Archduke Maximilian of Austria gave the first recorded diamond engagement ring to Mary of Burgundy in 1477. The diamonds were arranged in the shape of an M.

Why Did Diamonds Become The Standard For Engagement Rings?

Supply and advertising. Discoveries in South Africa in the 1870s made diamonds widely available, and a De Beers advertising campaign from the late 1930s, crowned by the 1947 slogan A Diamond Is Forever, made the diamond ring the expected form of marriage proposal.

Do Engagement Rings Have To Be Diamonds?

No. Sapphires are nearly as hard and make outstanding everyday rings, and coloured stones were common throughout the Victorian and Edwardian eras. We design plenty of coloured engagement rings around sapphires, pearls and Australian gemstones.

Are Lab-Grown Diamonds Real Diamonds?

Yes. A lab-grown diamond has the same chemical composition, crystal structure and optical properties as a mined one, and is graded on the same 4Cs. It is not a simulant like cubic zirconia.

Are Diamond Engagement Rings A Good Investment?

Generally no. Standard white diamonds resell for a fraction of retail. Certified fancy coloured diamonds, especially Australian pink diamonds with original certification, are a separate market, which we cover on our investment pink diamonds page.

Summary

Engagement rings are diamonds because of a royal proposal in 1477, a mining boom in the 1870s and one of the most effective advertising campaigns ever written. The tradition is younger than most people realise. The stone’s hardness, its single element chemistry and its graded value are what kept the idea standing once the advertising stopped doing the work.

Knowing that should make you a better buyer, not a cynical one. Choose a diamond because you want a stone that will outlive you, not because you assume you have to. Choose a sapphire or Australian pearl if it suits the wearer better, or lab-grown if size matters more than resale. All three are defensible, and we will tell you which we would pick in your position.

Come and see us at 145 Scarborough Beach Road in Mt Hawthorn, where the workshop is on site and you can watch the work happen. Isabelle and the team will walk you through stone selection, setting design and what your budget realistically buys. You can also start a design online with our bespoke ring builder before you come in.

Book a consultation with Stelios Jewellers and let us help you design a ring worth keeping.