They advertised the sale as their "Million Dollar Diamond Sale" and one year they actually sold just over $1-million in a single night. This is the largest diamond broker in the mid Atlantic region and they sell lots of monster diamonds to ladies married to billionaires. What really impressed me was when I saw several stretch limos pull onto the parking lot, the driver gets out and opens the rear door and a lady dressed in a mink coat is being escorted by a guy in a tux into the store. At this point, they are taken to the bar where they are both handed a glass of champagne, then escorted to a luxury padded chair where the salesperson pulls out trays filled with various sized and colored diamonds to select from for the basic piece of jewelry they will have custom designed and constructed by the in-store jeweler. Until then, I didn't know that there were different colored diamonds, brown, blue, blue-white, etc... I saw people order rings that cost $250,000, which absolutely blew my mind, and the guy that was paying for it didn't even flinch when they got the quote - they just wanted to know when it would be delivered.
There's a lot more money flowing in the US than most folks ever dream about. I saw this first hand when cruising down the Intra Coastal Waterway. I was amazed the size and cost of those McMansions that line the banks of the waterway, many of which were more than 10,000 square feet. More often than not, sitting at the dock in front of the house, was a 150-foot motor yacht that had a crew of 12 college kids wiping the dew from the fiberglass using chamois cloths so the fiberglass wouldn't get dirty and stained. I don't think any of these folks would have blinked at spending more than a quarter-million dollars on a diamond ring or necklace. This was the type of clientele that showed up for that sale every year of the 15 years I performed that job.
All the best,
Gary
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