Mid-way through my research project (about February 2014, and before this whole Ebola mess), I watched Martin Rapaport’s persuasive TEDx Speech and other words on the issue of diamonds, and then made a decision:

“I’m looking for a diamond from Sierra Leone”.

“What? So you somehow want a conflict stone now? Unsatisfied with Jezebel.com hating on you the last two three times?” asked a good friend of mine.

“As entertaining and easy as that is, allow me to clarify that…”

The truth is that although Sierra Leone has been at peace for over a decade, they are still desperately trying to shed the stigma left from both the civil war and that damn Leonardo DiCaprio film (which wasn’t even shot in the country).

Frustratingly, Mr. Rapaport’s videos omit the path through which one would go about buying a stone of Sierra Leone or West African origin. I then imagined myself as a modern-day Cecil Rhodes and remembered a story that a rough diamond buyer named Sofus Michelsen told me about his grandfather:

“My Grandfather Sofus Michelsen was a Norwegian and married my Grandmother a Scottish woman. His story was he travelled to Kimberley, South Africa in 1880 where the main supply of rough diamonds were mined, the stone he bought was a 10.30ct rough and had it cut there into a beautiful 4.00ct oval. My wife now wears it as I gave it to her for our engagement after it was passed down from my Grandmother, to my Mother, and now my wife.”

In case you’re wondering, travelling from Norway to Kimberley, South Africa in 1880 was quite a feat: “three months by schooner” he informed me. I am at this point both floored and humbled. “Brad Pitt takes a year to design Angelina’s ring, and this guy’s story involves a three months-long trip by schooner? Well, fuck everybody, then. I’m going to Sierra Leone. How cool would it be to get a picture of me, knees-deep in Tongo mud or chillaxin’ on Tokeh Beach holding the very rough that would be polished into Stephanie’s stone. I just want one “makeable I” rough and I’ll walk it to a polisher myself, Surely one of those rough buyers could spare one from a parcel” I naïvely thought.

My dream was not to be. First of all, no, rough buyers do not have a stone to spare from a parcel. There are two other options, the first of which is the legal (expensive) route, where you pay a rough diamond geologist as a consultant (you didn’t fly all this way to get screwed, did you?), plus expenses (accommodations, security, probably licensing, likely more money to “grease the gears”). One geologist even informs me: “Mr. Schulte, I could spend a half hour writing to you telling you why this is not possible. At $200/hr and a 2 hr minimum, why pay for something I’m telling you for free?” Another rough dealer says he’s working on a parcel from Salone, so maybe we could do business, but probably not because that’s not how it goes, chump. A third rough diamond buyer offers to arrange a 7-day trip, though the costs reveal that this is clearly not the most efficient way to purchase exactly one stone. The second option is the illegal, black market route like these very ballsy gentlemen at Vice did, which I will not be pursuing (particularly given the quality of the stone they ended up with).

Also, should one succeed in buying an artisanally-mined stone, it’s more likely than not that the digger’s find would be massively undervalued by the original buyer, and you exponentially increase the risk of exposure to smuggled stones and other delicacies of the illicit market. Moreover, since I’m not exactly a graduate gemologist with experience in grading rough diamonds (yet!), I could well be buying a diamond that isn’t even a diamond, isn’t cuttable or makeable, or with inclusions that significantly impact its quality as a polished stone. Can’t exactly have that, can we?

Even though the timing didn’t coincide with when I was in the market for a ring, I had tentatively planned to go with Nick Montefour, (fully licensed exporter’s agent) in January of 2015, though obviously the whole Ebola epidemic has sidetracked that sexy option, never mind that the Mrs. is not very keen to the idea, at all.

(I still planning on going once this Ebola mess calms down, and over the expected female objections)