As some of you may know, Amsterdam is one of the centers in the Diamond Trading Business. The other cities are Antwerp (150 miles south of Amsterdam), Tel Aviv (a 3 hour plane ride away) and New York (a little further, but a great place to visit). Our centralized location, combined with our extensive contacts in each of these places, makes our shop a perfect choice if you'd like to purchase a low priced, good quality diamond on short notice.

The start of the Amsterdam diamond trading began at the end of the sixteenth century (1586), when one diamond polisher called Willem Vermaet chose to make Amsterdam his city of residence.

At the seventeenth century, known as 'the Golden age' in Dutch history because of the leading role Amsterdam played in the world economy, the diamond business was centered around the Rembrandtplein. As you can see on the map of Amsterdam, this square is only a few houndred yards from our shop.

By this time Holland owned major parts of the world, like Indonesia and South Africa, and at some point even New York; until they sold it to the Brittish. Therefore, smart businessmen from Holland could ship the diamonds obtained in Indonesia and South Africa at an extremely low cost, polish them in Amsterdam and then sell them to the rich for a large profit.

Some examples of famous Dutch diamond polishing:

• The biggest diamond ever found in history, the Cullinan, was cut in four pieces and polished by Dutch polishers in Amsterdam (1908). The results:
  1. The Star of Africa (530.20 carat)
  2. De Cullinan II (317.40 carat)
  3. De Cullinan III (94 carat)
  4. De Cullinan IV (63 carat)
• The repolishing of the famous Koh I Noor was done by two Dutch polishers (1820)

Throughout the ages Amsterdam has maintained its magic image as diamond trading capital. Even today, lots of tourists come to see the diamond polishers at work. In our shop they get a demonstration of diamond polishing and see some replica's of worlds most famous stones. They can even learn how to examine the stones thoroughly to distinguise the different kinds of diamond quality and evaluate the varying levels of diamond cost.

But Amsterdam, and the rest of Holland, have a lot more to offer to tourists. What do you think about the Amsterdam canals, the tulips, wooden shoes and windmills? Not to mention the Anne Frank House and the place where Hansje Brinker put his finger in the 'dijk'.

You can get a lot of information by browsing through the following pages.

• Amsterdam Video Visits
• Dutch Windmills at 'the Zaanse Schans'
• digital cities: Amsterdam
• internet guide to amsterdam
• Amsterdam university(VU)
• Virtual Tour Through Amsterdam

Or even better: come to Amsterdam and we will tell you all about it.