If there’s anything worth investing in at the moment, it’s diamonds. This year, for the first time in more than two decades, production is falling — and producers have been unable to find enough new sources to meet the world’s insatiable demand for diamond jewelry. This drop-off comes on the heels of a 9% increase in diamond production over the past five years, and industry experts say that we can expect to see at least a 2% decline in production by 2015. This may not seem like much, until you consider that about $7 billion worth of diamonds are traded in an average year. Two percent comes out to a hefty $140 million, or about 22,680 fewer carats — quite a lot of diamond rings, that. What this means to the average investor is that diamond prices are about to go up as the supply does down — which, as with any commodity, translates to “get ’em while the getting’s good.”

Once the newfound scarcity of diamonds percolates through the world’s various stock exchanges and financial markets, any diamond investment, whether it’s in diamond stocks, rough diamonds, cut diamonds, diamond engagement rings, or any other diamond jewelry, is suddenly going to jump in value. Even bort, the poor-quality diamond used for industrial purposes, is going to become significantly costlier. Industry analyses point out that diamonds will probably out-perform base metals in the next few years, leaving this year’s commodity stars — zinc, copper, and nickel — in the dust.

Diamonds are already scarce, deriving as they do from a rare mineral called kimberlite that originates as hot magma about 100 miles underground. But only fifteen percent of kimberlite deposits produce diamonds; in fact, they’re more likely to produce semi-precious garnets. In the entire 2,000 years of historic diamond production, only about 380 tons of diamonds have been mined. At best, 75 percent of that amount is gemstone-quality. To put in perspective, that’s about 0.0018 ounces of cut diamonds for every human living today, or about one-quarter carats worth of gemstones. Of course, it’s not exactly equally distributed; some gemstones exist as massive celebrity diamond engagement rings, or as unforgettable diamond brooches or diamond necklaces worn by the elite. Be that as it may, it just might be a good idea if you were to acquire as many carats as you can, as soon as you can.

Why this sudden decline in the world diamond supply? The simple fact is that all the easily accessible diamonds we know about have been mined. The less accessible deposits are located in areas that are so politically unstable that no one wants to bother with them (for now, at least). Only 25 of the 170 diamond companies in business are producing at the moment, and even the granddaddy of them all, South Africa’s DeBeers, is looking a tad desperate. With working diamond mines playing out, DeBeers is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to re-open old mines (including one that’s been closed for almost a century) and explore the seabed off the coast of South Africa. Of course, if they hit pay dirt, the megabucks they’re spending now will seem like chump change compared to the billions they stand to make when their new crop of diamonds hits the market.