A.D. Van-Daaz Diamonds is no more.

After years of successful operation, it retired in the early 2000s into the annals of Internet history...

Van-Daaz Diamonds was practically the Web's very first eCommerce selling consumers goods! The site sold, of all things (!) diamonds--the Internet's very first consumer goods sold online!

It was back in the summer of 1995, the days before Yahoo... Amazon... Google... Chrome... iPhones... and all other familiar big names...

The few internet sites had to comply with a grey screen with limited graphic options and little text manipulation tools and capabilities...

At the time, the web community consisted of only five and a half million users. Only software, some small hardware parts, and, of all things, a single site selling frozen Lobsters coast-toast in the USA, were sold online and were the very first commercial sites online. A handful really. Again: only software, some hardware and lobsters...

In came Van-Daaz Diamonds.

The brainchild of Gad Zak, who conceived that the internet could serve as the ultimate vehicle for selling diamonds coast to coast, as it offered the capability of matching a multiplicity of variables put together in choosing a single item possessing them, which is the strength of computers, the backbone of all things Internet! Gad did so after getting engaged, falling in love with diamonds following the process of choosing his own engagement diamond... Zak saw the potential of selling diamonds if their quality and authenticity were to be assured by an objective, professional grading document such as the GIA Diamond Report.

You may visit various versions of the Van-Daaz Diamonds site at the Internet Archives at www.archive.org by searching Van Daaz or vandaaz Diamonds and take a look, e.g., at THIS sample... Do note that some of the graphics apps used at the time are no longer functioning or available and some portions of the page would therefore be blank.

Unlike on this page, all our archived site's navigation links are active, and their target pages may be accessed from this page's archived version.

From unbranded diamonds, Zak, a resident of Canada, saw the need for and potential in branding non-blood-diamonds, such as Canadian diamonds, and launched Canada's Igloo Diamonds (see it on the internet archives, e.g., HERE). Each Igloo Diamond came with, in addition to its accompanying GIA report, a certificate showing the map of a minefield in Mozambique and the plot within it that was cleared of its mines, proportionate in size to a donation representing 10% of the sold diamond sale markup. The clearing was carried out through, and in collaboration with the United Nations Association's Adopt a Minefield campaign. An entire small minefield was thus cleared in Mozambique! With the disbandment of the Adopt a Minefield Campaign Igloo Diamonds ceased its operations too.

You may visit various versions of the Igloo Diamonds site at the Internet Archives at www.archive.org by searching igloodiamonds and take a look, e.g., at THIS sample. Do note that some of the graphics apps used at the time are no longer functioning or available and some portions of the page would therefore be blank.

Those were the days, such is history and the rest is history as well!