Recently I have been pondering the trade value of single diamond. I sell a lot of items and I always list them in diamond prices. Many times behind the scenes I will make a deal for something other than diamonds depending on my current needs or trying to help a player out that is low on diamonds. Often I get asked will I take gold, iron or something else.

This got me thinking what is a fair exchange rate. So please put your 2 cents worth in so I can try to establish a fair rate for seller and buyer.

1 diamond is worth ?

Well in rarity 1 diamond to every 32 iron ore, i have heard then it should be 32 ingots for 1 diamond. I have also heard that 9 ingots to 1 is fairer due irons many uses. But lets not forget you can make an iron farm not a diamond farm. same for a gold farm.

So I am at 18 iron ingots are equal to 1 diamond and I am also thinking gold ingots should be 24 to 1 diamond.

I would love to hear others feedback and other possible trades.

I often buy, sell and trade nearly everything but a basic conversion list to reference is my hope. It needs not be iron clad because many will say And I agree its worth whatever you can get for it , or supply and demand.

i think that 1 diamond is worth 1 diamond

Iron shouldnt be considered as currency as it is can be obtained using golem-farms, giving people the possibility to generate money without doing anything (except building the farm ofc).
Same for gold, building a pigmen-farm is not much of a big deal, granting you infinte access to gold.
Emeralds are kinda unstable, while people operating a villager-shop migth have access to loads of emeralds, the default-player doesnt happen to obtain many, except those who live in extreme hills might stumble across some here and there.
So there are actually only diamonds left, everybody needs them and they can be found everywhere.
The mending enchantemt makes it hard to determine an exact value for diamonds tho as they suffer constant inflation.

You forgot that a high percentage of them diamond ores are mined with fortune 3

@MisterChris717 We could use math to answer this.
There are about 77 iron ore per chunk.
There are about 3.097 diamond ore per chunk.
Craftymynes' world has an area of 200k*200k, which gives us 40000000000² blocks in area.
40000000000/16 gives us how many chunks there are, 2500000000 chunks exist in Craftymynes.
2500000000 * 3.097 Gives us 7742500000, that's how many diamonds exist in Craftymynes.
2500000000 * 77 Gives us 192500000000, that's how much iron exists in Craftymynes
192500000000 / 7742500000 Gives us 24.862770423, we can round off that to 25.
So that's 25 iron per 1 diamond.
Hope this helps! :)

that is how many diamond ores exist in craftymynes, mind the fortune pickaxes.

Worked this out a while ago when someone else asked a similar question, comes to about 11 iron per 1 diamond if you account for fortune 3.

@MisterChris717 We could use math to answer this.
There are about 77 iron ore per chunk.
There are about 3.097 diamond ore per chunk.
Craftymynes' world has an area of 200k*200k, which gives us 40000000000² blocks in area.
40000000000/16 gives us how many chunks there are, 2500000000 chunks exist in Craftymynes.
2500000000 * 3.097 Gives us 7742500000, that's how many diamonds exist in Craftymynes.
2500000000 * 77 Gives us 192500000000, that's how much iron exists in Craftymynes
192500000000 / 7742500000 Gives us 24.862770423, we can round off that to 25.
So that's 25 iron per 1 diamond.
Hope this helps! :)

Im not claiming to be a math expert but does this account for diamonds only spawning below Y16? Because if Im not mistaken all you really did was divide 77 by 3.097.

^

If you want to continue down mister Chris's thought process of valuing resources based on relative abundance, you can use the fact that fortune III on average increases drops for diamond by 120% to set a lower limit on the value. If you assume all diamonds are mined with fortune III, you get 11 iron per diamond (this is the lowest reasonable ratio). You would need more information about how frequently different pickaxes are used, but, to set limits, in terms of relative abundance, there are 11-25 iron per diamond.

But, this is still oversimplified. A majority of the mining being done on the server occurs at Y =< 16, where all diamond ore is generated. This is what BluePlauge is referring to. If we assume iron veins are uniformly distributed in 0 < Y < 64, the relative amount of iron available to players mining at "diamond level" is 1/4 the absolute amount. So, for these players, the lower limit is 3 iron per diamond. But now to determine to actual value, you have to consider another variable: how often people mine in this fashion.

In the end though, I think this is a pointless exercise. As Sofatroll said, iron can be easily farmed. Its a commodity not a currency. I wouldn't value the US dollar on the number of potatoes in supply. And given though people only ever purchase with diamonds, and rarely with iron, I don't feel especially to determine an exchange rate.

Regarding this bit:

@WBlaine But, this is still oversimplified. A majority of the mining being done on the server
occurs at Y =< 16, where all diamond ore is generated.
...
But now to determine to actual value, you have to consider another variable: how often people mine in this fashion.

You really cant get a decent conversion without taking into account how people mine for different resources. As you showed mining at y<16 you end up with about 3 iron per diamond, but if I'm mining for iron I generally go caving at y>16, making for a much higher ratio more like the 11:1.

It's even more important for gold. If you assume people only mine at y<16 then 1 stack of gold is worth just over 140 diamonds. However if you assume everyone mines for gold in a mesa at y>32 then 1 stack of gold is only worth 12 diamonds.

You've obviously also got to think about how people value these things. Redstone is a great is example. Based on abundance a stack of redstone blocks should be worth about 15 diamonds, but in my experience people will sell for a fraction of that because the fools don't value redstone.

TL;DR This:

@MisterChris717 I'd say that we can't really pin down a specific price for iron per diamond.

If you want to calculate the number of diamonds in a world, you also should consider that they can be found in chests, and a diamond block can be found in some woodland mansions.

It is also important to consider that most diamonds eventually get crafted into tools that get lost when a player dies, and a lot of players who have a lot of diamonds eventually quit the server and those diamonds are lost.

You can actually farm iron with Iron farms, does it change a thing? I don't think so, but I'm asking away

Wow great insight. thank you everyone.
I have many uses for iron in my builds and projects.

I think I will set a rate of 18 iron ingots to 1 diamond ratio as a possible alternate payment rate.

As for Gold or other items I guess it will be like so many other trades as a case by case need basic as opposed to a straight exchange ratio.