Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems • Hacker News Board

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#101

Post by intrasight » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

kbutler wrote: post #35

userbinator wrote: post #15

As the price of diamond continues dropping, I wonder if people will find more interesting applications of the material and it'll eventually become as mundane as things like steel and aluminium. Besides its hardness, it also has very high thermal conductivity. Diamond is still too expensive to be a bulk material, but I look forward to when things like this become cheap and commonplace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fi…

Aluminum in the 1800s was more expensive than gold, and was used as jewelry, fancy cutlery, the capstone of the Washington monument, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aluminium Inexpensive mass production moved it from niche prestige uses to unlock its many utilitarian applications.

Iron was more expensive than gold at the dawn of the iron age. The only way humans obtained iron was from meteorites.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#102

Post by ainiriand » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #33

ocfnash wrote: post #13

Possibly a good time to plug moissanite yet again: http://diamondssuck.com

Does anyone know of a reputable European moissanite store?

I bought our engagement ring here, 0 complaints about them: https://www.moissanite.co.uk/

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#103

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

hyper_reality wrote: post #7

Jedd wrote: post #2

> De Beers is fighting Chinese lab-grown diamonds And I hope they lose. https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls... (and HN comments on original posting 2013-03-19 -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5403988 )

I also highly recommend Edward Epstein's Atlantic article on this too: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo... One of the best pieces of long-form journalism ever published, without a doubt.

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Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#104

Post by Udik » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #74

bawse1 wrote: post #68

I think that many of us are missing the main factor in what makes organic diamonds so expensive. Organic diamonds are "desirable". Desire is strong emotion that can defy logic and is pinnacle to the purchase of any luxury item. It is always the same argument when many of us like to compare a luxury item based on its utility rather than its desirability be it $100k tesla vs. $2k beat up honda, $1k iphone x vs. $600 an…

On the other hand, we don’t need $50,000 robots to tell the difference between phones or cars.

Tell the difference, no. But being sure that the difference really matters might cost you even more. Note that anybody can already see whether a diamond is natural or artificial with their naked eyes: by looking at the certificate that came with it (or didn't). The problem is deciding whether the difference matters.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#105

Post by brilee » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #66

kbutler wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aluminum in the 1800s was more expensive than gold, and was used as jewelry, fancy cutlery, the capstone of the Washington monument, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aluminium Inexpensive mass production moved it from niche prestige uses to unlock its many utilitarian applications.

In Napoleon's day it was more expensive than gold. By the time the Washington Monument was constructed the price had dropped to roughly the level of silver. Titanium might be poised to follow in its footsteps after the discovery of electrolysis of titanium oxide in molten calcium chloride, analogous to the cryolite process.

IIRC the difficulty with titanium was not in the production, but rather the difficulty in machining the metal afterwards.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#106

Post by cirgue » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #81

Article is unahamedly biased and provably incorrect: > De Beers fights fake No. De Beers is fighting man made diamonds. They are no less real than mined diamonds. > De Beers to invest tens of millions of dollars on methods to identify the man-made stones that look exactly like the real thing. Man made diamonds are the real thing.

> Man made diamonds are the real thing.

Not to people who want mined diamonds. They're the real thing to you if you don't care about provenience. Not everyone feels that way.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#107

Post by intrasight » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #3

> De Beers fights fakes with technology as China’s lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems From what I understand, these gems are actually better than natural ones, since they're 100% pure. Maybe it's time to call lab-grown diamonds "real" and mined ones "fake".

I thought that De Beer had changed their approach to one of promoting the imperfections of real diamonds. And the news this week regarding "deeper" diamonds having exceedingly rare minerals embedded within could further this cause.

https://www.sciencealert.com/super-deep-diamond-contains-cal...

"Rare" still has status and therefore a price premium.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#108

Post by kalcode » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #31

Jedd wrote: post #2

> De Beers is fighting Chinese lab-grown diamonds And I hope they lose. https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls... (and HN comments on original posting 2013-03-19 -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5403988 )

If you ever want a proof that the market can be utterly irrational, look no further than: > The arrival of lab-grown diamonds has challenged the widely-held assumption that diamond prices could only go up

Feel like diamonds are such a great example for the 'a free-market' people. They typically argue that in a truly free-market everything is better.

Well diamond trade exists largely in a free market until it hits some of the countries they sell in but before that we basically have blood being spilt over them and companies existing outside of strong regulated countries to funnel the diamonds into and control the price.

A truly free-market seems very scary in a modern world.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#109

Post by adbachman » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

lawlessone wrote: post #91

pjc50 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should tell the bitcoin people.

But now we can make more diamonds :) there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin

Until the next fork! Then there will never be more than 42 million bitcoin.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#110

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #38

hyper_reality wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also highly recommend Edward Epstein's Atlantic article on this too: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo... One of the best pieces of long-form journalism ever published, without a doubt.

Why was De Beers called “The Syndicate” in Israel? Was that where they had their supervillain lair or something? Almost all of the other names are trying too hard to be inconspicuous, and then they go with “The Syndicate”?

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