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De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

money.cnn.com

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Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#21

Post by on_and_off »

fgonzag wrote: post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

Well, their entire business model depends on persuading their clients that natural diamonds are a rarity and better than human-created ones. So I don't really expect them to offer a non biased view here, even though their audacity is astounding.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#22

Post by Aunche »

SilasX wrote: post #9

tldr: De Beers is going to sell synthetic diamonds, after having vowed they wouldn't. (The already did but limited the synthetic ones to industrial applications.) Price will be ~1/10th that of naturals. My reaction: "Oh, come on, this is the most insidious monopolist on the planet. What's the catch?" I think this is it: >The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones will contain a tiny…

Unless if Lightbox can make their diamonds significantly cheaper than their competitors, I don't see why anyone would choose to buy a diamond with a logo on it.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#23

Post by userbinator »

shagie wrote: post #14
ValleyOfTheMtns wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it says in the article that De Beers developed a machine to spot synthetic diamonds, so I presume so.

Its likely based on fluorescence. From https://books.google.com/books?id=WQp_rEWV2XUC&printsec=fron... > In 1891, B. Walter was the first person to observe the well known cape spectrum in natural diamonds. This series of bands associated with type Ia natural diamonds (that are usually colorless and have blue fluorescence to ultraviolet light), are usually visible in the blue to violet part of the spectrum. ... No syn…

That was 18 years ago, the synthetic diamonds today can be made to have the same impurities as natural ones and show up with the same spectrum.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#24

Post by digi_owl »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

I seem to recall that Deep Space 9 touched in this in various ways during its run. Keep in mind that it was the first series that was fully made without Roddenberry input.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#25

Post by seibelj »

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #16
godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart move. Throw enough marketing dollars at misinformation and you can convince hordes of people to doubt facts. Case in point. Despite overwhelming evidence there are people today who still debate climate change.

Or the staggering number of anti-GMO laws and business ad campaigns.

Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#26

Post by kibwen »

> "Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now," said De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver.

I'm simply speechless at the stupidity of this statement. A contender for one of the outright dumbest CEO-speak lies of the decade.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#27

Post by jseliger »

xur17 wrote: post #3

Are there any perceptible differences between these and 'natural' diamonds?

Does anyone remember the bunch of PR around Diamond Foundry? https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown... was on HN. I've seen their diamonds and they seem quite nice, from the naked eye, to me. Their direct-to-consumer company is here: https://vraiandoro.com/ and as far as I can tell, their diamonds look nice and like other diamonds, at least from the outside.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#28

Post by toomuchtodo »

fratlas wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can introduce artificial defects during the manufacturing process to subvert detection of authenticity. Source: After reading this Wired article [1] ~15 years ago, myself and two friends tried to (unsuccessfully) put VC money together to commit to large amounts of manufactured diamonds for the consumer industry. [1] https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/

What went wrong?

No one thought it was viable considering the resources of the Da Beers cartel. In hindsight, they were right.

I still have a small block of manufactured diamond I had made with impurities (as a proof of concept) in a box in my closet. With age comes wisdom.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#29

Post by SilasX »

Aunche wrote: post #22
SilasX wrote: post #9

tldr: De Beers is going to sell synthetic diamonds, after having vowed they wouldn't. (The already did but limited the synthetic ones to industrial applications.) Price will be ~1/10th that of naturals. My reaction: "Oh, come on, this is the most insidious monopolist on the planet. What's the catch?" I think this is it: >The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones will contain a tiny…

Unless if Lightbox can make their diamonds significantly cheaper than their competitors, I don't see why anyone would choose to buy a diamond with a logo on it.

De Beers has a way of monopolizing markets, so it may be difficult to find a provider of an unstamped synthetic.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#30

Post by meric »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

A gift from your Ship’s captain - it won’t be of value to anyone else but has intrinsic value for you.
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