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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

#281

Post by jiri »

artellectual wrote: post #232

My wife and I got married without buying a diamond ring. I simply refused to spend money in things that are overvalued by the market because some marketing scheme was so strong that it made facts look silly. I told her that I refuse to spend money on things that cause other people pain. Especially when there is no guarantee that the diamond we buy are not blood diamond. Instead we invested our money in buying things…

The historical purpose of an engagement ring/gift was to demonstrate your serious interest and your intentions. Via spending money for her that cannot be taken back. Unfortunatelly, diamonds fit this quite nicely.

Actually, the best way to demonstrate it is via these rules:

(1) you have to get something that is very hard to get (more money than you normally have),

(2) something that has no use for you (you want to convince her, it wouldn't be convincing if you benefitted from spending)

(3) and preferrably it is not monetizable for recipient (in general, woman is much less motivated to tricking you only because of gift)

So, if she's already convinced to merry you, spending fortune for diamond ring is futile. And if you are in hurry, you can really just burn some money to ash in front of her, it would do the same :) Nonetheless, not as fancy as diamond ring for her :D

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#282

Post by himom »

tempestn wrote: post #240
test6554 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is "trying" to be less stupid. But selling my wife's diamond rings and buying cubic zirconia replicas at this point feels like a very stupid move even though I know I will net a bunch of money up front, I hear divorces are very expensive.

For our second anniversary I got my wife a Moissanite stone to replace the relatively poor (I1) diamond in her engagement ring. It's larger, much more flawless, more attractive all around, and cheaper. She's happier having a beautiful stone without me wasting a bunch of our money on a diamond. (Wouldn't have bought the diamond in the first place, but it came with the ring, which we both loved.)

Even though most jewelry and gems are seldom capital-efficient investments, moissanites likely retain more value as a percentage of retail purchase price than do diamonds. The main reason diamonds are expensive is demand, manufactured by shrewd marketing by De Beer’s since 1938. It could’ve been opals or rubies chosen to represent “what every bride should have.”

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#283

Post by Sean1708 »

nradov wrote: post #183
ISL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real. Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion tha…

Never mind about jewelry and fashion. Cheap synthetic diamonds would open up a host of industrial applications. Bring on "The Diamond Age".

> De Beers has produced synthetic diamonds for years through a subsidiary called Element Six, but it has limited their use to industrial applications.

Considering this, I don't think this is going to bring about the Diamond Age unfortunately.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#284

Post by gonvaled »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #249
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…

>"If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value?" The raw materials themselves, I think. After all, you have to supply the basic building blocks to replicate objects. That's why there is the feed in The Diamond Age, bringing the raw materials, plus vacuum and power. Until you can artificially create heavy elements, their rarity will determine their value. >"If you can re…

> The raw materials themselves, I think. After all, you have to supply the basic building blocks to replicate objects. That's why there is the feed in The Diamond Age, bringing the raw materials, plus vacuum and power.

In the True Synthetic Era, the only input needed is energy, which can be cheaply collected from natural sources until they are exhausted.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#285

Post by Borealid »

oblio wrote: post #278
ISL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real. Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion tha…

> Platinum is a boring metal, visually, difficult to distinguish by eye from steels, aluminum, and titanium. Platinum has very low reactivity so it doesn't rust, corrode, whatever easy, unlike the others. That's why it's considered valuable, because it looks almost the same after a lot of time.

Anodized aluminum and titanium don't rust - and if by whatever means you DO allow them to oxidize, the oxygen-bound outer layer forms a protective barrier against further rusting.

Neither of those metals becomes structurally weaker in any meaningful way over time due to oxygen exposure.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#286

Post by gonvaled »

dbasedweeb wrote: post #165
acchow wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they hoard all the laboratories? This isn't a repeat of the early 20th century. It is way easier to make a lab than to find a new diamond mine.

It’s even easier for DeBeers to crush that lab, or buy it up and shut it down.

Every time they buy one lab and crush it down, they are losing money. The amount they lose depends on two things:

1 - how much profit the lab owners are making (otherwise, why sell it to DeBeers)

2 - how many labs per year they need to buy

The possible scenarios here are complex. Let's explore one:

"It is cheap to create a new Laboratory, production of artificial diamonds (identical to natural ones) is cheap, and they produce handsome profits because the competing (indistinguishable) product (natural ones) is very expensive"

DeBeers will have a hard time buying all the laboratories popping-up all over the world, while at the same time the price of diamonds starts to drop because of the arrival of these cheap, indistinguishable alternatives.

DeBeers will bleed to death pretty quickly in this scenario.

Please note that we assume here several points:

- artificial diamonds are really indistinguishable

- there is no barrier to creating and producing artificial diamonds, other than the usual business barriers that other industries have (investment, IP, ...)

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#287

Post by KozmoNau7 »

gonvaled wrote: post #284
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value?" The raw materials themselves, I think. After all, you have to supply the basic building blocks to replicate objects. That's why there is the feed in The Diamond Age, bringing the raw materials, plus vacuum and power. Until you can artificially create heavy elements, their rarity will determine their value. >"If you can re…

> The raw materials themselves, I think. After all, you have to supply the basic building blocks to replicate objects. That's why there is the feed in The Diamond Age, bringing the raw materials, plus vacuum and power. In the True Synthetic Era, the only input needed is energy, which can be cheaply collected from natural sources until they are exhausted.

That is the ideal, but it will also require absolutely ridiculous amounts of energy to synthesize heavier elements.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#288

Post by martin-adams »

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…

The problem is that value for the unseeable differences is simply a human idea. Why would the paint arranged on a canvas by a famous artist have more value than the same paint arranged on the same canvas by myself?

Value comes in the appreciation of the art. So diamonds that have been created over billions of years probably has more appreciation than ones created in 500 hours, even if they are exactly the same at the molecular level.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#289

Post by nailer »

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…

> affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever...

...is also a lie. The man made diamonds will last just as long (or longer, as they're generally more perfect) than mined diamonds.

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