[De Beers] even developed a machine that spots lab-grown stones. How does that work? They should be indistinguishable.
Lab-grown stones are more symmetrical and pure than natural stones.
De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
431–440 of 455 posts
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#432"The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones will contain a tiny Lightbox logo. De Beers said the logo won't be visible to the naked eye, but it will make the stones easily identifiable as lab-grown." So de beers will intentionally damage their synthetic diamonds. Sure I wanna buy synthetic diamonds from you guys.
An authentic natural diamond also has an identification mark.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#433tldr: 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…
Laser engraving on diamonds is old standard tech.
This is a marketing play, not a technology play.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Just wait for their counter-blow. They have enough money, resources and incentives to try to destroy man-made diamonds for at least a few more decades.
Not like they used to. De Beers used to have a monopoly on distribution, but that's been broken. You can get synthetic diamonds on Alibaba now. Some of which really are diamond.
How do you distinguish if they are real diamonds on Alibaba?
Edit: Typo
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that is true, where can I buy second-hand diamonds for a fraction of the cost? I've looked and I can't find any.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jwa?query=diamond+engage...
Hmm I cant seem to find any listings that include the colour or clarity so I assume those are all pretty low value diamonds anyway?
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#436"..it's the exact same thing." This seems like flawed logic. It's not the exact same thing. If a painter reproduces a Picasso, otherwise knows as art fraud, does it have the same value as the original? Why not? I'll leave it at that.
If you reproduce a Picasso, it's not a Picasso. But if you reproduce a Guernica , it's a Guernica . If you reproduce a diamond, it's not a de Beers, but it's still a diamond.
In the sense that they are both 'diamonds' they are the same thing. In the sense that one was created by the earth, and one was created by man, they are not the same. Just like with the painting, where it came from, its provenance, matters.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#437Interestingly 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 concept is literally as old as apple pie baked by grandma rather than in a factory.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made diamonds down to the price of Moissanite, and create a artificial distinction between natural and man made dimaonds. > Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion than diamond. SiC has a greater index of refraction, which improves the properties of total-internal-reflection as well! As…
Mineral name wise, sapphires are a type of corundum. Usually blue, sometimes green, yellow, orange, or others, depending on various metals mixed into it. But if it’s red (via chromium) it’s a ruby instead. Clear crystalline aluminum oxide you’d generally just call corundum (or aluminum oxide if you’re not feeling fancy), but that doesn’t market as well when you’re making watch faces and camera lenses out of it, so I…
Well, all non-red corundums are called "sapphire" - with qualifiers for anything that isn't blue (all those yellow and pastel colors, which are all called "fancy sapphires"), and a special exception for pinkish-orange, which are called padparadscha[1].
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
We as humans just need to be less stupid. Srsly no one cares if a stone is real or not.
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.
I agree. You wouldn't net all that much, as diamonds give really poor RoI (unless you're in the >~ 3 ct range). And divorces are expensive. Plus, if you have a daughter and she can use your wife's wedding ring in her ceremony, you'll enjoy a goodwill factor big enough to cause emotional buffer overflow.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#440"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…
Yup, exactly. The man-made diamond industry should just counter by talking up how they can make perfectly "pure" diamonds with zero imperfections in color or clarity, superior in quality to mined diamonds, and with no human lives lost. Just keep drilling that point home in all their sales and PR until it changes the dynamic. I'm sure the millennials will be receptive to that - cheap, better, not immoral.
They should introduce imperfections, and market them as real. Bad money drives out good.