Live data from Hacker News

Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

worksinprogress.co

1–10 of 511 posts

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#2
I mean, this has been true for the better part of a decade. The difference now is that jewelers caved and many offer a selection of lab diamonds. There's still a high markup on lab diamonds in most retailers though. Loose lab diamonds are incredibly cheap, only $600 per carat!

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#3
I have seen lab grown diamond being quite a bit cheaper than mined ones for a while now. As in ×2 to ×3 times cheaper even.

And yes, funnily it seems that the purer a diamond is (clear, few impurities etc) the higher its price/carat, until it is so pure that it means it is a lab grown diamond and not a natural one and the price drops

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#5
post #2

I mean, this has been true for the better part of a decade. The difference now is that jewelers caved and many offer a selection of lab diamonds. There's still a high markup on lab diamonds in most retailers though. Loose lab diamonds are incredibly cheap, only $600 per carat!

Where does one get these wholesale prices? And I assume that cutting happens at some cost over this?

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#6

I have seen lab grown diamond being quite a bit cheaper than mined ones for a while now. As in ×2 to ×3 times cheaper even. And yes, funnily it seems that the purer a diamond is (clear, few impurities etc) the higher its price/carat, until it is so pure that it means it is a lab grown diamond and not a natural one and the price drops

Veblen good.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#7
post #2

I mean, this has been true for the better part of a decade. The difference now is that jewelers caved and many offer a selection of lab diamonds. There's still a high markup on lab diamonds in most retailers though. Loose lab diamonds are incredibly cheap, only $600 per carat!

Where does one get these wholesale prices? And I assume that cutting happens at some cost over this?

Wholesale I'm not sure. Retail you can use sites like stonealgo.com to search inventory. And no that's the final cut and graded price.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#8
post #2

I mean, this has been true for the better part of a decade. The difference now is that jewelers caved and many offer a selection of lab diamonds. There's still a high markup on lab diamonds in most retailers though. Loose lab diamonds are incredibly cheap, only $600 per carat!

I was surprised by this, but the top three results for lab grown diamonds, all of them had good cut, color clarity 3+ carat (loose) diamonds for ~$1200-1400. That's very impressive given that's what a mid grade 0.75-1.0ct mined diamond cost 5-6 years ago

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#9
post #2

I mean, this has been true for the better part of a decade. The difference now is that jewelers caved and many offer a selection of lab diamonds. There's still a high markup on lab diamonds in most retailers though. Loose lab diamonds are incredibly cheap, only $600 per carat!

Where does one get these wholesale prices? And I assume that cutting happens at some cost over this?

LMGTFY

gemsny.com friendlydiamonds.com lightboxjewelry.com

I found a wide variety of 2-3ct diamonds for $1200-1400 there (round, brillant cut, the "classic" type), which is what a 0.75-1.0ct used to cost

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#10

I have seen lab grown diamond being quite a bit cheaper than mined ones for a while now. As in ×2 to ×3 times cheaper even. And yes, funnily it seems that the purer a diamond is (clear, few impurities etc) the higher its price/carat, until it is so pure that it means it is a lab grown diamond and not a natural one and the price drops

Veblen good.

The maybe overly terse parent comment is referring to this concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Post reply on HN