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

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be an American phenomenon. Americans--women in demanding it, and men in acquiescing to it--are keeping this commercially confected "tradition" alive through a vanity bred and reinforced by corporate greed and consumerism. It's not that a diamond ring is bad per se. It's the artificial and frankly socially destructive stipulations around them. It's almost as if the marriage and future spouse were an afte…

Eh, people are going to people. My wife and I are American and we did not do a diamond ring (we just exchanged simple hard wood rings). In any case, what I really object to is your assertion that women "demand" it and men "acquiesce" to their demands. In most cases people just figure its the tradition and its fun and frankly, if I were a woman, I wouldn't say no to a costly sign of commitment if the dude wanted to do…

> In any case, what I really object to is your assertion that women "demand" it and men "acquiesce" to their demands.

You may not be in the target audience of his comment.

Of course, he is stereotyping and generalizing, but my anecdote matches his comment. I still know plenty of people who go by the N months rule: https://www.theknot.com/content/spending-three-months-salary...

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

#132

That's a good article. The whole history is there. The commercial side has made huge progress, too. Look up "diamond making machine" on Alibaba. You can buy a high-pressure, high temperature six sided press for about US$200,000. A chemical vapor deposition machine is about the same price. De Beers, the diamond cartel, has an R&D operation, Element Six. They sell synthetic diamonds for lasers and other exotic applicat…

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

#133
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.

It's based on supply and demand. In 2012, when I was shopping for an engagement ring, a natural 2ct diamond cost $250,000. (I bought a 2ct moissanite for much, much less, and my wife is very happy with it.) When I looked in fall 2023, a natural 2ct diamond cost $20,000. That's a loss of over 90% of value, not counting inflation! (Now the supply of diamonds is much higher, and the demand for natural diamonds is much l…

Quick note that a very nice 2ct stone has never cost $200,000. Not sure who was trying to charge you that much in 2012 or why, but gem diamond prices haven't changed much in the past 30 years, although there was an uptick in the covid/inflationary years, and a reversion to trend more recently.

https://www.pricescope.com/diamond-prices/diamond-prices-cha...

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

#134
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do ring vendors put a higher markup on gold than platinum?

The price of gold is through the roof. Gold is ~$2500 per oz, while platinum is $950 per oz. However, most gold is 14kt (58%) or 18kt (75%) while Platinum is 90%+. That, and platinum is a heavier (technically denser is more correct?) metal, so there is more platinum in an equivalent ring, and it weighs more. The actual price on finished jewelry isn't as big as you would think. However, "retail" jewelry stores often p…

Jewelry stores will also come up with endless nonsense to justify high prices such as Platinum is so much harder to work with, etc.

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

#135

Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion in cheap lab diamond and moissanite producers in China and India. 10 years ago, it was hard to find quality lab diamonds at a reasonable price, and moissanite was still reasonably expensive at $400-600/ct. Today, given cutthroat competition and "race to the bottom" pricing strategies, lab diamonds are ubiquitous, extremely high quality, and cheap. Less than $200/ct…

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.

> The natural ones will keep their price

But they haven't.

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

#136
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BTW, there is no such thing as an artificial diamond. A manufactured diamond is 100% diamond What do you believe the distinction between artificial and manufactured is? As far as I'm aware, they're almost synonyms. Dictionaries literally list "man made" as one of the definitions of artificial.

A man-made television isn't an artificial television; a man-made taco isn't an artificial taco. Man-made beef and artificial beef are both the same thing: a not-beef beef substitute. Beef is by definition cow-made. Man-made diamonds are just diamonds.

Last I heard from the forefront of geology and ecology, "natural" televisions and tacos have yet to be found.

So I don't think the distinction is best analyzed with examples like that.

If something is normally created and nature, and humans find a way to reproduce it, it is common to call the human produced versions artificial even if the result is identical in principle.

Humans make lots of distinctions that fall apart if we get too pedantic, but have useful casual, cultural, or practical associations and meanings.

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

#138
I started looking into diamonds two years before I proposed to my now wife and went really down the rabbit hole of the chemistry, history, and marketing behind diamonds.

Lab-made was a no brainer, I got a flawless and huge stone for the price I would have paid for a crappy 1ct from DeBeers. My only regret is that whatever I paid for the diamond will still be way over-market in a few years but well, had to get married at some point. I guess I'll get her a golf-ball-sized diamond for our 10th anniversary.

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

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a whole sub-industry of putting fake mosquitoes into fake amber.

As long as the mosquitos contain real dinosaur blood, it's all good.

"We spared no expense!"

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

#140
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diamond files on Amazon for under $10 Link? I'm skeptical. It seems more likely someone is abusing the term "diamond", no?

Diamonds are just dirt cheap. You can buy a set of ten diamond needle files for $8 on Amazon, or less than $2 in wholesale quantities. I have hundreds of grams of diamond in my workshop in the form of lapping compound; if you're so inclined, you could buy half a kilo of loose diamonds for a couple of hundred bucks. A wide range of very ordinary cutting tools are now tipped with big chunks of polycrystalline diamond -…

I bought that exact set of red-dipped-handled cheapo rifflers 19 years ago (2005, I remember I was still at school, and I think they came from Maplins, possibly Rapid). They were cheap then too, probably about the same numerical price, perhaps £10 with the Maplins tax, and AliExpress shipping was just a gleam in Jack Ma's eye. Industrial-grade diamond dust has been pretty cheap for a long time.
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