Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 270 posts

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#171

Post by freetime2 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #126
thaumasiotes wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice from a freezer is extremely impure. If it was pure, you could see right through it, the same way you can with a pure diamond. (The freezer, of course, has nothing to do with this - it's the water you're putting into it that's impure.)

No, being able to see through it has nothing to do with water purity (unless your water is so muddy that it's not clear even as a liquid), it's to do with the formation of the ice and the incorporation of air bubbles. You can make clear ice pretty easily with molds.

I did a bit of Googling and pretty much every article on the subject of clear ice includes impurities other than air:

> The most common impurities found in tap water include lime (also known as limescale), calcium, fluoride, nitrates, magnesium and certain other organic elements that are practically impossible to remove with regular filtration methods. So, when water freezes, the impurities that were evenly distributed in the water, tend to congregate near the middle, making ice cubes the whitest at their center. [1]

> But the reality is, most of the “impurities” found in your freezer ice cube are more likely nothing more than the minerals present in your tap water. Tap water commonly contains minerals such as: Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium [2]

Do you have a citation to back up the claim that it's only air bubbles?

[1] https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/why-are-some-ice-cubes...

[2] https://blockice.com/blog/whats-the-science-behind-clear-ice...

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#172

Post by motohagiography »

One of the scandals post 2008 crash was how bankers in Switzerland would use diamonds packed into tubes of toothpaste to spirit millions of dollars out of various countries.

Diamonds were essentially a shadow banking system, with analogies to the way crypto exchanges work today. You put cash in to get a tiny portable stone that you could exchange for cash or deposits anywhere else in the world, and you could reliably transfer massive amounts of capital around without records. Simultaneously diamonds made wealth both highly visible, and completely invisible when they disappeared. No public ledger either.

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#173

Post by meinmissoula »

typest wrote: post #104

I just got engaged. When we looked at rings, the jeweler asked my fiancé if she wanted natural or synthetic, and she responded “I don’t want a blood diamond!!” Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier. The jeweler told me that one reason to get a natural diamond was that the prices of lab grown diamonds had been falling, whereas natural hasn’t as much, so…

> Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier

For all intents and purposes, they are. The voluntary processes the diamond cartels adopted to supposedly reduce diamonds coming out of "conflict areas" are a joke. Most diamonds are mined under exploitive conditions, often with severe ecological impact, and the owners are almost without exception "blood on their hands" people even if one particular mine operates more ethically.

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#174

Post by nwienert »

nelgaard wrote: post #87
londons_explore wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> effectively worthless the moment they leave the store I hear this a lot... But where can I buy a massive diamond 2nd hand for a few bucks?

Not a few bucks, but for 10 percent of the valuation/retail price: https://www.konkurser.dk/search/?s=diamant It is in Danish, but it is bankruptcy auctions, the high price is the valuation (typically the retail price before bankruptcy), the low price is the final highest bid, all in DKK.

These are mostly very small and not the colors you'd want, are there other places? Otherwise don't really consider this as proof you can source diamonds cheap (would love to know if so where).

Edit: searched and found about 25 places, none of them have much inventory, most are lower quality (or incredibly expensive), many are in-person only with no real pictures you can see, closest I can find is https://www.catawiki.com but still for the type/size I've been looking for there's really only two options and both are lower grade.

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#175

Post by mortureb »

OJFord wrote: post #143
mortureb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s something women show off precisely as a signal of how much it cost. It has only so much to do with its aesthetic beauty.

What is? The certificate? Because otherwise you wouldn't know. For the same value of 'how much it cost', a lab-grown diamond (we're not talking about other non-diamond synthetics) will look better (clearer, fewer flaws) and/or be bigger. If you want to show it off on your finger, you want lab-grown.

Sure you can just lie about it but most people don’t. This isn’t about when people look at it but for the follow up conversation where you mention “its natural and x carats.”

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#176

Post by Buttons840 »

meinmissoula wrote: post #173
typest wrote: post #104

I just got engaged. When we looked at rings, the jeweler asked my fiancé if she wanted natural or synthetic, and she responded “I don’t want a blood diamond!!” Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier. The jeweler told me that one reason to get a natural diamond was that the prices of lab grown diamonds had been falling, whereas natural hasn’t as much, so…

> Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier For all intents and purposes, they are. The voluntary processes the diamond cartels adopted to supposedly reduce diamonds coming out of "conflict areas" are a joke. Most diamonds are mined under exploitive conditions, often with severe ecological impact, and the owners are almost without exception "blood on their…

Plus, that one ethical mine plays the market game, limits supply, and thus helps keep the unethical mines running.

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#177

Post by Sai_ »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #83
paxys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally find the decision to buy lab grown diamonds to be weirder, because if you are already thinking logically rather than emotionally and can resist the social pressure then why waste money on a diamond at all? There are plenty of gems or metals out there that are cheaper, prettier, more rare and hold their value better than diamonds (whether natural or lab grown).

If you like the shininess of diamonds, they're really hard to beat on the "pretty" front. Diamonds have a crazy internal refractive index, which, once exemplified by an appropriate cut, gives them a pretty unique shininess. The only gems that come close are substantially softer, meaning they lose they lose the precise cuts that give them the extra shimmer relatively quickly. Don't enrich Russia by buying mined diamon…

> exemplified

Amplified?

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#178

Post by mirnoc »

paxys wrote: post #50
slashdev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pitched this to my wife a few years back. She insisted she’d rather have a smaller natural diamond. It makes no sense to me. Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me. There’s no real logic in it. But given it’s a status symbol that derives its value from its rareness, I suppose it’s no different than a Luis Vutton or a Rolex. It’s not about the function, it’s about the fact that you can afford one. I hate that mentality,…

I personally find the decision to buy lab grown diamonds to be weirder, because if you are already thinking logically rather than emotionally and can resist the social pressure then why waste money on a diamond at all? There are plenty of gems or metals out there that are cheaper, prettier, more rare and hold their value better than diamonds (whether natural or lab grown).

Logically, it's literally the hardest gemstone around and it also happens to look very pretty. I personally love the look of Emeralds and Opals, but they are so delicate that they would not stand up to daily wear and tear. Diamonds? You can abuse the hell out of it and it will look as nice as the day you bought it.

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#179

Post by lelandbatey »

freetime2 wrote: post #171
satvikpendem wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, being able to see through it has nothing to do with water purity (unless your water is so muddy that it's not clear even as a liquid), it's to do with the formation of the ice and the incorporation of air bubbles. You can make clear ice pretty easily with molds.

I did a bit of Googling and pretty much every article on the subject of clear ice includes impurities other than air: > The most common impurities found in tap water include lime (also known as limescale), calcium, fluoride, nitrates, magnesium and certain other organic elements that are practically impossible to remove with regular filtration methods. So, when water freezes, the impurities that were evenly distribut…

There are other impurities than air, but they don't contribute making the ice cloudy. The only thing making ice cloudy is the bubbles. And you can verify it experimentally in your own freezer just by using a different freezing technique to create perfectly clear ice: https://youtu.be/E1G1I1LJjrI

Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market

#180

Post by wrsh07 »

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #134
typest wrote: post #104

I just got engaged. When we looked at rings, the jeweler asked my fiancé if she wanted natural or synthetic, and she responded “I don’t want a blood diamond!!” Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier. The jeweler told me that one reason to get a natural diamond was that the prices of lab grown diamonds had been falling, whereas natural hasn’t as much, so…

Interesting that your salesperson used the same line as DeBeers does at the end of the article about lab diamonds being too cheap. It must be a sales talking point that comes from on top. It's seems crazy that Debeers is actually trying to drive lab prices down to make them seem too cheap for bridal use. Their strategy is to try to retain the higher-end luxury market while giving up the more mainstream market where t…

Strategy letter five says to commodify your complements, not substitutable goods

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

Post reply on HN