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

191–200 of 270 posts

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

#191

Post by javajosh »

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…

Sorry to be negative, but I think the conventions around marriage needs to be redone alongside all the other changes around marriage. To wit, the ability of a woman to divorce you and receive alimony and child support for basically the rest of her life. It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. Roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce; 50% of those are high conflict. When you buy a ring and give it to her, this will not factor into that judgement. You can pay for everything and the only thing the judge will look at is your incomes. Be smart and split everything down the middle, including the ring.

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

#192

Post by kemayo »

javajosh wrote: post #191
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…

Sorry to be negative, but I think the conventions around marriage needs to be redone alongside all the other changes around marriage. To wit, the ability of a woman to divorce you and receive alimony and child support for basically the rest of her life. It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. Roughly 50% of marriages end i…

> It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible.

I mean, assuming that you like your spouse, it's a perfectly rational decision to stay with them despite it being possible to make money by leaving them. It's economics-paper level sociopathy to suggest that "I could maximize my personal income by divorcing the person I love" is an action to be taken.

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

#193

Post by fallingknife »

solardev wrote: post #185
rcme wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea lab grown diamonds are insanely cheap. You can buy them on Alibaba. A 3 carat, D VVS1 with an excellent cut is $3K.

Why does it still cost so much?

Diamond is not the energetically favorable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, so to manufacturer there will always need to be expensive tricks. Not as expensive as digging out tons of kimberlite, but still not cheap.

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

mortureb wrote: post #175
OJFord wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by jiggawatts »

wrsh07 wrote: post #180
downWidOutaFite wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

This was written in 2002 and includes a warning to Sun about Java commoditising hardware: “When the music stops, where are you going to sit down?”

That was… prescient.

Oracle acquired Sun in 2009-2010 and notably Oracle is a software company that benefits from the commoditisation of hardware, unlike Sun.

Java byte code portability is great for Oracle, but was a strategic mistake for Sun.

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

#197

Post by [deleted] »

sublinear wrote: post #99
threadweaver34 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a single guy, I'm checking the ladies' hands for rings all the time.

My experience has been that you just don't see people wearing wedding bands all that often anymore. They're inconvenient and unfashionable. Marriage is as unpopular as ever and only the most conservative areas actually care about marital status.

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by kemayo »

solardev wrote: post #185
rcme wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea lab grown diamonds are insanely cheap. You can buy them on Alibaba. A 3 carat, D VVS1 with an excellent cut is $3K.

Why does it still cost so much?

A 3 karat diamond is still a crystal (approximately) the size of your pinkie nail that takes a fairly large energy input to create... and only the ones that've grown clear and without flaws are viable for jewelry purposes. The bigger it gets, the lower the yields are at the appropriate quality level, and so the more effort / waste is involved in getting one. (As opposed to industrial diamond uses, which mostly don't have those requirements and so have their price even more heavily impacted by synthetics.)

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

#199

Post by joshbaptiste »

javajosh wrote: post #191
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…

Sorry to be negative, but I think the conventions around marriage needs to be redone alongside all the other changes around marriage. To wit, the ability of a woman to divorce you and receive alimony and child support for basically the rest of her life. It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. Roughly 50% of marriages end i…

Get a pre-nup and most of that is handled.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia-9wWl2PoY

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

#200

Post by bluedevil2k »

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…

Sources to any of these wild (and grossly outdated) claims?

> Most diamonds are mined under exploitative conditions

You’ve clearly never been to a diamond mine. More than 70% of diamonds come out of “modern” countries like Australia, Canada, Russia, and South Africa. Botswana used their diamond bounty to teach hundreds of their citizens to grade/cut/polish the very stones mined in the country, ensuring tons of high skill jobs.

> the owners are almost without exception "blood on their hands" people

Well you’re only right on a loophole on this one - the Russian government owns the company that produces 40% of the world’s diamonds and it would be tough to argue Putin is blood-free.

Post reply on HN