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

Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–89 of 89 posts

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#81

Post by protomyth »

cromulent wrote: post #62
w00pla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The article should maybe deal in depth with the start of De Beers. De Beers was basically formed by an English colonialist (Cecil John Rhodes). He controlled a company which basically owned a country ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Company ). He also had his own private army and tried to overthrow a sovereign government ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameson_Raid ).

Rhodesia was named for him. He also set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which enabled people like Bill Clinton and Bob Hawke to go to Oxford.

the end does not justify the means

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#82

Post by matwood »

steve19 wrote: post #17
paulgerhardt wrote: post #11

Relevant article on the synthetic diamond trade from Wired last year: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html edit: oops I mean 2003; 11.09 was the issue number

Does anybody know where I could buy a synthetic clear diamond?

You could always check out moissanite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite

Someone would have to really study the ring to realize it wasn't diamond.

Plus it first came from meteorites which puts it high on the geek scale ;)

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#83

Post by jedberg »

Jeema3000 wrote: post #69

If it were the other way around: if women had to buy something in order to gain a man's affection and commitment, it would be considered a servile and sexist tradition. Yet somehow the tradition of men buying expensive engagement rings for women survives. I say the heck with that. If she gets an expensive ring, then I want an expensive ring too. Equal rights! :)

I bought her a ring and then she bought me a TV and surround sound system. I get a hot tub later. Then we'll be about even. :)

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#84

Post by Rod »

pbiggar wrote: post #34
steve19 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody know where I could buy a synthetic clear diamond?

They don't come any larger than 0.3 karats, which is too small for a solitaire. You can't get them to match either, which makes them bad for side stones. I tried. A good alternative is Canadian diamonds, which are not owned by DeBeers, not mined or polished by slaves, and not the cause of any conflict. That solves about half the problems with diamonds. Get them from Brilliant Earth (I'm not employed there, just a ver…

LifeGem sells synthetic diamonds in the .20 to .99 carat range. Either your claim is wrong, or LifeGem are crooks,

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#85

Post by Dove »

nitrogen wrote: post #77
Dove wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These guys were able to procure some to make dice. You might start by sending them a note and/or following up on the source they mention. http://crystalcaste.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Sto...

The banner at the top of the site boasts about winning a lawsuit to prevent someone else (Hasbro) from creating similarly-shaped dice, but the shapes look like they would have ancient origins. Not exactly my kind of company.

Heh. Well, I'm not suggesting he work for them. Just that they may know something about how to procure meteorites. To by knowledge, it's not a big company, so they might be friendly.

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#86

Post by EEFranklin »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #11

Relevant article on the synthetic diamond trade from Wired last year: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html edit: oops I mean 2003; 11.09 was the issue number

That's an old article. Gemesis still just makes orange-yellows. Apollo makes white around .5ct. D.NEA has yellows, blue to 1.3ct and white to 1ct.

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#87

Post by cromulent »

w00pla wrote: post #79
cromulent wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rhodesia was named for him. He also set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which enabled people like Bill Clinton and Bob Hawke to go to Oxford.

Just because he set up a scholarship in his name doesn't make the things he did any better. One of the aims of the Rhodes scholarship is Anglicization. A person who did not study in English cannot apply (even though he is fluent). Until recently they also excluded women. In any cases, the legacy of Rhodes is despicable - even if he left behind a scholarship program. His creation of the state of Zimbabwe (with two dif…

"Just because he set up a scholarship in his name doesn't make the things he did any better."

I don't think I was suggesting that it did.

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#88

Post by pbiggar »

Rod wrote: post #84
pbiggar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't come any larger than 0.3 karats, which is too small for a solitaire. You can't get them to match either, which makes them bad for side stones. I tried. A good alternative is Canadian diamonds, which are not owned by DeBeers, not mined or polished by slaves, and not the cause of any conflict. That solves about half the problems with diamonds. Get them from Brilliant Earth (I'm not employed there, just a ver…

LifeGem sells synthetic diamonds in the .20 to .99 carat range. Either your claim is wrong, or LifeGem are crooks,

It must be my claim which is wrong. I was recounting what a sales person told me. It might instead be that they don't supply them, or might just have been an outright lie.

That said, a one karat stone is no good as a solitaire (the book from the article above talks about this: one karat stones all go into eternity rings, which were invented by debeers due to a massive oversupply of Russian one karat stones. Actually, the book implies that these stones may have been lab stones, as no-one knew where the Russians got so many one karat stones from.)

Re: Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?

#89

Post by CulturalNgineer »

The lesson here is how co-ordinated messaging (propaganda) can continually shape and re-shape broad cultural memes no matter how stupid the memes are.

While in the case of diamonds it's a matter of wasting money, encouraging inane consumerism and odious environmental practices for the sake of a few wealthy oligarchs...

When the same thing happens in politics...

It encourages meaningless consumerism and odious environmental practices for the sake of a few wealthy oligarchs.

The Lesson: Distrust messages from oligarchs.

Post reply on HN