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

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

worksinprogress.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 511 posts

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

#81

Post by crazygringo »

rowanG077 wrote: post #72
Joker_vD wrote: post #49

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.

Why? Natural diamonds are the inferior product in every way.

For the same reason you can make a print of a classic painting, and digitally brighten and re-saturate the colors to counteract the darkening and yellowing of the original with age. Remove all of the cracking too.

And you'll still only be able to sell the print for tens of dollars, while the original is worth millions.

People attach value to authenticity and originals and tradition, however they define that.

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

#82

Post by HPsquared »

jalk wrote: post #36
fortran77 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need diamonds to play my records! What do you think a record stylus ("needle") is made from?

Worthless (as in low monetary value) doesn't mean useless.

Funnily enough this concept is literally called the "diamond-water paradox".

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

#83

Post by andruby »

noname120 wrote: post #44
DabbyDabberson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most people taking this strategy that I know use platinum instead of gold. Most engagement rings only have ~~~$200 worth of gold on them.

Gold is more expensive than platinum.

Indeed, since 2016. Before 2016 platinum was worth more than gold, even double for a brief period in 2008.

Now gold is worth 2.5x what platinum is worth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2541/platinum-prices-vs-gold-pri...

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

#84

Post by kaashif »

gwbas1c wrote: post #58
Joker_vD wrote: post #49

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…

> 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.

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

#85

Post by spondylosaurus »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #61
spondylosaurus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also curious about this. Especially since natural rubies and natural sapphires are the same type of gemstone, just in different colors. It sounds like the synthetic equivalents might not be similar at all!

The synthetic equivalents have to be similar, because they're the same thing as the natural stones, and the natural stones are similar. A ruby is corundum with chromium coloring it; a sapphire is corundum with (most typically) iron coloring it. Iron isn't rare, so either it affects the process used to make rubies, or there's no real reason for the price gap.

"No real" reason wouldn't shock me. Not a gemstone expert so I can't say, but if natural sapphires are more expensive/in higher demand than natural rubies (despite both being corundum) then it makes sense for that demand to map onto their synthetic counterparts. But with the synthetic stones, it's more obvious how arbitrary that demand/price difference is.

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

#86

Post by notfed »

godelski wrote: post #65
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #11

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…

Diamonds have lots of uses beyond being pretty. I have to bring this up because a lot of people are talking as if this is the entirety of the reason for their decrease. But there's diamond files, diamond cutting blades/wheels/drills, you can make glass from it (really only used in labs that absolutely need them because the price), and many more uses. Many of these don't care about size, quality, or clarity. So instea…

> diamond files on Amazon for under $10

Link? I'm skeptical. It seems more likely someone is abusing the term "diamond", no?

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

#87

Post by notfed »

crazygringo wrote: post #81
rowanG077 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Natural diamonds are the inferior product in every way.

For the same reason you can make a print of a classic painting, and digitally brighten and re-saturate the colors to counteract the darkening and yellowing of the original with age. Remove all of the cracking too. And you'll still only be able to sell the print for tens of dollars, while the original is worth millions. People attach value to authenticity and originals and tradition, however they define that.

It sounds like some people want to pay more money. Good for them. I'm happy to have a cheaper option.

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

#88

Post by andoando »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #27

I'm planning on buying an engagement ring very soon and my own plan (as someone who has never done this before!) is to get a good lab grown diamond but spend more money on the metal in the ring. You can make a gem stone in a lab but until we become a Kardashev II civilization we won't be making any sufficient quantity of gold in a lab. If I buy a good loose lab grown diamond will I be able to find someone who will fi…

Yes pretty much any jeweler will be able to custom make a ring for you. I imagine its how the majority of engagement rings are sold, theres way too much variability in the stone and ring/setting people want for jewlers to only sell premade rings.

Also theres not much to a high quality ring and not much for you to spend money on there.

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

#89

Post by vundercind »

physicsguy wrote: post #69

They're cheaper but they're not cheap and that's part of the issue... I remember looking at engagement rings about 5 years ago, my now wife is quite environmentally conscious. At the time it was like ~£1200 for a diamond one and £800 for a synthetic one.

I looked a few years back after reading a bunch about how synthetics were cheaper in discussions like this. I did not find it to be notably true then. There was barely a discount for synthetic at all, the places I checked.

Ended up with moissanite, which was significantly cheaper than diamond, but still not, like, cheap if you care about it looking as diamond-like as possible, though I probably could have done as well with diamond buying “used” if I’d had the patience for it and more knowledge to be more confident I wasn’t getting scammed.

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

#90

Post by timerol »

physicsguy wrote: post #69

They're cheaper but they're not cheap and that's part of the issue... I remember looking at engagement rings about 5 years ago, my now wife is quite environmentally conscious. At the time it was like ~£1200 for a diamond one and £800 for a synthetic one.

5 years has made a large difference in prices, as shown in this graph quoted in TFA: https://www.paulzimnisky.com/Price-Evolution-of-Lab-grown-Di...

Assuming you mean "late 2018" by "about 5 years ago" (because that's where the graph has a 1.5:1 ratio), that $1200/$800 diamond was probably about 0.2 carat (obviously depends on the other Cs), and would likely be around $1200/$300 today.

Post reply on HN