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Lab Created Diamonds Come to Market
E writes "Technology is putting some new sparkle in the world of diamonds. Until recently, naturally occurring, mined diamonds were unchallenged in their quality and desirability. But now laboratory-created diamonds, which possess the same properties as naturals, are poised to give them a run for their money. A new company, Adia Diamonds, has quite the variety in their inventory. They have the same chemical and physical properties as a mined diamond and come in white, blue and yellow. Both GIA and EGL grading labs are offering certifications for lab created diamonds. Seems like a good, high-tech alternative to the DeBeers diamond cartel."
Lab manufactured diamonds is an interesting concept, but if DeBeers gets its metaphorical finger in machine, it will ensure these diamonds either never get manufactured, or if they are manufactured never hit the marketplace with the name "diamond". The DeBeers monopoly is too dear and too powerful for disruption like this.
You can argue the "blood diamond" political aspects of the diamond mining industry, but even tossing that aside DeBeers' behavior and domination and control of the diamond industry transcends any other monopoly. There's a reason DeBeers isn't a U.S. company (among many others...), DeBeers' monopolistic practices and domination and heavy handed control of the diamond market would not likely pass legal muster in the U.S.
If you ever get a chance (/. "girlfriend" jokes aside), buy the lab diamonds, or buy your to-be a genuinely rare gem such as a Ruby (diamonds are not rare).
The sooner the myth that is diamonds is de-mythed, the better. Read more about diamond myths here.
Wired had a great article on the subject of synthetic diamonds a few years ago. An excerpt:
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Wired did a much more in depth article on this subject a couple years ago.
One thing to keep in mind is that saying the lab-created diamonds possess the same qualities as natural diamonds is a little misleading. They are certainly diamonds, in that they are the same type of crystal form of carbon, but they *are* distinguishable from natural diamonds.
What I find very interesting is just how expensive and advanced equipment needs to be to tell the difference, and how much Debeers is shelling out to ensure that the biggest diamond testing labs have that equipment. Check out the linked article for more on that.
If you want to do something about challenging the DeBeers cartel and their questionable business practices, check out Canadian Diamonds, also here and here.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
He also told me how to tell an artificial pearl from a real one -- the real one, he said, will dissolve in vinegar. Strange sense of humor he had.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
* mass spectrometry might do it by detecting certain trace elements, but in the end all diamonds are nothing more than tetrahedrally bonded carbon.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Ding!. The DeBeers cartel has over a 400 yrs supply of diamond stock. If artificial diamond tech takes off and they can't get a stranglehold, that stock becomes essentially worthless.
It's not clear from the Adia diamonds whether these are grown like semiconductor wafers or made in high-pressure presses. Gemesys has a Florida plant making gemstones in high-pressure presses. They finally caved in to deBeers and laser-engraves their stones with some ID information. The FTC caved in to the diamond industry and insists they be called "cultured diamonds". They're distinguishable from natural diamonds by their absorbtion spectrum, and deBeers has a tester for this
Grown synthetics were still experimental when Wired wrote their article, but that's the more promising process. Those, in theory, can be indistinguishable from natural ones.
The diamond industry had painted itself into a corner with the concept that the most valuable diamonds are "flawless". You do not want to be in that marketing position when going up against the technology that makes semiconductor wafers. Look for PR about how real diamonds have "natural flaws".
Tied to this is the "Kimberly Process", the agreement supposedly intended to restrict the flow of conflict diamonds. This requires source documentation to travel along with diamonds as they pass through the distribution chain. Previously, diamonds were generic; nobody cared where they came from. The Kimberly Process has the effect of making it much harder to insert large quantities of synthetic diamonds into the distribution system.
Incidentally, most industrial diamonds have been synthetic for years. Annual synthetic production is around 600 metric tons, most of it in the form of abrasive grits for cutting wheels and such. When you need to cut a slot in concrete pavement, you use a diamond cutting wheel.
Artificial diamonds now have of these impurities added, just so that they can be indistinguishable (except for some trace elements, as mentioned). There is no jeweler that could tell them apart - and de beers has resorted to putting id tags on their diamonds for this very reason.
I think it was David Friedman who claimed that the ritual serves an even more specific purpose.
A lifetime ago, the ideal was that a "good" girl would wait until marriage, but in practice many women with normal libidos compromised on waiting until engagement. This led (duh) to guys proposing in order to get laid and then for some reason changing their mind about actually getting married. Laws were actually passed to protect women against having sex with dishonest people.
The ring, then, he argues, was a nonrefundable deposit to provide some evidence that the guy would actually go through with the marriage.
10 Reasons never to accept a diamond, published in The Economist.
And then of course, the classic Atlantic article about the DeBeers Diamond cartel, and how the manufacture need.
If diamonds are so special, how come they're 20x more common than sapphires but come at such a high premium?
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
You can also tell real pearls from fake ones by rubbing them against your teeth. The real ones feel grainy (like sand) and the fake ones are smooth. I'm a big fan of pearls, and the thought of them dissolving in vinegar makes my skin crawl.
the story of the most successful marketing campaign in history
Right you are.. and here's the book to prove it:
The Diamond Invention
Actually that tester tests the thermal conductivity of the stone. Cubic Zirconia is virtually indistinguishable from diamond. A really well trained gemologist can tell the difference some of the time, but not the people who work in jewelry stores.
OTOH, diamond has a very high thermal conductivity and cubic zirconia does not. When CZ first hit the market, jewelers really flipped out, because people could buy diamond rings, replace the diamond with CZ, and then return the ring with the CZ for full price. At first, the only surefire test was to measure the density, but that required removing the stone from the setting, something that takes some time. The company that created CZ then also produced a tester which at its tip had a small heater and a temperature probe a little ways away. If you touch the tip to a diamond, heat will transfer from the heater to the probe, whereas with a CZ, it will not. The company made more money off the patent for the detector than they ever did off CZ.
Of note, a few years back, a new lab-created diamond alternative hit the market: Moissanite. It is a form of silicon carbide, and it actually has a higher index of refraction than diamond (it sparkles more). It also has a high thermal conductivity, so it would fool the old testers. Moissanite is easier to distinguish from diamond under a loupe, however. It is birefringent.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.