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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."
The article hints more at the new synthetic process' value for jewelry, but I'm not so certain that most jewelers will appreciate it -- especially the jewelers that cater to the most extravagent tastes. Diamonds have always been an oddity for me -- I understand the diamond's purpose in industrial applications (drill bits, saw blades, abrasives, and even in semiconductors) but the De Beers Group situation is not one I've ever understood -- even when trying to "think like a lady."
I'm guessing the De Beers Group isn't worried about these synthetic diamonds, either -- they have such a great relationship with most jewelers because the De Beers Group spends a LOT of money in how they market the diamonds: marketing that provides diamonds for the bling-bling rappers, the royal families, the Hollywood stars and whoever else needs something sparkling to wear in public. That's what the jewelers want: they don't care if it's cheap, they get a great marketing campaign and still make huge profit margins.
From Adia's website, we see only one retailer that resells their diamonds. Here's a company that has been around a few years, and they don't have a lot of support.
For industrial applications, though, is the De Beers Group really a powerhouse? I'd always heard that a lot of flawed diamonds end up in the industrial applications, and the flawed ones are significantly cheaper than the "perfect" clarity versions used in jewelry.
As a sidenote, my lady doesn't wear diamonds unless they're family heirlooms -- I've gotten her to move to 22K and 24K gold jewelry. It is shiny, sparkles like crazy if cut right, and when it wears down, I have it swapped for a new piece of jewelry in any Indian neighborhood (or in India) for a relatively competitive price. Diamonds are sort of boring for her now -- she sees how little they store value over time versus gold, and they're not very useful in a financial emergency (versus gold or platinum). Plus the fact that she can "trade-up" her softened jewelry for something else really captivates her -- the last ring she wore we "exchanged" for a set of earrings that was traded for bangles a few years later. With the diamond, she's mostly stuck.
These technological wonders are rare and unique, they need to ramp production to even come close.
:)
from the website:
Only a handful of Adia diamonds are produced each month. To the contrary, natural diamonds have annual production rates of over 150,000,000 carats. Would you believe that they are rare?
I'm just reading a fascinating site packed with diamond color info.
Fascinating to see the histories of the famous natural diamonds, if they can get production close for clear ones it will be good.
As a geek I cannot wait for a diamond processor.
Is this the startings of the diamond age
liqbase
-challenges one of the most egregious monopolies in the world: debeers
-undermines the economic incentive for blood diamonds
-removes the financial drive behind a classist symbol, the diamond ring
-unlocks thousands of new technological and scientific advances, due to diamond's unique properties of hardness and optics, that were previously economically unfeasible
a diamond is just carbon. a very common element. it's just arranged in particularly difficult to achieve crystal. not anymore
on so many levels, in so many ways, when something that was previously scarce is now plentiful, the world has become a better place, progress has been achieved
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
look, i know there are be other kinds / colors.. but at least 99% of all the diamonds i've seen in my life have been the white / transparent kind -- if they want to impress people with how exactly the same their synthetic diamonds are, maybe they should have some in their galleries that actually look even remotely like the diamonds we're used to.
I check lots of gallery images (which don't have previews and reload the damn page for each image) and didn't see one that looked like a diamond. WTF, those are way off the diamond grading scale for clarity. It's like you got them out of a cracker jack box.
She did not need persuasion or even a second to think about it. She's adamant (pardon the pun) that any future diamond we own will be a symbol of the highest human skill and ingenuity and will not be something a slave dug up in an armed camp. For the symbolism, for the historical connections, for the emotional resonance, we both prefer diamonds that humans created.
Bear in mind, that I am not a diamond guy, so it is interesting to hear you speak about it. 5 years ago, that was how they told the difference (as well as other tests). About 6 months ago, I read about a new class of diamonds coming from Russia and Florida (using the russian technology). Apparently the new ones can be designed to have flaws. The article said that DeBeers was trying to figure ways around this, but that they did not have one.
I was about to ask if you would ask your father about this, but I just noticed the second word. I am sorry; hopefully, it was quick.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
From the wired article: "In an ambiguous April 2001 ruling, the Federal Trade Commission said that it was "unfair or deceptive" to call a man-made diamond a "diamond,""
I agree completely with the FTC, it is very misleading to call a diamond a diamond! Man-made diamonds are identical to so called natural diamonds, differing only in the fact that natural diamonds are pulled out of the ground and man-made ones are not.
I love our government.
For many years De Beers has been marketing diamonds and saying that the _very_best_ diamonds are flawless.
Here is a quote : "_Flawless_ is the very highest grade of gem stone, where no internal inclusions or surface imperfections are visible."
They are going to have a tough time convincing people that lab made diamonds are "too flawless".
There was a company in Florida that was one of the first to produce large grown diamonds which the Wired article mentions. Their diamonds had nitrogen "contaminants" creating that yellow color. Apollo diamond of Boston produced much more pure diamonds through a deposition process, and these could apply to the computer industry. Boron doped diamond creates a 'p' type semiconductor, but I don't believe there is a well accepted method of producing an 'n' type semiconductor essential for a computer chip (perhaps someone here could enlighten us on this?).
Purity aside diamonds are a great material. Most of you are aware of the hardness, which is great, but the thermal conductivity is even more astounding. Diamond has a thermal conductivity of about 1000 W/m K while silver has a thermal conductivity of about 406.0 W/m K. I've heard that if a pure isotope carbon is used in depostion the thermal conductivity can be much larger than that. If diamond were to become available to engineers cheaply through these processes entire new opportunities would be opened.
I've actually heard diamond can conduct heat away in a wave like manner, but I couldn't find a source to validate that...
I was able to show my fiance the light concerning the evils of mined diamonds and DeBeers. So I got her a Gemesis diamond instead. It's a nice 1 carat canary yellow-orange diamond. So now she's a walking poster child for those who despise DeBeers, especially when other women look at her ring finger and wonder how her fiance was able to afford a yellow diamond because "aren't they really really expensive???"
I'm told that the original symbolic object for the wedding ceremony was in fact a coin.
Instead of a ring, my boss gave his wife $2000 in shares of the inaugural issue of the Fidelity Magellen Fund. 20+ years later, I do think she's a bit happier with this gift.
Instead of a diamond, I gave my wife a $300 filigreed ring, silver. More beautiful than most any diamond. For me, I got a $120 silver ring. I love it, and I love the idea that if I lose it I can swap it out for something else identically symbolic.
In just a few years, my wife will be done with her surgical training and I expect she will bring home the bank. We will not buy anything so trivial as diamonds. Maybe a nice car, a new laptop, or a donation for children's literacy.
Think different. Buying diamonds is taking your place as a tool of clever marketing. Aren't there better things to do with your money? -KF
first of all, jewelers don't make a "huge profit margin" on diamonds, in fact they generally make very little, unless you walk in there waving a huge wad of cash. there is a very well known document called the "rap sheet" (aka rappaport sheet) which is published weekly and lists the wholesale prices for various grades and types of diamonds. if you know even a little, you can get a jeweler to give you 5% over rap, which is hardly a huge margin compared to media/software/drug companies.
secondly, diamonds are definitely an item for which you get what you pay for. can you overpay? absolutely. but a $5000 diamond from a good retailer (like whiteflash or blue nile) is going to be twice as good as a $2500 diamond when it comes to the all-important flashyness factor (amount of light returned through the top of the stone) also, any good retailer will buy your diamond back for what you paid for it originally if you want to trade up (like the gold guy)
third, I never understood what all the fuss was about diamonds, until I bought my fiancee (now wife) one. I'm a pretty miserly guy in general but I have to say splashing out for a 1ct SI1 with excellent cut and symmetry was an amazingly good decision (for me) in retrospect. she gets complements on it every day (years later), and, sad to say EVERYONE JUDGES OUR RELATIONSHIP BASED ON THE FRICKING ROCK. I can't tell you how many times she's heard "oh he must really love you" -- gak -- sad but true.
finally, to get a bit of historical perspective, the fall of DeBeers has been predicted for quite some time now.. I recommend Ed Epstein's fantastic article from The Atlantic.. if you don't look at the date you might think it was just published: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond and for those who want a fantastic and unbiased source for diamond info, I highly recommend http://www.pricescope.com/
Rubbish, De Beers is hardly a monopoly any longer. Both Canadian and Australian diamond mines don't sell their diamonds to De Beers - and Canada is something like the 3rd largest diamond producer in the world, after Botswana and Russia.
I seriously doubt De Beers (a South African company BTW) employs any more heavy handed tactics than many U.S companies. Sure they bribe the Russians to keep them loyal - but you're naive if you don't think bribery in all it's forms is not used by many large U.S companies as a business strategy.
If I had created the world I wouldn't have messed about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers
All the better to sell them another expensive rock a few years down the road.
What if DeBeers started a company that claimed to sell man-made diamonds, but actually just sold DeBeers excess stock?
Facts that might support this plan:
- New diamond manufacturing processes create flaws and imperfection, making new-style manufactured diamonds indistinguishable from found diamonds. This also makes found diamonds indistinguishable from manufactured diamonds.
- According to conventional wisdom, DeBeers has a huge stockpile of diamonds. This helps keep the price up by imposing scarcity, but it is also excess, inventory--non-revenue-producing inventory.
- As manufacturing processes become widespread, it seems very likely that the diamond market could collapse, making DeBeer's excess, non-revenue-producing inventory not worth very much.
- DeBeers has a proud history of destroying competition by using its monopoly to offer the same product for less.
- A quick comparison of pricess at http://www.adiadiamonds.com/ and http://www.canadadiamonds.com/ shows similar pricing. For the moment, at least, the market will support high prices for manufactured diamonds.
- This strategy doesn't make sense in the long-term, but if there IS no long term, then selling off excess inventory through another market is a good idea.
- As many commenters have noted, there is a lot of perceived value in not having a "Blood Diamond". If DeBeers can convince these commenters that its diamonds are not blood diamonds, then it can sell to them. One way to do this is to pretend that the diamond is man-made, even though it is not.
The weak link in this chain is the diamond's flaws. If you buy a flawless diamond, it must be man-made.
I don't really know if this is true--it seems pretty far-fetched, but I don't really know anything about Adia (or any of the other diamond manufacturing companies) either. It's an interesting bit of scepticism, that's all.
This may be a stupid question but did you ever think about buying another one, getting it set into a ring and then see what it would get make ebay?
They don't do any business at all in the US. They require diamond buyers to fly to London to get their shipments, then these buyers may resell elsewhere in the US. In fact, if the DeBeers people ever set foot in the US, it is my understanding that they are immediately subject to arrest.
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