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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.
My Real Doll will never know the difference
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:
-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
Seems like a good, high-tech alternative to the DeBeers diamond cartel.
Not really. They're missing an element; a human element. I expect bloodshed and slavery with my diamonds. They make the diamonds more special.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
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."
Bullshit! "Imitations" as you call them are more pure then the naturally occurring ones. They are chemically perfect and there is absolutely no way you would be able to tell with the naked eye.
It's FUD like yours that keeps DeBeers in business. The complexity you speak of is the diamonds imperfections.
It's not really love unless a 12 year old lost a finger cutting it out of the wall of a mine.
(Kudos to whomever I'm paraphrasing/ripping off in saying that -- I know it's not my own.)
Sweet informative mod.
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
Others have made these points but they have not put them together into a logical whole:
People pay a premium -- a VERY big premium -- for "flawless" diamonds. The fewer flaws, the higher the premium. So much so that there are at least three separate quality categories that are commonly called "flawless". As you can imagine, the top category is expensive indeed.
Given this truth, there is no such thing as je ne sais quoi when it comes to diamonds. Flaws are flaws, and they are undesirable. That is how the entire market is based!
Therefore, a near-perfect lab diamond is "worth" much more than almost any other natural stone, according to the EXISTING diamond market.
You can't have it both ways.
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.
The purpose of the diamond ritual is to require the male (or whoever) to put his money where his mouth is, to prove that he is sincere about the relationship. And what's the old saying? "Money has a truthfulness. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay in cash."
The diamond is idea for this purpose because it has almost no resale value. It's a way for the male to make a demonstratively extravagant purchase, one which the female (or whoever) is not able to whip back around for a cash refund.
Of course, it didn't have to be diamonds. Were it not for the DeBeers' marketing savvy, any arbitrary rare object could've sufficed. If technology had evolved differently, women might now be wearing tiny LCD displays on their fingers which play a video loop of their husbands throwing a bundle of cash into the ocean.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Supporting what the parent poster is saying, diamonds are the only gemstones I know of that are artificially scarce. Thus, in my mind, they are a poor investment.
They are made scarce by the fact that the overwhelming majority of productive diamond mines are controlled by one company, which jealously guards that scarcity (literally, the "extra" diamonds are guarded in huge warehouses). In my mind diamonds are only a few productive non-DeBeers mines away from being made much less valuable.
If you really need to get gemstones to invest in, I would recommend rubies or sapphires (I know, they're the same stone). Star sapphires are especially prized. Otherwise stick to precious metals.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
...run, not walk, away from your woman.
Especially if you have explained to her what a scam DeBeers has perpetuated
upon the world, and it has not changed her mind.
Sure, you can offer her a non-blood diamond. But you have to ask yourself
if a person like that is someone you want to spent time with.
Of course, I carry a cellphone with tantalum capacitors in them. The world's a fucked up place.
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".
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.
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/
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.
Couldn't agree with you more. I feel DeBeers is a truly evil organization, yet the sham they've been able to pull is nothing short of a marketing masterstroke.
Take the "two-months-salary" thing. Convincing the consumer that this is a legitimate scenario is the holy grail of product pricing. Imagine asking a jeweler "hey, how much does that ring cost?", and blindly pulling out your wallet when the jeweler says "well... how much ya got?". Yeah, I'm oversimplifying... but considering prices are so inflated, the consumer is really paying in proportion to his/her income rather than in proportion to the diamond's size.
Somehow DeBeers got it in people's heads that two-months salary is somehow indicative of the your love and ultimately the strength of the marriage. The irony here is that that financial woes are the leading cause of divorce -- if anything this silly notion is probably setting up young couples to fail.
I only recently bought my wife an artificial diamond. She's a mathematician, and wouldn't dream of spending tens of thousands on a real one, but we recently had our anniversary and she deserved one (she lets me play Eve-Online to my heart's content).
The artificial diamond wasn't cheap, but it wasn't anywhere near the price of a real one of the same size. It's beautiful and kicks light like crazy. I love to play with my laser pointer and that ring. Her friends all think I'm a stud for buying her the rock. (By the way, I bought the stone loose and had a jeweler set it into a beautiful ring. He was extremely impressed by the stone and gave me a dollar-quote that was a few hundred times what I paid. Of course, didn't put it through lab tests, though).
Screw DeBeers and the pain they've caused in Africa. I say let those bastards go broke and feel pain on the way.
You are welcome on my lawn.