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Scientists at De Beers Fight the Growing Threat of Man-Made Diamonds (wsj.com)
"In the past few years, lab-grown diamonds have become indistinguishable from natural diamonds to the naked eye..." reports the Wall Street Journal. This creates a problem for diamond-mining company De Beers. HughPickens.com writes:
While synthetics make up just a fraction of the market, they have growing appeal to younger buyers -- a headache for mine owners, who are under pressure to cut supply and lower prices, because traders, cutters and polishers are struggling to profit amid a credit squeeze and languishing jewelry sales... "Martin Roscheisen, chief executive of Diamond Foundry Inc., a San Francisco synthetic-diamond producer with a capacity of 24,000 carats, says he believes nearly all diamonds consumers purchase will be man-made in a few decades," reports the Journal. "To counter the threat, last year De Beers helped launch a trade association with other producers to market the attraction of natural diamonds. It also started marketing a new, cheap detector called PhosView, that uses ultraviolet light to detect lab-grown stones that quickly screens tiny synthetic diamonds.
It always seemed like a waste of money to me. After all, it's literally raining diamonds on Saturn.
It always seemed like a waste of money to me. After all, it's literally raining diamonds on Saturn.
Nice shilling, but very much not true.
They have some competition, yes.
You if you read, just above, ' a headache for mine owners, who are under pressure to cut supply and lower prices'
cutting supply is almost exactly how the prices have been kept at the stupid level they are these days.
Diamonds are among the MOST common of the gemstones, and about the only reason for their pricing was cunning marketing and supply control..
The DeBeers cartel used to control more than 90% of the market. Now it's maybe 30%. What's propping up the price isn't a "monopoly" anymore, it's demand built by tons of advertising, especially in developing countries.
If people stop buying them, or at least stop buying natural ones, then sure you'll see the price collapse. Followed by mines closing. Followed by diminished supply coming back in line with the diminished demand and price more-or-less ending up at whatever the market will bear. That's the point: DeBeers doesn't have much ability to prop up the price through pure market manipulation anymore or their competitors will come in and outsell them, causing their market share to drop even more.
Diamonds are certainly not the "most common of the gemstones". They average something like a fraction of a carat per tonne of rock even in a diamond mine, which are themselves pretty rare geological occurrences around the world. If you think they're common, then go to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas and see how long it takes you to find one a carat in size. here's the stats to give you some idea of the challenge.
My thoughts exactly. Will the marketers of synthetic diamonds manage to establish them as "diamonds guaranteed to be free of imperfections and cruelty" or will the marketers of mined diamonds manage to establish synthetic diamonds as "not authentic"? BTW, I think the latter group will win. Nobody buys diamonds for the shiny effect (that's what cubic zirconia is for), they buy them to demonstrate they are willing to spend on something expensive but useless. Synthetic diamonds will be just as useless as real ones but -in the future- will fail at the "expensive" bit
It should be possible to introduce impurities into a lab grown diamond to create patterns based on DNA, or a fingerprint, or hell, an RSA public key. Then they'd be unique in a more meaningful way than natural imperfections.
I just spent 15 minutes browsing "Diamond Foundry", one of the places that makes synthetics. They aren't cheap - but they do seem to be cheaper than natural diamonds, by 40% or so. Anyways, none of their synthetics are flawless. Cut, clarity, or inclusions - none are perfect in all 3. There are some that are supposed to have no flaws you can see without being a gemologist, for around 10k for a big one, but even a lab can't guarantee perfection it seems. Tiny differences in vibration, in the feed nozzles, flaws and contaminants in the production chamber - apparently the process is not yet perfected.
With that said, it might be in 20 more years. There is talk of some day being able to make synthetic diamonds so large and flawless and in such vast quantities that they can be used as microchip wafers. A side effect of putting billions into it for the mass production of microchip wafers would probably be diamonds that are far superior to natural diamonds for less than a tenth of the cost.
The important point is whether you got laid. I mean, if you're going to engage in the undeclared prostitution that is many marriages ...
It is only "undeclared" by default. I have a prenup with a specific QoS guarantee. For each day that she breaches her contractual responsibility, I can legally keep 3% of my monthly income for my personal use.
A marriage without a prenup is inherently unfair. Your wife can compel you to financially support her, while you get nothing in return. So instead of letting your state legislators decide how your marriage will work, you and your spouse should decide that for yourselves.
I'll give you an alternate hypothesis. A British colony with a dominant British culture makes a successful nation when it becomes independent. Hence the United States, Canada, and Australia. Hong Kong deserves further analysis, but it has never become independent. Vietnam and Haiti, having been French colonies, don't have the underlying culture (of human rights properly defined) and thus failed as nations. Spanish and Portugese colonies (all of South and Central America except Belize (and French Guiana which is still a colony)) are all failures in comparison to the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
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I notice that you didn't include India as a former colony, or the African colonies. Here is another alternate hypothesis. British culture is racist and genocidal and in some countries it invaded, it managed to exterminate the natives, creating in the process a homogeneous society, that can develop easier. French or Spanish invaders stopped killing the locals when they surrendered, and mixed with them, creating less cohesive societies, with different backgrounds and ways. It's just an hypothesis. See how well it checks with reality as compared with yours.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.