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De Beers To Sell Diamonds Made In a Lab (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: De Beers, which almost single-handedly created the allure of diamonds as rare, expensive and the symbol of eternal love, now wants to sell you some party jewelry that is anything but. The company announced today that it will start selling man-made diamond jewelry at a fraction of the price of mined gems, marking a historic shift for the world's biggest diamond miner, which vowed for years that it wouldn't sell stones created in laboratories. The strategy is designed to undercut rival lab-diamond makers, who having been trying to make inroads into the $80 billion gem industry. De Beers will target younger spenders with its new diamond brand and try to capture customers that have been resistant to splurging on expensive jewelry. The company is betting that it can split the market -- with mined gems in luxury settings and engagement rings at the top, and lab-made fashion jewelry aimed at millennials at the bottom. "Lab grown are not special, they're not real, they're not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again," Bruce Cleaver, chief executive officer of De Beers, said in an interview Tuesday. De Beers says the man-made diamonds will not compete with mined stones. It's so adamant about this that it will not grade them in the traditional way. "We're not grading our lab-grown diamonds because we don't think they deserve to be graded," Cleaver said. "They're all the same."
As for pricing, "The lab diamonds from De Beers will sell for about $800 a carat," reports Bloomberg. "A 1-carat man-made diamond sells for about $4,000 and a similar natural diamond fetches roughly $8,000."
As for pricing, "The lab diamonds from De Beers will sell for about $800 a carat," reports Bloomberg. "A 1-carat man-made diamond sells for about $4,000 and a similar natural diamond fetches roughly $8,000."
"Lab grown are not special, they're not real,"
They're as special and real as any other diamond (ie not special but equally real). The diamond business is a scam and they know it. There's a reason this product is deliberately targeted at women...
Lab grown are not special, they're not real, they're not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again
He means that the ones they dig out of the ground are flawed in different ways, but the manufactured diamonds are perfect.
Not special maybe, though more special and rare than the abundant but artificially limited supply of mined ones. As for not real? WTF? they are as real as any other diamond, what makes a diamond is its chemical makeup and structure not whether it was lab created or mined.
They aren't looking at selling them for profit.
They are looking at tarnishing the image of other man made diamonds. While they were arguing that their 'natural' diamonds were better it was an 'us vs them' argument. Supposed scarcity vs perfection. If they manufacture man-made diamonds, but refuse to grade them, drop the price to the point where they become almost disposable fashion items, then they can make other man-made diamonds seem similar. If they can manage to drive several manufacturers out of business by undercutting them then that's a bonus.
Ugly, nasty and abusive.
It's a brilliant business strategy. They basically control the natural diamond supply, and the best way to continue to artificially prop up their value is by ensuring everyone perceives artificial diamonds as an inferior product. One way to do that is through pricing.
We all know that lab made diamonds can be pretty much identical to mined diamonds. Different defects creep into both, but the lab ones usually have fewer defects.
By De Beers claiming all lab-grown diamonds are the same and not worth grading, they're marketing how each of their mined diamonds are unique and special. By selling the lab ones for a tenth the cost of a mined one, they're not only crushing the competition that sells them for 5 times as much, but marketing that these are inferior and too cheap to be a replacement for a true mined diamond for an engagement ring, etc.
Of course, the marketing is all hot garbage, but... so is the idea that diamonds are rare valuable stones to begin with. De Beers is king of manipulation here. If De Beers is selling these lab ones at near cost, the lab market might crash and burn from lack of profit leaving De Beers as the only lab grown seller as well.
It's male genital mutilation. Don't try to pass it off as 'healthy'.
It's wrong to force the mutilation on a young child. Let them decide for themselves when they are old enough.