Lab Created Diamonds Come to Market 578
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."
Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Technology has to work hard (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [color-diam...opedia.com] 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
this is good on so many levels (Score:5, Interesting)
-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
those don't look like diamonds (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Consulted with my wife about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, there was an article on
One of the guys reported getting repeated death threats by people he traced back to De Beers, attacked at Trade Shows, attempts at blackmailing them into selling or destroying the tech, etc. DeBeers was offering free devices for dealers to detect these diamonds (they're TOO perfect, chemically, some deformations that should be there are not), etc. At the end of it all there was a diamond dealer who examined the synth diamonds and basically said "eh, my customers wouldn't care that it's synthetic, they just want a diamond."
Basically DeBeers was freaking RIGHT out about the whole thing. Small wonder since they keep such a stranglehold on the diamond trade using whatever legal (and illegal) pracitices they can get away with.
Re:A great article on the subject (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Double Extra Irony Points for This One (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
Re:this is new? (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Re:"conflict-free" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.eglcanada.ca/media/ScooponSynthetics.p
Also, gemstone inclusions are very characteristic. I'm not sure about diamonds, but for some stones such as (natural) ruby a lab can tell you which country it came from, and maybe even which mine.
Re:The purpose of the diamond ritual... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
diamonds are forever (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [theatlantic.com] and for those who want a fantastic and unbiased source for diamond info, I highly recommend http://www.pricescope.com/ [pricescope.com]
Re:Consulted with my wife about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Every person who sees the ring loves it. It's amazing to see the looks on the faces of other women when they see it. You can feel the jealousy and see it in their faces. Brilliant.
I've just recently bought my wife a 2nd hand natural diamond ring for about AU$150. I would definately recommend man-made or 2nd hand natural diamonds. I figure the damage has already been done by the original purchaser of real natural diamonds, so buying 2nd hand isn't really a moral issue for me, or my wife.
Women, well at least my wife, don't necessarily want natural diamonds. They want to feel special and see the look of jealousy on the faces of other women. Having said that, there are always the snooty girls who won't wear anything other than a natural diamond. The're usually the ones who will leave you because their new man has a bigger house, better car, and bigger bank ballance than you.
Shitdrummer.
Re:anything is a good alternative to DeBeers (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Interesting)
Diamond prices are based almost completely on the various measures of quality. Other than cut, those measures are entirely determined by the purity (lack of trace elements), and the "flawlessness" of the crystal. Flawlessness weighs very heavily in the price calculation.
Adding imperfections to make the diamond look "natural" is equivalent to shooting oneself in the foot; it defeats the whole purpose. The existing controllers of the diamond markets may try to shift prices toward "natural" diamonds, but as you and others have stated that can be faked too. So any such action would be a finger in the dike with a tsunami on the way. Thanks, but if it were me I would rather stand clear.
Re:Consulted with my wife about this (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Consulted with my wife about this (Score:3, Interesting)
What manufacturer did that diamond come from? I've been looking, but so far all the (colorless, more than equivalent mined ones. I wouldn't mind paying more for man-made, but so far they've been out of my price range.
Not to mention that every jeweler I try to ask keeps insisting that I mean "moissonite" which is silicon carbide, not diamond. They're all DeBeers' bitches, I tell you!
Re:diamonds are forever (Score:1, Interesting)
You need better friends. No friend of mine gives a damn about such things and in fact would look upon such a thing as an indicator that you and your friends are shallow and materialistic and probably work in marketing or sales.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The ultimate Reality Distortion Field (Score:2, Interesting)
All the better to sell them another expensive rock a few years down the road.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:4, Interesting)
IIRC, diamonds used to be prized *because* of their flawlessness. DeBeers now put out that it's the flaws which are the mark of a "better" diamond.
So, debeers are crapping themselves and I can't feel that sorry about the situation.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you are misunderstanding diamonds in this aspect. A diamond's value goes up a minimum of 12% per year regardless of market trends as opposed to gold which fluctuates according to some idiot's thoughts on inflation. Now let me clarify, that's NOT to say that a diamond RING will go up in value, just the unmounted diamond. That's where most people get confused because an unmounted diamond sells for a lot less than one mounted but when you try to sell a diamond ring back to a jeweler they offer you the unmounted price(sometimes not that much but their price is based on the appraised unmounted value) and maybe $5 for the ring itself so it appears as though the diamond's value has dropped. Befriend a jeweler and ask them if that's not the case. BTW, you can make money in gold but it's not a guaranteed thing. I have a friend who makes BANK buying used diamonds thanks to this knowledge.
Fictional possibility: company is a DeBeers front (Score:3, Interesting)
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/ [adiadiamonds.com] and http://www.canadadiamonds.com/ [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.
Re:Bogus from DeBeers (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:anything is a good... monopoly laws? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:2, Interesting)
A couple of years ago, a widow living in the US had her husband's remains cremated. She then flew over to Russia (at that time, Russian companies made the best synth diamonds) and had the ashes pressed to a diamond.
I watched it on TV, so no link. Can't prove the story wasn't faked, but it was funny in a morbid sort of way.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't count this out. Investors in artificial diamond labs have been know to have accidents like "falling out of a helicopter".
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Guys should be careful when going non-traditional, because most/many women will go along with it and convince themselves it's their idea too, when it's really the guy's idea, and he doesn't realize the hole he is digging for himself.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:1, Interesting)
We also have no unsecured debt, and neither do our parents (at least on our account).
Our entire wedding cost $50.
My friend bought his fiance a $20k ring and their wedding will cost $45k.
That's just about how much equity we have in our house... They'll be paying for that party for 10 years if their lucky.
My friends were a little pissed at us but they got over it. We asked for no wedding gifts. Weddings have turned into just another way to get loot from your friends and run up extreme debt.
We've decided that when we hit lotto, we'll have a "real" wedding. I periodically ask my wife if she's sure that she doesn't want to go get fitted for a nice ring. She always says no.
-AC
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tektites [cmich.edu] are generally believed to be glasses formed in the wake of meteor impacts. Many obsidians cool while falling through the air after a volcanic explosion. (Both are basically glass, and not very strong.) A decent machinist could cut a ring out of a chunk of nickel-iron meteorite, or it would be fairly easy to make a ring yourself by buying an existing gold wedding band and soldering a cabochon bezel setting onto it, and setting a cut and etched piece of nickel-iron meteorite in it. (I've done the latter a couple of times and they can be beautiful.)