Quoted in "Lab-grown diamonds go luxury — and rock the industry" (Axios).
"Millennial women," we're told, are interested in these diamonds — they're real diamonds! — that don't come from diamond mines. One is quoted saying "I want a pretty fat ring."
"Millennial women," we're told, are interested in these diamonds — they're real diamonds! — that don't come from diamond mines. One is quoted saying "I want a pretty fat ring."
How about I want the best price? No, apparently, the idea is you pay the same price you'd pay for the diamond from a mine, but you get a bigger ring. Bigger, not cheaper. Or will bigger scream "lab grown"? But who will care? Maybe it's in bad taste to expect people to mine diamonds. If you get a small lab-grown diamond, people might think you're connected to exploitation. So you simply must get the big fat one. And who cares if things are fake these days? No one comments on fake nails, fake eyelashes, hair extensions, breast implants.
And yet, that's not the point with the lab-grown diamonds. They have been determined to be real diamonds. That's why there's an "existential crisis."
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63 comments:
Wilbur could never understand why diamonds - and jewelry in general - were considered so valuable in the first place. I wear no jewelry and no watch and never have.
I've known couples all of my life who had an expensive engagement or wedding ring, yet couldn't afford to live anywhere but a tiny apartment. I could never wrap my head around it.
There must be something in the human psyche that makes most people crave one of these things. I realize I'm different.
Phalaenopsis orchids. They used to be exotic rare and expensive. Then the horticulturists cracked the reproduction code, and there are rows of them for $20 at Home Depot. As a gift now they are edging into tacky.
If you are criticizing Axios for use extremist and alarmist language, then you are going to need a bigger blog.
Man-made diamonds were grown for the first time by GE in 1954. They are ‘real’ in the sense of their structure, but the fashion-diamond industry had equated ‘real’ = “naturally formed” in their marketing campaigns. Up to now, most “industrial” (i.e., man-made) diamonds are used in applications where an extremely hard surface is called for.
cultured pearls?
Nowadays, over 95% of the pearls available on the market would be cultured pearls.
besides.. do you REALLY Want blood diamonds? Does it make you (as a woman) feel GOOD to support murder?
A true market disruptive technological advancement. A market that has been rigged the same way for 150 years. If prices are off 65 percent that’s less disruption and more destruction. As big as the quartz movement for watches…
The blue box will likely survive, however…
Interestingly, the watch conglomerates have taken over the first block of retail on Newbury Street. Shreeves now clings to the dar end with a little window with only…watches on display.
"If you are criticizing Axios for use extremist and alarmist language...."
I wasn't.
Just riffing on the quotes chosen.
There must be something in the human psyche that makes most people crave one of these things. I realize I'm different.
You have a recessive raccoon gene.
Existential crises are confusing and high-anxiety times when a person is trying to resolve and find the answer to this question: Who am I?
That is a long way from the existence of man-made diamonds not formed in the earth's crust. But if you can't tell the difference between man-made and natural diamonds then there cannot be any difference in value. I suppose that if we somehow can track diamond origins, then we can establish various prices by adding origin to the name such as in the case of sippin' whiskeys like Macallan Single Malt Scotch or George Dickel Barrel Select Whiskey.
Folks looking for volume sales by selling at a cheaper price likely would add "Blood" to their fanciful diamond name.
This entire discussion seems to miss the point. Diamonds are judged by the 4 "Cs:" cut, clarity, color, carat weight. If the synthetic diamonds rate higher on all of these scales than the natural diamonds, they are a better buy and no one should be able to tell the origin, or care. Large diamonds that look like boogers have always been available and unimpressive. On the other hand, one of my colleagues with a very rich husband accidentally moved her medium-sized, unincluded, well-cut, super-hot diamond through the beam of an Infocus projector and nearly blinded all in attendance. The effect was roughly that of being attacked by a legion of angry disco balls.
If you're centering on size alone, you just don't understand.
So the cartel is still trying to maintain monopoly pricing. No surprise there. What do they actually cost to create in a lab?
Joe Biden refuses to be paid with lab-grown diamonds.
According to the article, synthetic diamonds require a large amount of energy to produce. By today's woke standards that should stigmatize them even more than "blood diamonds," given that it's apparently better to exploit third world labor and resources for rare earth minerals to use for EVs than to rely on ICE cars.
As for this: "No, apparently, the idea is you pay the same price you'd pay for the diamond from a mine, but you get a bigger ring. Bigger, not cheaper," of course it's not the same price. The price for the same diamond is lower by a factor of eight. So of course people are going to go bigger.
But the article misses the reason why the natural diamonds can still command that high price. The main point of an engagement ring, or gift for a wife, is for the guy to demonstrate the commitment to the relationship. A 3-carat synthetic diamond just isn't going to get it done.
I paid $400 for my wife’s engagement ring in 1972. It’s about 1/2 carat if I remember correctly. She treasures it because it reminds her of who we were then and all that’s happened since.
I've been told by a local jeweler that 'investment diamonds' have been a big deal for a while now. Stupid-rich people get big fat ones as an exercise in liquid assets, and stick them in their safe-deposit box, or hand them over to their kids. Six-digit ones are favored, for bragging rights.
Dunno, must be the inner gypsy talking with all these people, the thrill of having something worth so much, but you could still sew it into your clothes, in a pinch. Wouldn't see the sense of it myself. But then, these are people that are in the brackets where inheritance is something you navigate to avoid awkward conversations with the Tax Man.
Now that diamonds can be manufactured and are cheaper, what is the point of a diamond wedding ring? A wedding band is much more practical.
My mother was brushing the snow from her car window, and scratched the windshield glass with the diamond from her wedding ring.
It always seemed like the rules about spending a month's wage on a wedding ring, and brides flashing their rings around was all cartel marketing.
Now do animals. Then humans.
OK, soon animals. Then humans.
Size does in fact matter.
Are synthetic fancy diamonds perfected yet? By “fancy” I mean blue ones doped with boron.
Diamonds (and lab-grown rubies) were always a sucker's gemstone. They are formed by simple, cheap carbon in common volcanoes. There are gobs and gobs of them -- they were literally all over the ground in South Africa when De Beers strategized to control the market. As any successful cartel/monopoly, De Beers held back the supply to inflate the price. They release more of what they didn't have and less of what they did have, so they maximized long-term profit.
Diamonds are forever, so they compete with a growing market of resold diamonds, and now lab diamonds. The miners made their money, and are now being hoisted on their own marketing petard.
This is not unlike the Swiss watch industry, which uses the same materials the Asian brands and a high percentage of Chinese content/labor too. They then call 60% Swiss products "Swiss made," with price tags that are 10x or 100x or 1,000x higher than near-identical items (likely made by the same Asian suppliers who sell clones).
Luxury and fashion are always about getting a warm-fuzzy-I-had-money-so-I-spent-it feeling deep down inside. "It's so pretty! Other people can't afford this bauble! I'm special!" It's never about value.
it wasn't That Long Ago, that diamonds weren't the usual Engagement Ring jewel.
According to Owen Wister (who is my expert, on ALL things), it USED TO BE the woman's birthstone..
So, the Virginian bought Molly Stark Wood a diamond ring.. But ONLY because she was born in April.
I've Always Assumed, that the whole "diamond engagement ring" thing started with Molly. But of course:
In 1938, the diamond cartel De Beers began a marketing campaign that would have a major impact on engagement rings. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of diamonds collapsed.[30] At the same time, market research indicated that engagement rings were going out of style with the younger generation. Before World War II, only 10% of American engagement rings contained a diamond.[31] While the first phase of the marketing campaign consisted of market research, the advertising phase began in 1939. One of the first elements of this campaign was to educate the public about the 4 Cs (cut, carats, color, and clarity). In 1947 the slogan "a diamond is forever" was introduced.[32] Ultimately, the De Beers campaign sought to persuade the consumer that an engagement ring is indispensable, and that a diamond is the only acceptable stone for an engagement ring.[33] The sales of diamonds in the United States rose from $23 million to $2.1 billion between 1939 and 1979.[34]
Law professor Margart F. Brining links the surge in engagement ring sales in the USA after 1945 to the abolishment of the "breach of promise", that had entitled a woman whose fiancé had broken off their engagement to sue him for damages.[35] This rule of law was especially important for many women who had been sexually intimate with the fiancé, but were socially expected to be virgins in a new marriage, therefore lost "market value". After the gradual abolishment of that law action in all states the expensive engagement ring rose to popularity as a new financial security in case of a break-up, since it was custom for the women to keep the ring (partly only under the condition that the break-up was not seen as her fault).
When I was a little kid we thought that diamonds were made from coal that got pressurized while being underground. So one day we got some pieces of coal, put them in a can, and buried them in the back yard, hoping to become rich in the future. Years later we couldn't remember where we buried them.
"No one comments on fake nails, fake eyelashes, hair extensions, breast implants."
Soon you won't be able to differentiate a lab-grown schlong, even on close inspection with a jeweler's loop, but like diamonds, the size of the damn things will be the giveaway. Brides will demand "a pretty fat one."
They are the exact same mineral, but lab grown diamonds can still be distinguished from natural stones by machine inspection. So they are still unique in the same sense as an original painting is superior to a perfect forgery. For whatever that is worth, and to some it is a lot. To a buyer, or a traditional jeweler with a loupe, they are indistinguishable.
“Lars and the Real Girl” (2007)
In fairness, it’s not like physics has a definite answer on the nature of reality.
Cheap diamonds are part of the reason why the Davis crowd wants you to eat bugs. Their status symbols are disappearing and so they have no obvious social markers to indicate that they are at the top of the pecking order. Thus, artificial scarcity of necessities. If you drive, it will be an electric car but they can drain the power from it any time it’s plugged in. They will turn your thermostat up our down on their whim. You can take four airplane trips in your life (too many proles at the Pyramids.) You will have a choice between the candidate who offers you two four ounce or one eight ounce candy bar a week. There will be no borders to destroy the middle class from the bottom up.
True wealth is measured in options; the Davis crowd will restrict our options while theirs are unlimited.
Diamond growing labs - the Ozempic of the jewelry business.
"And yet, that's not the point with the lab-grown diamonds. They have been determined to be real diamonds."
I am reminded of a story Bill Buckley told. He happened to be talking with someone connected to the Roles brand (Buckley had a habit of happening to be talking to someone like that), and he asked how much more accurate his $50,000 Rolex was than a $9.95 digital watch with a plastic band. He was rather surprised to learn that the Rolex, being a mechanical watch, was inherently less accurate than any digital watch.
Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?
With a very few exceptions having more to do with the fame of the diamond or who owned it, you will be lucky to get 10 cents on the dollar.
Gem quality diamonds are about as common as gravel. Well, not quite perhaps but very very common.
That's why deBeers came up with the "diamonds are forever" tagline. To prevent people trying to sell them and find out how little they are really worth.
John Henry
I'd mentioned Edward Jay Epstein's book "the rise and fall of diamonds" here a month or two back.
An excellent history of the diamond industry and interesting read. Like McPhee, Anything Epstein writes about is an interesting read. Even rocks.
Some here might also enjoy his book on James Jesus Angleton and the search for the Cia mole.
John Henry
Real and flawless. Oh noes....
The mined diamond industry has kept supply down to keep prices far above what is warranted. My care button is not pushed.
Not sure how De Beers will fight this unless they buy the IP used to make the new versions.
Their current prices are all cartel driven. For decades they were the only game in town, and doled out just enough to keep prices where they wanted them to be, a la OPEC.
lonejustice @ 8:50am
A metaphor of left-wing politics.
"Now do animals. Then humans."
"When you get down to it though, "Star Trek" transporters may very well murder every single person who uses one. According to multiple official explanations, including the one found in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual," transporters scan a person's body, convert said body into a matter stream, store those particles in a pattern buffer, send them to their destination via an energy beam, and then put those particles back together in the original configuration.
Many fans argue that this basically means a transporter kills you and only reassembles a copy of your body and mind.
This is similar to the "Ship of Theseus" thought experiment…which questions whether a person or object is still themselves once all the original components are replaced. The Star Trek graphic novel "Forgiveness" does claim that transporters manage to send your soul via the energy stream, which would indicate that transporters don't really kill you. That being said ... they kind of do."
Diamond engagement rings are oh so predictable and oh so boring.
I've bought two engagement rings - a Ceylon cornflower blue sapphire with little diamonds in a supporting role, and a similar fine pink sapphire. The ladies always oohed and aahed at them -- while, I imagined, the gals with the humdrum diamond doorknobs on their fingers ground their teeth.
I'm reminded of 'Casablanca', the lady selling her jewelry to try to get to the US. Buyer makes an offer, she asks 'Can't you go any higher?', and he says "Everyone has diamonds, they're a drug on the market."
It seems to me that the large (overwhelmingly large?) majority of diamond wearers are women. Is this true and if so, why?
Lazare-Kaplan used to have a diamond cutting and polishing plant.
The chairman of the board (Lazare?) asked me to come talk about a laser to etch a 40 micron high serial number on the edge of the diamonds.
While touring the plant he took me into the "warehouse" this was a bank vault with racks of 5 gallon pails filled with diamonds.
He got paged and left me all alone. Being alone with a $gazillion in diamonds scared the crap out of me and I said so when he came back.
He told me that he wasn't worried and there was no money in it for me anyway. Had I got away with an entire bucket, it might be worth $1000. The stones were worth less than $1 each
John Henry
@MartyH:
"You say Davis, I say Davos--let's call the whole thing off."
"Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?"
Yes, and I knew not to expect much, having read Epstein's book about DeBeers which others have also, obviously.
My wife has never liked diamonds, so the only diamond jewelry we had was some rings and watches left to one or both of us by my older female relatives. After my mother's death in '18 I had them appraised and got an offer for about $1600.00. I sold them last spring for about $1350.00.
OTOH, they had some value, unlike the real furs that some of the old ladies had, and the china (anyone want a nice set of authentic Blue Onion, cheap?) My son and his generation aren't materialistic in the old ways, and as we get older we wonder why we kept so much stuff (not that diamonds take up that much space).
Well some folks are fools for a big rock. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a diamond in nerd land. I was reading a story in today's Los Angeles Times (every Sunday they have a story about a romance--some failed, some lead to marriage). Two physicist grad students at Cal Tech were at least casually talking about marriage. He (we're in nerd land remember) told her that it would take a big rock. She sealed the deal--and proposed to him, handing him a chunk of magnetite--a material found on Mars. Eight years later they're married with three kids.
In the 1990s, when I was growing artificial diamond thin films in a lab for semiconductor applications, the cost of gemstone quality artificial diamond manufacture was about $100 per carat, and they could make good quality stones up to about a carat. The process and tools are better now, and huge gemstones of high quality are possible, at even lower prices.
A few years back I had to replace my wife's engagement ring. It was stolen in a home burglary when we were still stuck in the hellhole of Baltimore, MD, yet another reason on the list of why I thank God daily that I no longer live there. In a pawn shop I found an old, possibly antique, ring with an "Old Mine Cut" diamond, and chose that to replace the lost 1980's era ring. It was natural, it was high quality, it had that interesting cut, and because that cut is not fashionable the ring was relatively inexpensive. I don't think I could buy a natural or artificial jewelry diamond again, knowing that the prices are so inflated for no real reason other than, "they can."
Lots of people spread disinformation about carbon pollution when they really mean co2. A number of them here who know better.
Perhaps the time has come to start responding "carbon pollution? You mean like diamonds?"
John Henry
Jersey Fled: First, I like your screen name. Second, I bought a 0.53 carat ring for my fiance through my uncle, a wholesale jewelry salesman. He got me an extremely high quality stone in that ring for $800 in 1985, and I don't think he took a loss on the sale. And again, lab grown jewelry quality diamonds are made for less than $100/carat.
Diamonds are valuable because they are rare
The perceived value of diamonds was a hoax to begin with. Good riddance; the business deservers it.
What if you put lab grown diamonds at the end of a complicated obstacle course that workers would have to navigate to fetch the diamonds to be sold?
Wilbur said...
“Wilbur could never understand why diamonds - and jewelry in general - were considered so valuable in the first place.”
Because they’re sparkily. And pretty. Fortunately, my wife is just as happy with an inexpensive piece of sparkily as an expensive one. And doesn’t have to worry about the cheap one being stolen when she goes out in public.
Kinda like ditching the gold standard.
"The Embarrassment of Having to Explain Your ‘Monster’ Diamond Ring
Couples find that lab-grown diamonds make it cheaper to get engaged or upgrade to a bigger ring. But there are rocky moments."
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/lab-grown-diamond-rings-look-real-wedding-engagement-8dad8364
There's a Nova series on artificial diamonds from the early 2000's that's well worth watching. It's free on Youtube and it's called "Diamond Deception". I think it provides some answers to Gadfly's question about what's the difference between a lab grown and natural diamond. Specifically, the difference is DeBeers bottom line.
narciso said...
"Diamonds are valuable because they are rare"
Diamonds are valuable because DeBeers controls the market.
Narciso,
Diamonds are not rare
Like gold you have to move a lot of dirt. But if you are willing to do the work, they are quite common
John Henry
narciso said...
Diamonds are valuable because they are rare
Ummm, NO. No they aren't
“How about I want the best price? No, apparently, the idea is you pay the same price you'd pay for the diamond from a mine, but you get a bigger ring. Bigger, not cheaper. “
That marketing objective seems impossible, there is a gradient in weight for mined or synthetic diamonds from micro to huge. I don’t see how DeBeers can make you buy a larger one for a price and prevent you from buying smaller one at a lower price. Are they going to audit you and say, you can’t buy a small one, you can afford a larger one. One way to try is to make adds that try to convince your girl friend that you are a cheap jerk for not bucking up for a large one, but they can do that even if synthetic diamonds did not exist, and they have already done this for years.
They can’t stop making small synthetic diamonds, because poorer people want them, and some other company would make them instead.
In James Thurber’s children’s book THE THIRTEEN CLOCKS, the hero goes to an old woman who cries diamonds. She tells him that she has cried so much (caused to weep by the sad stories of diamond seekers) that she can longer shed tears of sorrow. The only diamonds she can produce now are fake diamonds formed from tears of laughter, and these will become tears again after fourteen days. So the hero makes her laugh until she cries and collects the temporary diamonds to pay the ransom for his beloved. Two weeks later, with the hero and the princess far away, the diamonds turn back into tears, and the villain is eaten by a monster sent by the Devil.
DeBeers will eventually wind up with the artificial diamond industry as well.
Not a gem quality diamond is moved in the world where they have not touched it.
There was a story on FOX News--full of wonderment, but I knew about the place in Arkansas already--about a guy discovering a 5+ carat diamond at Diamond Crater Park. You pay money to go in and look for the things, and many are found. Finders keepers unless they now take a cut (ha).
The raw stone looked like what someone mentioned above: a big booger. But apparently it was worth a lot.
Similarly, people can and do pan for and find gold in mountain streams. It's just a matter of how much time you got.
I wonder if this means that DeBeers executives will soon be able to visit the US for the first time in decades without being arrested on Trust-busting charges?
“ Similarly, people can and do pan for and find gold in mountain streams. It's just a matter of how much time you got.”
No, I am going panning for Lithium, I’ll be rich, and it’s easier because the lithium is light and will sort to the top of the pan. Next I will make my soon to be patented upside down Lithium sluce. I’ll need it when I find the big pocket.
PigHelmet: My freshman roommate in college had a bit part as Jackadandy in the on-stage version, Thurber's The 13 Clocks. In our tiny dorm room for weeks before the play opened on campus, he repeated again and again his opening line, "Hagga weeps no more. Hagga weeps no more." Thanks for the memory of this earworm of a quote.
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