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Lab Created Diamonds Come to Market
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Oct 25, 2006 10:00 PM
from the synthetic-bling dept.
from the synthetic-bling dept.
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."
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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.
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Insightful)
The artificial ones have fewer impurities and inclusions
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Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually that tester tests the thermal conductivity of the stone. Cubic Zirconia is virtually indistinguishable from diamond. A really well trained gemologist can tell the difference some of the time, but not the people who work in jewelry stores.
OTOH, diamond has a very high thermal conductivity and cubic zirconia does not. When CZ first hit the market, jewelers really flipped out, because people could buy diamond rings, replace the diamond with CZ, and then return the ring with the CZ for full price. At first, the only surefire test was to measure the density, but that required removing the stone from the setting, something that takes some time. The company that created CZ then also produced a tester which at its tip had a small heater and a temperature probe a little ways away. If you touch the tip to a diamond, heat will transfer from the heater to the probe, whereas with a CZ, it will not. The company made more money off the patent for the detector than they ever did off CZ.
Of note, a few years back, a new lab-created diamond alternative hit the market: Moissanite. It is a form of silicon carbide, and it actually has a higher index of refraction than diamond (it sparkles more). It also has a high thermal conductivity, so it would fool the old testers. Moissanite is easier to distinguish from diamond under a loupe, however. It is birefringent.
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Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course you would not want to dissolve the whole pearl. That would be silly.
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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.
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Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Funny)
I hear they spoke extensively to Microsoft to find the best way to consistently achieve flaws.
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Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Informative)
Check it out:
http://www.adiadiamonds.com/content/frequently-as
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Bogus from DeBeers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Pearls (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can remember the main problem they were encountering was Nitrogen. In a natural diamond which forms over a long period of time the nitrogen atoms would drift together over time and end up clumped together and form a seperate molecule (N4) of pure nitrogen embeded in the carbon lattice. This nitrogen molecule absorbed some light from the carbon but was otherwise undetectable.
In the early attempts at making artificial diamonds they left the nitrogen in but it did not migrate together so ended up actually part of the carbon lattice. This gave the artificial diamonds a slight yellow tint as the nitrogen also emitted light back into the diamond crystal lattice. The Russian solution was to remove all the nitrogen at the start of the process.
This produced perfect, pure carbon diamonds with a perfect crystal lattice. These diamonds however had a the property of trapping light so that when the light falling on them ceased (you switched the light off) they fluoresced, giving off the light they had been trapping with in the crystal lattice due to total internal reflection. Now this may have made them really cool but it did make them different to naturally occuring diamond.
What the Russian team really needed was a way to leave in the Nitrogen impurity but so that it did not ever interupt the carbon crystal lattice.
At this point De Beers was already shitting themselves and started looking at ways of marking there diamonds to prove they were mined diamonds not some knocked up in a lab. They semed to have a number of ideas such as laser etching the DeBeers trademark on each stone and similar but I dont know what the ultimately chose.
If someone has some more info, please post it but don't start it with your dad, grandad, etc used to be jeweler as this just makes it hopelessly outdated. These new lab made diamonds are not like anything De Beers have had to deal with before (Cubic Zirconia, etc) as they are actually made of carbon which is formed into a diamond lattice using super high pressures but in a lab rather than underground.
This information came from some sort of TV documentary I saw a number of years ago.
I did however just throw some stuff at google and this is what came back -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/diamond
(Please note - my summary is from memory so the info on the above link will be better.)
http://www.russianbrilliants.net/introduction.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/9908
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.
Parent
Re:Indistinguishable? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
* mass spectrometry might do it by detecting certain trace elements, but in the end all diamonds are nothing more than tetrahedrally bonded carbon.
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Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
Parent
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Insightful)
The DeBeers story, and the history of the diamond as jewelry, is simply the story of the most successful marketing campaign in history. It is simply astonishing how the DeBeers cartel has managed to turn a fairly ordinary (but shiny) stone into one of the most expensive, sought after stones around. A stone that is so valuable that not only is it worth 2 MONTHS salary, but is so personal that it should never be purchased second hand.
Parent
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
And then of course, the classic Atlantic article [theatlantic.com] about the DeBeers Diamond cartel, and how the manufacture need.
If diamonds are so special, how come they're 20x more common than sapphires but come at such a high premium?
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Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
Right you are.. and here's the book to prove it:
The Diamond Invention [edwardjayepstein.com]
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The ultimate Reality Distortion Field (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:The ultimate Reality Distortion Field (Score:5, Insightful)
+20 insightful.
Number of years I've been married: 15, and not likely to end any time soon.
Amount I paid for my wife's ring: $0.
Starting out in debt for both the ring and the wedding is the worst possible way to start a marriage.
Parent
Artificial scarcity (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Artificial scarcity (Score:5, Insightful)
Diamonds are some of the most expensive gem stones, but they're not even close to the rarest. They're actually quite common, as gemstones go.
When you try to sell one you find out what their actual market value is.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:Real importance beyond jewelry? (Score:5, Informative)
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Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
You don't even want to know what can be done with a RealDoll(tm) and an onion ring... you can't handle the truth!
Parent
anything is a good alternative to DeBeers (Score:5, Informative)
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 [diamondcuttersintl.com].
Re:anything is a good alternative to DeBeers (Score:5, Funny)
Actually they got the first point of the FAQ wrong - a diamond is not forever even if you do take care of it. It is a metastable allotrope of carbon [wikipedia.org] and will slowly convert to the thermodynamically favoured allotrope, graphite. It might take several billion years for a diamond to decay into graphite but that is still a lot less than forever.
Parent
A great article on the subject (Score:5, Informative)
Wired had a great article [wired.com] on the subject of synthetic diamonds a few years ago. An excerpt:
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.
Parent
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
Press release? What the...? (Score:4, Insightful)
This current story, however, is just a link to a damn press release, with no mention What was the point of it, aside from giving free press to this company?
they're missing an element (Score:5, Funny)
Not really. They're missing an element; a human element. I expect bloodshed and slavery with my diamonds. They make the diamonds more special.
Consulted with my wife about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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.
Parent
Much more detailed article (Score:5, Informative)
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 [canadadiamonds.com], also here [aurias.com] and here [polarbeardiamond.com].
It's not love . . . (Score:5, Funny)
(Kudos to whomever I'm paraphrasing/ripping off in saying that -- I know it's not my own.)
The purpose of the diamond ritual... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:The purpose of the diamond ritual... (Score:5, Funny)
bringing up children to harbor such retarded notions
of what love is about.
Well, I don't know what love is, either. But it's not
Hollywood, it's not dinners and flowers, and it's not
about all the bullshit games that people play.
But thanks to the mass media and the continual
dumbing down of the populace, I reckon I will
die alone.
I know, I know, I'm a real downer at parties.
Parent
Re:The purpose of the diamond ritual... (Score:5, Informative)
A lifetime ago, the ideal was that a "good" girl would wait until marriage, but in practice many women with normal libidos compromised on waiting until engagement. This led (duh) to guys proposing in order to get laid and then for some reason changing their mind about actually getting married. Laws were actually passed to protect women against having sex with dishonest people.
The ring, then, he argues, was a nonrefundable deposit to provide some evidence that the guy would actually go through with the marriage.
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If she insists on a "real" diamond... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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".
Not clear which process makes these. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not clear from the Adia diamonds whether these are grown like semiconductor wafers or made in high-pressure presses. Gemesys [gemesis.com] 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 [gemesis.com]
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" [wikipedia.org], 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.
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:diamonds are forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense, unless you value buying over-priced tokenistic items from highly violent cartels that ruthlessly control the price. People that make fake diamonds need to have armed guards for their sites and bodyguards for their home. This is the "value" of diamonds. DeBeers allegedly has a 400 year supply sitting in warehouses.
Diamonds are completely and utterly worthless unless you want to drill through hard objects. You might "get what you pay for" with a diamond drill bit but I prefer the GTA interpretation: "Nothing says I love you more than a lump of rock mined by child wage slaves in Angola".
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Re:Natural Complexity (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Natural Complexity (Score:5, Insightful)
It's FUD like yours that keeps DeBeers in business. The complexity you speak of is the diamonds imperfections.
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Re:Natural Complexity (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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