The Elite Club That Rules the Diamond World Is Starting to Crack | Hacker News Reader

The Elite Club That Rules the Diamond World Is Starting to Crack

bloomberg.com

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>It’s a perfect storm: you have too much supply, not enough demand

My wife lost the diamond in her wedding ring and we were talking about getting it replaced. I have two daughters in their early 20s and they were aghast at the idea of replacing it with another diamond. They were adamant that nobody should buy diamonds for jewelry and instead should use a synthetic stone. They claim that "everyone" (which apparently means everyone they are in contact with on social media) knows this. If this kind of thinking really is widespread among the younger set then I'm not surprised that the demand is dropping.

I was blown away when someone told me they wanted a natural diamond. It seemed crazy to me, I don't get why someone would want to pay more for an identical (except for the fact that it was likely mined unethically) stone. I don't think any of my friends have a natural diamond but that's probably partially the people that I hang out with.

I'm still blown away people want a shiny piece of dirt on their finger at all.

I too fail to comprehend why carbon crystals cause humans to secrete pleasure transmitters. I only secrete pleasure transmitters when solving abstract coding problems, and contemplating the agreeable weather up here on my elongated equestrian pedestal.

Jonathan is that you? [1]

[1] https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...

That's the power of advertising!

You can do it with anything. Spend enough on advertising, and you can get people to hand over $100+ for a pair of sunglasses that cost $5.85 to manufacture.

Maybe you are immune, sitting up there on your elevated equus.

There was a exhibit a few months ago. I am haunted by the Mirror of Paradise. Only a carbon crystal... ;-D

https://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/mughal-jewels-auction-...

I'm amazed at how many people apparently can't see the obvious humor in your response. They must be the same people who think the onion is a real new source.

It is pretty dirt.

I've been poking my head in periodically and have yet to see the massive savings of lab-created diamonds, or even moissanite. I keep expecting that the market will have shifted—last time I expected it was when moissanite for jewelry's patent ran out—and one or the other will be down to only a little higher than low-quality replacements like CZ, but it's not happened. They still seem really high to me. Cheaper, yes, but still expensive. Especially lab-created diamond.

I mean I'm on board with not buying natural diamonds and all and it's not like I wanna buy any of these for myself anyway, but I don't think there'll be a full collapse in the natural diamond market until the two best alternatives put some serious price pressure on them.

[EDIT] just checked again, 0.75c and up lab diamonds of middling (by gemstone standards) quality or better sure seem to still be like $2,000+. And 0.75c is merely on the large side of "modest".

Large moissanite stones are vastly cheaper than equivalent-quality natural diamonds at trade prices; if you can afford a decent .75ct diamond, you can afford a 15ct moissanite. When cut correctly, moissanite is visibly superior to diamond in fire and brilliance. That's a large part of the reason why small synthetic stones aren't as cheap as you might hope - it takes about the same amount of skilled labour to properly cut a natural diamond, a lab-grown diamond or a moissanite. CZ stones are cheap and look cheap, in large part because they're crudely cut.

Yeah, I checked Moissanite again after the post and it actually has gotten pretty cheap. Maybe $400 for a pretty good 0.75ct. That's more like it, and yeah, probably is cheap enough that it's mostly the cut you're paying for.

I haven’t personally seen a moissanite with greater fire and brilliance than a really well cut diamond, although what you said about the cut probably applies here since moissanite has a higher refractive index. Where would you shop for high quality moissanite? So many of the places that sell them seem to focus on being cheap unfortunately.

CZ also has the problem of being softer and more subject to environmental forces, as gems CZ ages much faster.

China disrupting world’s diamond sector, tapping sophisticated technology to produce cheap synthetic alternatives https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3020399/china-disrupti...

Seems pointless for a country to have foreign exchange used to import carbon crystals when they can be made locally.

I can understand someone preferring a stone formed by natural processes over æons and discovered by a miner over one created in a factory.

I can also understand someone preferring a stone crafted to exacting technical standards over one randomly found in nature.

They're just different ways of looking at the world, and that's okay. Me? I kind of like the romance of a stone which formed before the first man climbed down from the trees, but I don't begrudge anyone his scientific marvel either.

>> I kind of like the romance of a stone which formed before the first man climbed down from the trees, but I don't begrudge anyone his scientific marvel either.

There's a lot of those out there that cost basically nothing and are not unethically mined, however. So, why diamonds?

> So, why diamonds?

Diamonds are generally a 'good' engagement ring feature from the chemistry/physics stand-point:

Pearls will melt in a variety of acids like vinegar, along with many other 'organic' materials.

Some stones also have strange chemical interactions and can change color or will patina with age (Fluoric acid, water from hot-springs, etc).

Some stones are 'soft' and will scratch over time as they wear and may need to be replaced (Rhodo, peridot, etc)

Some stones can build up internal stresses as they age and will become brittle (highly unlikely though, though possible)

The index of refraction of many stones does not produce as large of a 'sparkle' that diamond does (though others like zircons will be much more 'sparklely')

Generally, diamonds are relatively inert chemically and very very hard to scratch or damage, all while having a good enough 'sparkle' and are able to be found in large quantities. Though their prices are currently absurd, they are a good choice from a materials standpoint.

Diamonds burn.

At 900° C, or about 20% of the temperature of the surface of the sun. I actually thought it would be higher!

Low enough to be burned in a house fire.

They will also theoretically degrade back to graphite over time, the way ice degrades to water at room temperature.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_basic_phase...

If that was the only point of distinction, I'd be right there with you. But the fact that natural diamonds are quite likely to have been mined using what amounts to brutal slave labor (even the ones that are "certified ethical," because these people have no qualms about subverting the certification process) is a pretty big issue for me.

The problem with man made diamonds is that like any technology, they'll get progressively cheaper as the production technology gets better. We saw that in a huge way when De Beers rolled out their Lightbox line and undercut pretty much everyone.

Is that really a problem? It sounds perfectly fine to me

It’s a problem if you want to consider something such a nice jewelry or a wedding ring as an investment. I would guess that some people buy the real thing because it’s less likely to lose its value over time?

That’s just my guess.

I'm not sure what you mean by "less likely to lose its value over time". If you buy a natural diamond in retail it lost more than half its value the moment you bought it. (it was never worth the retail price to begin with) As an investment, it's a terrible idea.

I'm not saying it's a good investment, to be clear I know absolutely nothing about diamonds. I was just sharing a potential reason why people may favor natural ones over manufactured ones. If the process to make synthesized diamonds becomes cheaper faster than a natural diamond lose its value, then you might be better off with the natural one if you consider it strictly from an investment point of view. Losing 50% of its value after purchase may be better than losing an potentially more after a few years once the industry figured out a way to manufacture diamonds at a way lower cost.

And that's a problem how?

Speculators will speculate - what matters is that more goods are accessible to more people.

It's a problem for the person who doesn't want their good to depreciate.

The suffering increases its value in their mind. They're not wearing a stone on their finger, they're wearing the effort and pain of many people.

"they're wearing the effort and pain of many people"

well, mostly the husband's

In whose mind? I'm 35 and all of my married friends have diamond engagement rings. I don't think any of them think that way.

Because mined diamonds have at least some resale value compared to the lab grown diamonds prices - which are a race to the bottom.

A 1 carat diamond costs about $6000, a 1 carat Moissanite stone costs about $600. Even if you could resell the 1 carat diamond for $3000 (you can't, they depreciate in value once you leave the store faster than a car when it leaves the lot) it would still be 3-4x cheaper to buy the Moissanite stone.

The term you use, “a synthetic stone”, is odd considering it actually is a diamond.

I mean, if the gold in the ring was not mined from the earth, but instead extracted from seawater (it’s a thing), would you call that not “gold”, but “a synthetic metal”?

What about if the gold was from recycled computers?

If there is a gold cartel to enforce it, yes.

For a humorous example see the origin of "processed cheese".

Cheese is a bad comparison, since cheese is different from what “processed cheese” contains. But gold is gold, and diamond is diamond – i.e. elemental particles in a regular structure.

Synthetic in terms of the definition "produced artificially", that is, in a lab. Non-synthetic would be one produced naturally (most likely many miles under the earth's surface). It's the method of production, not the chemical properties, the distinguish synthetic from non-synthetic.

Most of the lab processes are at least structurally similar to that "natural" process: at the end of the day it is just ways of pressuring Carbon into a grid. Maybe a better analogy is that we don't (currently, at least) make a distinction between "natural" foods and "greenhouse/hydroponically grown".

We have plenty of people complaining that foods should be labeled GMO or non-GMO, which is the exact same debate. Except dumber, actually.

Not exactly. GMO foods are genetically different by definition. Whether or not the difference is significant is another question, but natural vs "synthetic" diamond really is closer to the question of where a plant is grown, or perhaps if it's wild vs. planted.

So it's more like the Champagne versus Sparkling Wine situation.

Right, it's only a Diamond if it's from the bloody regions of European colonialism, otherwise it is just Sparkling Carbon.

> It's the method of production, not the chemical properties, the distinguish synthetic from non-synthetic.

So i give you two stones. Can you tell me which one is synthetic? It's a marketing term only. We don't call the gold used in the ring as man-made, but it is certainly blended by man with other elements.

No, but what does that matter? It mainly comes down to cost. If you give me 2 diamonds that are absolutely equivalent in terms of size, clarity, etc. and tell me that one costs $6000 and the other $600 then I can tell you which one is natural and which one is synthetic. I want the $600 synthetic one.

"Synthetic stone" is another bit of marketing the diamond cartels have come up with to combat the fact that they're losing market share from artificial scarcity - imply that the man-made diamonds are somehow inferior to natural stones.

A few years ago I read the diamond lobbyists were trying to require "synthetic" diamonds to have some sort of microscopic etching inside. Apparently the technology is getting so good even skilled diamond appraisers aren't able to tell the difference.

They can tell the difference because the manufactured ones, especially those produced by the vapour deposit process, are too flawless to be natural :)

I've also read that the flawless manufacturers are now introducing imperfections to combat just this!

I'd guess that kind of thinking is reasonably common - anecdotally, my girlfriend and I are both in our early 20s and have been dating long enough that we've started discussing marriage. In one of our earlier discussions about it, I told her she shouldn't expect a mined diamond, because I'm morally opposed to the business and mining practices employed by diamond companies. She added the possibility of getting a recycled gemstone (which I didn't know about before!), agreeing that she wouldn't want a newly-mined stone.

I'm sure there have been attempts, but I've always wanted to create a startup that really directly goes after the "vintage diamond" market.

Diamonds and engagement rings in general have a really low resale value (despite being sold as an investment). This should create a market where you can buy low and then sell at a substantial mark up that is still _less_ than what's charged by the cartel.

That won’t work. The reason they have a low resale value is because the retail markets have a 100% markup. So, immediately after buying the diamond you cut its value in half. So you’re proposing buying diamonds at this price (wholesale price) and then selling them at a big mark up - who are you selling to??? Why would anyone buy a diamond from you instead of Zales? You can say “because mine are cheaper”, but how are you marketing? You may have noticed, those jewelry retailers have quite a marketing budget.

* there is no diamond cartel, this myth needs to die. DeBeers isn’t even the top diamond producer by volume any more

Significantly more than 100% last I checked if you don’t buy wholesale. I went to Bloomingdales 7 years ago and they had “50% off” diamonds and the markup after that discount was still roughly 500% considering the very poor quality of the gemstones. People really get ripped off unless they do proper research. Even Tiffany’s was 2-3x markup, although at least I will say they only had high quality diamonds so that’s a point in their favor.

There are a few person to person markets that work pretty well, like diamondbistro and idonowidont.

Contact me on LinkedIn if you are seriously interested in pursuing something like this :)

We, at Liquid Diamonds, are building an online exchange for naturally mined diamonds; think Nasdaq for diamonds. https://liquid.diamonds/

As a married millennial, my wife and I both were against buying any "new" mined diamonds. Her engagement ring was actually a vintage ring and the wedding band had "lab" diamonds inlaid. Thinking back at our friends who married, many that decided to bought new diamond jewelry made it a point to mention the diamonds were "ethically sourced" in one form of another. Two other trends I've noticed: diamonds seem to be both less popular on engagement rings and smaller when they do make an appearance. "Large" diamonds seem gauche.

This reminds of a Business 101 professor (former tech CEO) that I had in college. He liked to survey Freshman on their preferences. I don't remember the category precisely, but he was visibly taken aback and commented that "McDonalds" had never NOT been the #1 in one of the Freshman preference categories (I'm guessing it was for "favorite fast food", but I can't remember precisely). This struck me as a great way to keep a pulse on the market.

I bet he'd pick up the diamond trend if that was in his survey!

I got married a few years back, both of us in our mid 30s. I never intended to buy a diamond, and instead bought a sapphire engagement ring. Interestingly, it wasn't until AFTER we got engaged that I found out/realized that both her mother AND grandmother wore sapphire rings. Her 100 year old grandmother had been married multiple times, but her last and favorite engagement ring was a sapphire, despite having certainly received plenty of diamonds throughout her lifetime.

> "McDonalds" had never NOT been the #1 in one of the Freshman preference categories

The Beloit Mindset List annually captures the changing worldview of younger generations.

http://themindsetlist.com/2017/08/beloit-college-mindset-lis...

Great resource! Thanks!

Aside: Good God that list is cringy!

What it really puts into perspective is,

Fifty years from now, student loan derivatives will be the largest asset class, you'll be worried about teenagers spongling each other on the lacework, and you'll read an article about the graduating generation and find it pretty insightful.

Some of the list is applicable to people born from the start of 90s. Still cool, though

I was born in the early 80s and still have no idea what that westinghouse W radio thing is all about.

I was born in the early 70s and I have no idea either.

My bride wanted sapphire because she knew I was convinced of the evil history of diamond. 10 years later she demanded a big diamond to replace it and I realized she'd been seething all those years but compromised because she was playing the long game our marriage.

Haha sounds about right!

That's too bad that she may have not been upfront with you from the onset :(

Crazy... So did the salesman at the jewelry store go into a whole speech about the "5 C's" of diamonds? (Clarity, carats, etc.) Can't believe how quickly he disappeared when I told him "oh sorry I'm not interested in a diamond."

Sapphire is something you buy in bulk, in sheets, tubes, rods, or bar stock.[1] Every scanner window at Home Depot is a sheet of sapphire. You can drag steel tools across those all day for years without much effect.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/synthetic+sapphire.html

This is precisely why I purchased my wife a diamond, it was worth every penny, I think she was proud of it for years, always showing it off. It’s not my place to judge her, it made her happy, feel loved and validated, and that was more valuable than the money.

The key is to buy wholesale online or you’ll get totally ripped off, the markups at places like Tiffany’s or Bloomjngdales are outrageous and are the biggest reason diamonds have poor resale value. You wouldn’t buy gold at a 10x markup but that’s precisely what people do with diamonds for some reason. Also don’t buy a diamond on credit, my wife and I had significant savings and no debt so it wasn’t like the diamond hurt our finances.

Of course everyone is entitled to get whatever stone (or no stone) they want! Diamonds seem to be falling out of favor so the article above doesn’t surprise me. I would put some blame on the diamond industry being too greedy, selling at outrageous markups and telling everyone a proper diamond should be “X months salary” where X has gone up by 1 every decade.

This is great. Use the same reasoning to get your wife to buy you a new Corvette C8. Tell her you need it to feel loved and validated, and that it's more valuable than the money. You will be proud of it for years and always show it off. It's not her place to judge you, it made you happy. She needs to spend at least 1 yearly wage on the car or else she doesn't love you.

She spent 9 months being pregnant with my daughter and suffered through labor, that’s more than a fair trade.

You spent those 9 months presumably working and taking care of her. That's more than a fair trade.

It is a common understanding throughout the history that women think it is not a fair trade, it is also the case that many men seem to think the women have it harder in the pregnancy period as easy as they may or may not be accused of having it otherwise. Therefore I think you need to add more of an argument for why it should be a fair trade, probably difficult given that when you are taken care of someone (unless in the Pulp Fiction manner) you are doing so because they have it significantly worse than you do.

what? whos worse? its 2 people busy with different things. thats why its a fair trade. its teamwork.

It's hard to imagine someone saying this if they've ever taken care of a pregnant woman all the way to term. Yes, it's teamwork, but the man gets the better end of the deal and it's not even close.

My wife bore us 7 children, but I still totally disagree with your argument.

What do you disagree with exactly?

I had initially intended on getting a synthetic sapphire for my wife as an engagement ring; but the thing is, I couldn't really find an easy way to get an artificial sapphire -- or any sapphire really -- which I knew was good quality, in a good setting. Diamonds have an entire system around rating every aspect of them: the clarity, the cut, even the fluorescence. In the end, I figured knowing exactly what I was going to get trumped paying for something of whose idea I had no quality. (I bought one with extra high flourescence, and a hand-held blacklight to test it.)

>> Diamonds have an entire system around rating every aspect of them: the clarity, the cut, even the fluorescence.

I know where you're going with this and agree to some extent, but this ratings system is entirely fraudulent and propagates the myth that there is some secondary market for gems that backs the value of the jewelry - when there absolutely is not. Ask any pawn store broker.

There absolutely is a reason for these “ratings” (characteristics is a better term). They separate our differenr stones that let buyers know what they’re buying. When you’re spending $100M on rough stones, you want to know what you’re buying. As an anecdote, the prized characteristics are different in the world. In the US size matters. In Japan, clarity matters. In a China, color matters.

The rating system is not at all fraudulent if done by one of the three biggest labs: GIA, AGSL, and IGI.

The appraisal system is often massively overinflated, however.

You won't receive anywhere close to what you paid for, much less the the overly inflated appraisal that you got, on the secondary market. Rule of thumb is maybe 30% or less if you bought it from a mall store. But there is a thriving second hand market.

I knew that there was no secondary market for diamonds. The only place I'm "going" is that I knew what I was going to get.

I would gladly have paid the same price for an artificial sapphire in a platinum setting, with similar certifications. But first of all, I couldn't find anywhere that would sell me artificial sapphires in a precious metal setting. Secondly, I couldn't find anywhere that even described with some level of accuracy anything about the sapphires (artificial or not)-- exactly what color? Exactly what size / cut? Exactly what level of clarity? Just fuzzy descriptions about how beautiful the stone is. Sorry, not going to drop $1000 on your assertion that this blue rock is "gorgeous".

The certification said the stone was X size, Y clarity, Z color, and had a really high fluorescence; and what I got was a stone of X size, Y clarity, Z color, and a high fluorescence. It may be a racket, but it's a well-oiled one.

As someone in my early 30s I'd never buy a diamond, or any precious resource really. Why spend a ton of money to tear up the environment or fuel conflicts, only to get something shiny? It seems like a terrible waste to me.

If your partner is aligned with that then ok; otherwise good luck!

She is. We got a Swarovski glass ring. Cost $120. Look at all the debt I don't have because I didn't spring for paying an additional few thousand on optimal status signaling.

Good work - I'm not sure how my wife would have taken such a suggestion. Our whole friend group owns diamond engagement rings. The social pressure is still very real and that somehow seeps into the minds of even the smartest women I know.

My fiancee told everyone it's a diamond.

Which actually annoys me, because if I'm being honest, I think people who go into debt for meaningless baubles are being foolish. I think our whole consumerist culture is foolish. Save your money, do what you want.

I guess my fiancee knows she's with a man who would never spend thousands of dollars on a shiny rock.

She clearly felt the social pressure then too.

Synthetic stones are still quite expensive. Natural alternatives are interestingly cheaper.

Question: Why would I spend a pretty penny on a lab grown diamond where the prices are a race to the bottom.

Yes, I do agree that I'd probably lose 20 cents on my dollar as soon as I buy the diamond even if I did my homework and bought it at a good price. But at least there is a resale value of the stone since unlike lab grown diamonds, there isn't an unlimited supply of mined diamonds: https://www.bain.com/contentassets/7b9f04068ca64542a17b71713...

Disclaimer: At Liquid Diamonds, we are building an online exchange for naturally mined diamonds; think Nasdaq for diamonds.

The breakup has been on going for about 7 years now. As the article says, the old way of buying diamonds was a take it or leave it proposition. About 7 years ago though, some of the smaller players in the field (Dominion, Rio Tinto, Okavango) decided to start auctioning their rough stone every couple of months. They invited dozens, up to 100 bidders for each auction. This was the first time buyers could get a real market price for the rough stone, and there were no repercussionsn if they were outbid. It’s become the industry practice now to sell a portion of the rough using auction software and using that market price to set the prices for these sight holders, who still buy a large proportion of the rough. Even DeBeers and Alrosa use auctions to set prices. The sales of diamonds has changed more in the last decade than it did the previous 100. (Disclosure, my company supplies software for these auctions).

To add to my comment a little, and this was touched up in the article. The vast majority of rough diamonds are sent to India for cutting/polishing, before being sold to the retail channels (Tiffany, Zales, Wal-Mart, etc). The profit margin for the miners is rather small, the profit margin for the cutters/polishers is razor thin, and the profit margin for the retailers is HUGE.

Is it at all possible to buy direct from the cutters and polishers?

Just speculating here, maybe if you fly to India and visit their cutting shops in Surat.

The fairest prices as I understand it are on BlueNile, which charges about 10-15% above cut price, which is much better than the 100+% you'll find in retail.

+1 for BlueNile, you can do better than them but they are a huge improvement over the mall stores.

Yes it's possible, but you need to do your research. Many of the big ones go to the Hong Kong Jewelry and Gem fair.

I have some knowledge of retail side. It’s a huge gross margin, but a ton of costs make net margins slim. So basically same all round.

I recently purchased a moissanite[1] ring and was very happy that it was a choice. My disillusionment with diamonds started when I read this article[2] on how the industry manufactured demand. The argument against diamonds and for moissanite is succinctly made by http://diamondssuck.com/ (I have no affiliation. I am just grateful that the author made it, and I try to share it as much as possible.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite

[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...

Moissanite makes a beautiful stone.

They're pretty, but they're not diamonds. They refract the light differently. They're more colorful. I can spot one from several feet away. We went with a man made diamond and love it. Less than half the price of an equivalent natural stone.

What's a man-made diamond?

A diamond made in a laboratory

I have a moissanite wedding ring; it's very popular among my mid-30s social circle. I prefer it over diamonds, both for ethical reasons and material science nerd reasons.

I'm an amateur gem faceter -- if you want something that's actually rare, choose a non-diamond colored stone. A ruby or sapphire is far more rare.

Personally, I advocate for lab created stones. It is flawless, you can get the exact color you want (I have something like 20 different colors of sapphire), and won't break the bank. You can spend your money where it counts -- paying for the skills of the cutter -- rather than on a chunk of rough that has been cut sub-optimally to maximize preserving the weight of the stone rather than the brilliance of the cut.

How does one become an amateur gem faceter?

Where do you go to get lab stones?

How do you find a good jeweler/faceter that works with synthetic stones? All the downtown big name jewelers seem to work with natural.

Good.

We purchased a lab grown/man-made diamond on purpose. Even "non-conflict" diamonds are mined in immoral ways. And while in theory it is great to bring outside money into some of the poorest areas of the world, the work conditions and atrocities cannot be ignored[0][1][2].

Ideally people should move beyond diamonds entirely. There's plenty of precious stones. But in the meantime lab grown diamonds are the most moral way to buy a diamond.

[0] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15842524/ns/world_news/t/diamonds-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_in...

[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/all-diamonds-out-of-afric_b_2...

Second hand diamonds are arguably even more morally defensible.

Well, about a century ago, when I got married, we weren't thinking about ethical dilemmas, because we weren't really aware of them back then. I gave my wife a diamond that had been my grandmother's, partly because the stone was free to me (don't tell my wife that!), and partly because the family history made it a bit more special than just some random diamond we found in a store.

I suspect, as family sizes stabilize on two or fewer kids, there's going to be a lot more of passing down family diamonds, and therefore less demand for new...

Second-hand synthetic diamonds, sure - but buying anything second hand is generally more morally defensible than buying that thing new.

Buying a used natural diamond is still worse than buying a synthetic one, because you're propping up the resale value of natural diamonds and therefore encouraging other people to buy them.

Where did you purchase the lab grown diamond?

There's a number of stores on the internet that offer them. You just buy the diamond then have them set into a band of your choice.

I don't think large jewelry chains commonly offer them.

I wouldn't be surprised if their supply or natural diamonds was contingent on them not selling artificial ones.

Or maybe they're owned by the companies selling natural stones?

Wouldn't be the first time that someone tried to own the whole market from end to end.

Diamond Foundry: https://diamondfoundry.com/ had a big marketing push a couple of years ago.

Funny enough, but you can get them on Amazon. :)

I bought my lab grown diamond from a jewelry store.

I went in to buy an engagement ring and the clerk pulled out a few diamonds for me to look at, without telling me anything about them except that their prices were all similar.

I picked the one I thought looked the nicest (sparkly and big) and then the clerk told me about each of them.

The one I picked was lab grown. It was a higher quality diamond than the other two, and it was bigger, for the same price as a smaller, lower quality, "real" diamond.

(It wasn't a huge amount of money. Probably one or two hundred dollars.)

It seems some posters here are missing an important point about engagement rings: they are a gesture of financial commitment. The expensive price tag is a feature, not a bug that can be solved by creating chemically-identical but inexpensive alternatives.

If lab-grown stones become the norm for ethical reasons, but they are priced too low, I can see culture shifting to new gestures of commitment.

conspicuous consumption != financial commitment

If you have the money to burn on a symbol without any particular utility (and, usually, a fractional resale value that makes driving new car off the lot look like a relatively good investment), you may well also have the money to burn on a divorce lawyer.

Some other form of marriage bond could potentially pop up, I suppose, but meanwhile we have laws which aren't mere gestures of financial commitment, they're enforceable obligations.

> It seems some posters here are missing an important point about engagement rings: they are a gesture of financial commitment.

And all this time I thought it was to indicate a commitment to marriage.

> The expensive price tag is a feature, not a bug...

Feature? For who? The diamond industry?

Yea, not sure how this is a feature. I want to prove my loyalty so I'll waste a bunch of what will soon be your money buying you a temporary ring?

I made an engagement ring from a coconut husk in about ten seconds and it did the trick just fine. No need to spend any money really, let alone the "three month's pay" rule of thumb that gets tossed around.

Agreed and anyway the 3 months pay thing was part of DeBeers advertising campaign way back when.

In many cultures the purpose of jewelry is to give the woman wealth independent of the husband. When she is a housewife with much less earning potential she will be completely dependent, and so the gifts of gold mitigate that.

Diamond though are a terrible way to store wealth. As soon as you walk out of the store they lose significant value, and they will only depreciate.

>> The expensive price tag is a feature, not a bug...

>Feature? For who? The diamond industry?

Each couple is a world unto themselves, as such each is very different and equally unique. However, when it comes to large engagement stones like diamonds, the rings can generally serve three functions:

1) as a flaunting of the wealth of the suitor and the bride-to-be. Generally, you see this with people that are more about 'image' than 'substance'. People like the current US President who is notorious for his use of gold leaf, people that are in 'society' and need to be seen, people in the jewelry industry itself that can use the ring as an advertisement, etc.

2) as a psuedo-dowery for the marriage and the bride-to-be. Essentially, the suitor is 'pot committed', to borrow a poker term, and has a higher likelyhood of actually making it to the wedding as he has put a 'down-payment' on the bride-to-be. This is an extremely regressive stance on marriage, but it persists all the same. The bride-to-be also now has a lump-sum of money that that ring can be pawned off for in case the marriage is not preformed. Traditionally, if the ring was expensive enough, the couple could then start having intercourse and risk pregnancy as the bride-to-be could be assured that the suitor was now serious about marriage and would not run off after intercourse.

3) as a sign to others in society that they share the same values system and can be relied upon to perpeuate the culture too. This is something of a deal in religious communities and in family groups. By putting a lot of money up for such a ring, the couple shows that they are financially committed to the value system of others. This is also known as 'tradition'.

That's all well and good but why do the men have to pay the dowry? Used to be the woman's family was responsible for that, now they just have to pay for the wedding!

wedding industry is another pricy gesture of commitment

But generally by the bride's family towards the bride and the public. Sadly, I don't think this kind of public potlatch is in danger, it's a clear signal of class and the rich are getting richer.

Diamonds and weddings make you poor in the process of showing off how rich you are; why not cut out the middleman and do things that show you're rich and still rich after having done them?

If the culture shifts to buying your girlfriend a car or a down payment on a condo or paying off her student loans, I will be so much happier.

> they are a gesture of financial commitment

So spend the money on something that's actually useful in a marriage. A house, college fund for kids, car, rainy day fund, vacation etc.

a gesture of financial commitment

My wife and I decided to build a house together instead of getting expensive rings and having a wedding. We paid $15 for a wedding, the rings were a little more.

I think it must be very easy to come up with ways to have productive financial commitment together. There must be all kinds of things you can do.

Financial commitment and sweat(!) commitment: https://photos.app.goo.gl/E9zGc4aCat6qjNeEA

(We did not build the entire house, just lots of finishing stuff)

Wedding: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1152244909077913600

Thanks for the links, I love the town hall photo!

> I can see culture shifting to new gestures of commitment

Thank goodness. From a joint college account for future kids, the purchase of a home, or even just Treasuries in a joint trust, there is an infinity of superior options to shiny rocks from Central Africa.

At least a dowry helps someone in some way related to the marriage.

My guess is that many will buy bigger stones, so that the financial outlay is roughly the same.

I'm sure the random person you're giving all your money to thinks it's a great gesture, but it's not doing anything for your wife.

It used to be true that women needed to own expensive jewelry - because they couldn't have their own bank accounts, so they needed something they could sell in an emergency. But diamonds are worthless and the price is a fiction.

Engagement rings are not a gesture of commitment, they are a gesture that you're willing to play in the status game and spend considerable resources to give your spouse the ability to signal that they are in possession of someone who is willing to spend considerable resources on them.

99.99% of people who buy the engagement rings are better off investing the funds and going with a fake shiny thing if they want to "fit in" with their peers, and just lie to people. Or they can inform others how little value status signaling provides them, especially if they don't have considerable assets to blow.

I think switching to colored gems would be an easy shift.

We missed that memo. We’ve been married twice and neither time involved engagement rings. We needed to pay, you know, rent and stuff. We went to Vegas, got married by Elvis.

Exactly. And this idea started to cracking, which is the major reason for their problems, not cheap alternatives.

Diamonds have had their supply artificially restricted for decades, inflating their prices. That, combined with the ethical dilemmas (blood diamonds, etc.) associated with the stones, it doesn't make sense to me to get them. They don't even look prettier than an emerald or sapphire either, there's just too much hype.

The demand for diamond was entirely driven by their very successful marketing campaign: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...

IIRC the whole 2 months salary "rule" was also invented by them.

Which was brilliant (no pun) as it keeps up with inflation.

"Diamonds are forever. Coincidentally that's also the term of our sub-prime loan to get one."

Keeps up with wages

My wife doesn't like colored stones, so emeralds and sapphires are right out. We are looking at Moissanite stones. Not synthetic, but significantly cheaper than diamonds.

Moissanite is also synthetic (typically grown via a chemical vapor deposition process). It's not carbon (like diamonds), but made of SiC, a material long used for abrasives and more recently for high-power electronics and LEDs. The 4H-SiC polymorph is actually extraordinarily rare in nature, even moreso than diamonds!
We chose moissanites as the primary stones in my wife's engagement rings and everyone talks about how pretty it is. It's a bit more "firey" or "sparkly" than a regular diamond (because of more birefringence), but I guarantee no one outside a very highly trained jeweler would know the difference (if that's important to you). It's worth it to spend the money on the higher quality ones though, since just like diamonds, the inexpensive ones will have yellowish or greenish tints. Even still, they're at least an order of magnitude cheaper than similar diamonds ($600 vs. $6,500 at my quick search for ~1 carat).

White sapphires are a thing.

I proposed to my fiancee with a Moissanite stone. One is hardly able to tell the difference. It looks like I paid many thousands of dollars more than I did for it, and no one is ever the wiser.
Go for it.

Hype has always played a huge role in the marketing of diamonds. It's been a myth for decades that the price of a diamond was somehow correlated with its rareness. Diamonds were, and are not, rare. DeBeers, as a cartel, was able to control the market and release diamonds from their cache such that the demand always out-stripped the supply. Now that diamonds are being mined outside of South Africa and the manufacture of synthetic stones is a reality, their hold is slipping away.

Some years ago I went to Tate modern in London and saw a massive queue in the engine room,where was a medium size black sort of a kiosk. Having no idea what's inside the booth,yet too curious to ignore it, I join the queue and after 10-15 min. I get to go inside.I walk in and there's 'For the Love of God',which essentially a skull covered in diamonds. The room was black and had some special lightning to make the skull shine.The whole thing looked so ridiculous and was on the same level as something made in China for $10,the ultimate bling bling.I didn't even stop to observe it and left the booth. Diamonds nowadays are like Gucci or louis vuitton products: even if what you are wearing is original,you still look ridiculous..

This I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_God
I agree with you.

Yup, that's the one.

Jesus that’s terrible, no absolutes in taste though I’m sure someone likes it.

The ultimate vanitas.

I do have to wonder if it wasn't made by Damien Hirst[1] whether we'd even be discussing it. Even setting aside my perceived vulgarity (a criticism I would apply to much of Hirst's work), it doesn't seem particularly new or interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst

Where art is concerned, vapid peacocks flock.

Natural diamonds have been the most shamelessly wealth-signaling purchase a person can make, ever since the artificial process was perfected. As far as I know there is literally no difference between an artificial and a natural diamond except the fact that the latter is more scarce and harder to get, and therefore more expensive. Unlike other traditional wealth-signal purchases, there is no pretense of utility or even pleasure or fashion. It's purely to say, "I can afford this."

Natural diamonds are far more plentiful than lab grown diamonds.

I mean, technically, since lab grown ones are made on-demand and haven't been an option for nearly as long. Let's not get pedantic. The point is they're much cheaper to "produce".

Simple test about diamonds: Putting so-called "investment diamonds" and heritage pieces to one side, has anyone who bought an item of diamond jewellery here ever experienced selling it for remotely close to what they bought it for?
Investment diamonds are a semi self-regulated shell-game of hedging which tries to be like gold, but basically isn't. Gold is equally irrational in some ways, but it is used by the state banks as part of their hedge. I believe only diamond producing nations use diamonds as their financial strategic reserve. Nobody else seems to regard them as a viable mechanism for national financial resilience.
Consumer grade diamond is a propped up market where the cost and price disfunction is about as big as it can be.
Pink diamonds, now thats a scarce resource. As long as small girls are obsessed with the colour pink, and the Argyll mine in Australia has reserves (the pipe is exhausted but they banked huge numbers of stones) there is value in scarcity.
Buy shares in bort: industrial construction needs diamond grit

The diamonds people are buying for investments are not stones you’d ever see at a store - think 30ct flawless stones, up to 1000ct rough stones. The uniqueness and scarcity of those stones in particular is what makes them a suitable, yet speculative, investment. Pink diamonds, I’ve 100+ of them, they are hugely popular in Hong Kong and China, where they are mainly bought for a “flaunting investment”.

> Consumer grade diamond is a propped up market where the cost and price disfunction is about as big as it can be.
A few years ago I purchased a pair of diamond earrings for myself at one of the big chains. Kay I think it was. When I paid I was prompted to get a paper receipt or have a receipt emailed to me. I hit paper and then decided I probably should have gone with email in case I needed to get them serviced or anything so I asked the woman helping me if I could change my selection. The two women working spent quite a bit of time at the computer trying to figure it out before one of them said "I'm just going to do this and be done with it."
I should have known that wasn't a good sign. They must have added my email address as some sort of corporate/store account because I was emailed a copy of every receipt for every. single. purchase. made at that location from then on.
I called the location, I called their headquarters, I talked to someone in IT at HQ. The receipts kept coming and no one at Kay knew why nor did they seem to care. I finally just gave up and abandoned the gmail address but I've often wondered if I'm sitting on one of the most comprehensive consumer diamond data sets of "retail price" vs "purchase price" in the world.

You should take a look at the data, or share it! Either way I'm super curious.

if the invoices count caret you can plot $/caret over time.
if the invoices don't count caret, you can count $/purchase over time, and then do text analysis to group the purchases.

The problem with diamonds, unlike stocks and commodities, is that there is no price discovery or liquidity in diamonds.
We, at Liquid Diamonds, are looking to change that :)

As a nerd, once I found out that lab grown diamonds and other gems are chemically and physically the same as their natural counterparts for a fraction of the price, it became VERY difficult for me to buy natural gems. It's hard for me to justify being stupid. Thankfully my fiancee was on the same page.

Why do you want a diamond (natural or otherwise) on your finger at all?

We're all shaped by the culture we live in.

Whoa there! I'd consider it a mark of wisdom to judge and filter society's expectations rather than absorbing them uncritically. Perhaps not let it shape us unless we consciously allow it to?

You and the grandparent aren't necessarily in opposition. It's fair to say that we are all influenced by our culture. We are aware of some things and may not be aware of other things. There are some things I reject and there are others that I just go with. There are even things that I like despite those things are just "how it is".
I guess the ring with a gemstone fight was a fight I didn't find necessary to fight over, especially since my fiancee was ok with a lab-grown gem. My fiancee and I sort of just met halfway (actually I paid only a fraction of what I would have been traditionally expected to pay). She wasn't too keen on a huge and expensive ring but I think she would have felt bad if people around her judged her negatively if she didn't have one. We all pick our battles and if I got most of what I wanted, I don't see a need to fight it all the way. It wasn't worth the energy to me and for her to fight it completely.
Plus, shiny things are pretty.

Unfortunately even if you might feel a certain way, there might be someone else important in your life expecting a Real Diamond Ring whose opinion of you is more important than a few thousands of dollars

If their opinion of you is dependent upon that, that fact just might be worth its weight in gold.

Are they? It's been a few years since I seriously looked at diamonds, but I don't remember the "lab grown" stones being significantly (if it all) cheaper than "natural" stones from wholesale dealers.
I ended up buying a second-hand ring and having the stone reset in a new ring. It was cheaper than a similar ring from Diamond Foundry.

Things have changed very dramatically since you looked:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-diamonds-debeers-syntheti...

>He argues that demand remains robust, and millennials will covet diamonds the same way their parents and grandparents did.
RIP diamond industry.

Well if this is based on old traditions indicating a gesture of financial commitments then we should expect more to be buying engagement rings now:
Apparently some women are earning more than men, why should I spend my hard earned cash to impress your friends family over a rock? Why not invest the money into something productive.
An idiotic tradition.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/googl...

The whole diamond ring thing is basically the result of a really effective advertising campaign. It's definitely dumb to get a diamond ring when you can get a much more beautiful, intricate ring for significantly cheaper.

The article does a good job of pointing out issues with the diamond industry including margins getting smaller due to consolidation in the space and lack of financing.
However, a couple of points are just old and mute at this point: 1. De Beers' monopoly in the diamond world has long been over. It now supplies only about 20 percent of the world's rough diamonds. 2. Demand of diamonds is creeping up whereas supply is limited: https://www.bain.com/contentassets/7b9f04068ca64542a17b71713...
Disclaimer: We, at Liquid Diamonds, are building an online exchange for naturally mined diamonds; think Nasdaq for diamonds. https://liquid.diamonds/

Something I've noticed over the years: on websites that have a female majority demographic, diamonds are generally talked about in revered terms, but the polar opposite sentiment is seen on male dominated websites.
Pinterest: effusive towards diamonds. Popular articles include "What diamond shape fits your personality type?"
Reddit: hates diamonds. Popular articles include "Diamonds are a myth created by corporations."

Beyond the horrific conflict-side of things surrounding this industry, it is this artificial market inflation and artificial scarcity that really bugs me. If there's anything that i think should go the way of the dodo bird, its this industry. Bleh.

Diamonds are industrially useful but calling them "precious stones" or "permanent" has always seemed silly to me. They literally burn up if you heat them in an oxygen atmosphere. Most rocks don't do that.

They do burn, but not easily. They only seem to char slightly with an oxy acetylene torch (I assume that's what is being used here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_yqriai7E
It might be a heatsinking thing, as diamond does transfer heat well, and the metal underneath would continue to carry it away.

This thread is kind of funny on a meta-level.
People are saying things roughly equivalent to: "I purchased cheese for my wife because she wanted it" and others are countering with "cheese isn't rare, lab-grown cheese is superior, my wife doesn't even like cheese, my wife likes nuts more than cheese, acktshually nuts are superior to cheese, cows are mistreated, I'm not purchasing cheese for my future wife, your wife should have bought you cheese, check out these cheese-alternatives that are even better than cheese, there are secret vaults full of uneaten cheese, eating is bad for your health, etc. etc."
There's still a lot of emotion tied to diamonds. Diamonds will truly be on their way out when a thread about diamonds is mostly ignored instead of becoming a bizarre flame war.

To see the actual market in action, try selling off your spouse's engagement ring and see the value it brings on the secondary market.

Is the answer: almost nothing?

When I become lucky to propose to someone, I am not going to go down the route of a diamond that everyone else has. Something more precious like Morganite or Alexandrite (unless they can be lab grown too?)

Why is that? Just curious.
When I proposed to my wife I went with a Sapphire as the main stone, mostly because I personally find clear rocks boring to look at (and my wife generally agrees).

Same reason as you just stated. Why give a loved one something that a lot of other people will have, try and be more unique.

Careful with that. I had the same thought, but was proven 'wrong' because my SO did not want anything but diamond, just because of the 'tradition.'
No amount of reading online would get her to change her mind.
She was worth it though.

Sapphire is beautiful, and available in a wide variety of colors.
The cool thing about Alexandrite is that it changes color depending on the type of light falling on it. It looks different indoors versus outdoors, for example.
And Alexandrite is considerably more rare than most diamonds, at least so-called "white" diamonds.
Now, red diamonds, those are exceptionally rare -- I think a sum total of ten are known to exist in the world, at least when it comes to natural red diamonds. And there was a really big deal made in the last few years when someone discovered what might have been the eleventh known red diamond, but I don't recall if it got officially ruled as "red", or if they decided it was some variant of "pink" instead.

Alexandrite, real ones, are more than diamonds

Links from bloomberg.com are always behind a soft-paywall. or is this just happening to me?

I'm able to see it, but this banner is on the bottom of the page "This is your last free article." I wonder if it the number of articles resets monthly, or if this is my last one until I clear my cookies.

Open in a private window or use outline.com

Easiest way to work around this, for me, is to right-click the "web" link at the top of the HN post, then open that in a private/incognito window, then click through to the actual article from Google.
Since publishers are more concerned about not appearing to serve different content to Google (against Google's TOS), they generally show the full article content from that referer.

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