Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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