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spookware

Yellow diamonds? Sorry but unless the diamond is clear its considered inpure and into the bin it goes.

Then marketing got involved. Now yellow diamonds are a thing. Dont fall for it.

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Diamonds? Sorry but that's a form of carbon way too hard to eat and into the bin it goes.

Then marketing got involved. Now diamonds are a thing. Don't fall for it.

Not even remotely in the same ballpark.

In the modern era, diamonds are not all that rare or hard to retrieve to begin with, and now we have mass-produced synthetic diamonds that are actually higher-quality (fewer flaws) than mined ones. The idea that a tiny pebble, however artfully cut, is rare and precious and worth thousands of dollars is 100% marketing.

When I was looking at diamond rings the synthetics available to me were at a high cost, not much less than a "traditional" diamond. Same goes for alternate stones such as Moissanite which HackerNews has discussed below. So, not being pro-diamond here, but simply stating it looks like marketing has brought up the prices of these alternate methods too.

Diamonds Suck/pro Moissanite website: http://diamondssuck.com/ (2006)

HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17186457

Perhaps you were shopping with an unscrupulous jeweler then, because, all else the same, a Moissanite stone is significantly less expensive than a comparable diamond

There is no law stopping anyone from mining for diamonds, and they do fetch a good price even on the secondary market.

I'd say the fact there there is not a glut of diamonds shows that they are actually pretty rare.

It is rarer than many minerals, yes, but not enough to justify the astronomical prices. The global diamond supply chain is controlled by a handful of powerful companies that cooperate to maintain scarcity and keep prices high.

The idea that engagement rings "must" have a diamond only dates back to the '40s and is entirely down to De Beers' marketing. The same company spent a fortune promoting the idea that synthetic diamonds are somehow inferior and developing tests to distinguish them, even though they're chemically identical and the only way to tell them apart is that natural diamonds are lower-quality, with more flaws and less clarity.

It's all marketing isn't it? Or is there some intrinsic reason why the spectral response of the impurities in a carbon lattice actually matters?

>Or is there some intrinsic reason why the spectral response of the impurities in a carbon lattice actually matters?

It makes a pretty color?

but if people perceive yellow diamonds to be pretty (even if its through marketing), then it is all the same

Yes. While diamonds have always been valuable, in the 19th century, DeBeers bought most/all known large mines and exercised their monopoly position to control the market. They also launched massive marketing campaigns touting diamonds as the "best" stone for an engagement ring.

Jewelry companies are masters of marketing. All they do to sell colored diamonds is to give them enticing names. Such as Canary diamonds.

Also, some of the most famous diamonds ever were yellow, including the Oppenheimer diamond.

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