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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.

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I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them...

> everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them

It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way to stay within cultural norms without necessarily[1] contributing to the problem.

[1] Obviously actively fighting against the whole diamond industry is better, but we all have to pick our battles.

Synthetic diamond will eventually become so easy the industry won't be able to supress it anymore. The collapse will be interesting, in the bloddy sense of the term I suspect.

Synthetic diamonds are not easy to produce and they take time and energy (literally). The only reason synthetics are made is because the price of real diamonds help prop up the price of artificial ones. If the market collapses, as you predict, than artificial diamonds don’t become economical to create any more. My prediction: new mines will continue to be found and real diamonds will have the same market hold they have now in 20 years.

That doesn't make much sense. The ratio of the mining cost manufacturing cost is the same regardless of the demand.

Research on bulk synthesis of diamond will continue for the foreseeable future, it's just too important a manufacturing material. It will be a massive win for thermal engineering when semiconductor chips can easily be embedded in a diamond matrix.

Synthetic rubies and sapphires have been around for over 100 years and are dirt cheap ($10 for a 15mm one on eBay). However, the market for natural rubies and sapphires is still going strong. A high quality natural Ruby costs about the same as a similar sized diamond. There's no reason to believe the diamond industry is going to crash any time soon.

> Synthetic rubies and sapphires have been around for over 100 years and are dirt cheap ($10 for a 15mm one on eBay).

Rubies are much cheaper than that.

At least, I used to order them from Pehnec Gems at prices more like $3 per (in lots of 10+). I haven't bought them in years and pehnec.com currently resolves to 10.0.0.1; not sure what's going on.

I think we're close if not already there.

"Synthetic" diamonds are better in all objective criteria that "natural" diamonds. Before they were a thing they would even be considered top quality diamonds.

Once they were mass produced the criteria changed and now the "natural" with higher degree of impurities (a previously undesirable trait) are considered better.

It's not about the rock. The rock is a placeholder. It's about how much you spent on the rock (commitment) and the fact that it's not available to everyone (social proof).

It is extremely difficult to create large, colorless, flawless synthetic diamonds. Currently synthetics are primarily used for industrial applications like drill bits.

"synthetic" diamonds with far fewer impurities are far cheaper than "natural" diamonds of the same size.

The goalpost will always move because the things used to justify it are excuses and not real reasons.

Even De Beers announced they would start selling synthetics.

de beers is doing it as a pr move, selling them as 'budget' diamonds as an attempt to devalue them

Nice try. Manufacturing them also has non negligible costs. I'd only buy synthetics anyway. Not very keen on 18th century slavery, which is pretty close to what happens in diamond mines. In addition to that synthetics are more pure, so better quality if the cut and polishing is done right.

The above comment is correct. De Beers bought Lightbox to position synthetic diamonds as for “everyday jewelry” rather than special occasion jewelry such as engagement rings. So it essentially is to help protect diamond price levels and the allure or scarcity.

i think you misread my comment

Yeah, one of my physics teachers did a job for a diamond company where the goal was to ADD impurities to a diamond, because diamonds with (the right?) impurities are colored, more rare (?), and fetch a higher price.

Cultural norm?

That concept was invented by an ad agency paid for by de Beers.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/diamond-de-beers-marketin...

Does anyone really pay attention and judge others based on their choice of wedding jewelry, or wearing any, or being married even, in 2020?

Varies by countries, cultures and sub-cultures I expect...

I belong to a private Facebook group that conducts voluntary roasts of rings.

Never believe we live in a more enlightened age. The subtlety of the points people find to mock astounds me.

I also went with moissanite. My wife (then girlfriend) was in the "2-3 months salary for a diamond" camp which I find incredibly crass. Saved $15k on the diamond by going with moissanite and spent a fraction of that on getting a nice custom ring + wedding band made by an independent local jeweler instead. I was happy to support a local craftsman rather than DeBeers & co.

Did you tell her about the nature of the stone ?

That sounds like a disaster to come if she doesn't know, and she learns it by going to the jeweler to clean / repair the stone.

Can you elaborate? You mean the fact all are synthethic (for hewlery purpose) or something else?

If she thought I gave her an expensive diamond and then learned from a jeweler that it was in fact a moissanite I would expect her to be upset about me misleading her.

Yeah I told her exactly what it was when I gave it to her. We had had several discussions prior about my feelings about the diamond industry and the surrounding social expectations, so she knew I wasn't going to get her a diamond.

Life Pro-Tip: don't marry a woman that will feel unvalued by the stone in the wedding ring.

Spend the money in something better and that will further the relationship, like the honeymoon.

>>Spend the money in something better and that will further the relationship, like the honeymoon.

Honeymoon's over. Ever heard that? I was thinking more in the buy a home or invest in stocks

Better yet, stick it in an index tracker fund for 30 years and when you’re 60 you’ll have a million in the bank.

Which you won’t spend anyway because you’ll have nothing and no one to spend it on. But smugness and pride are truly priceless.

60x return in say 35 years is a pretty damn good index fund, can you tell me where to get that?

I suppose technically the post doesn’t specify a currency.

Did her perspective change or does she believe she got an expensive diamond?

I was upfront with her about my dislike for the diamond industry and my feelings about spending 3 months salary on a diamond. I told her that I wasn't getting her a diamond and told her exactly what it was when I gave it to her.

I don't think I changed her perspective necessarily, but she knows what she got and respected my reasons for that decision. She didn't break up with me over it anyway.

2-3 months of salary for me would be a substantial contribution towards a deposit for a flat.My fiancé would smack my face if I'd spend it on a shining rock )

Exact same situation here. Wife gets complimented on it all the freaking time and not a single person has ever thought it was anything but a diamond. One of the best decisions of my life second only to marrying this woman!

First time I've heard of moissanite, unfortunately (7 years too late). Any recommendations on a place to shop for it?

It doesn't really matter, tbh. The patent for moissanite is held by Charles and Colvard, so no matter where you shop for them they will be coming from them (and should have an authenticity certificate too, btw).

Charles and Colvard has an online shop you can find by googling.

No affiliation, my wife's stone is just also a moissanite.

Charles and Colvard actually lost their patent a while ago...I wanna say two or three years in August? I'm a huuuuge proponent of moissanite, but it's one of the reasons I am slightly wary of purchasing moissanite online without at least speaking to the seller. Moissanite doesn't always come with a certificate. In my mind, though, if you love it and can afford it, who's to tell you it's fake?

Isn’t it a natural gem? How is it patentable?

It's been 4 years but I got my wife's ring from https://www.moissaniteco.com/ and we had a good experience.

One downside to moissanite: I bought some earrings that I thought were nice looking and affordable. My wife doesn’t wear them very often and instead wears real diamond earrings that were the same price because the moissanite is too big.

I wish manufactured diamonds were more prevalent before I got married. There's still a slight look and feel difference between these things. I feel the diamond still looks slightly more sparkling in light. This is all subjective of course...

While cubic zirconia has a lower refractive index than diamond (making it less "brilliant"), moissanite actually has a higher refractive index than diamond.

As thousands know, it's not enough for you to discover it, you need to partner to discover and appreciate it, and as a couple not be peer pressured by your partner's judgmental friends, or you need to keep a lifelong secret that you might be the villain for making the ethical choice.

There has been more noise around lab-grown diamonds as of late: https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown....

A pricing comparison based on real data: https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth

The site was previously on ShowHN. I was in the process of looking a few months ago and found the overview of how the market works interesting: https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/OneTrueRockValue

>>The rock would have been multiples larger

and that beats the purpose: "how much did you pay for that diamond. Must've cost a fortune." The idea is not wear something bigger, if it's cheaper

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