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Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

I got scammed for a small diamond ring when we got married, but on our 15th anniversary I went lab-grown. I paid 2K for a beautiful ring with a 2.1ct central diamond, fully certified and near flawless, which is a pittance compared to a mined diamond (expect 15K or more). This wasn't cheap in absolute terms, but at least I didn't feel completely ripped off.

My wife LOVED it. Additionally, she got major bragging rights in the informal "bigger is better" competition with friends and family members. Nobody knows it's lab-grown (nobody asked) and you can't tell the difference without unusual procedures or special equipment anyway.

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and even though it isn't detectable.

literally they are looking for imperfections on the natural diamond.

as an engineer this is the difference between a hand sewn shirt and a machine sewn shirt, objectively, why would we pay more for worst quality?

de beers says it's about history and how long that gem stone have existed. but I personally, feel paying 10x for worst quality is a sucker thing to do

Machine sewing isn't superior in all cases, for example hand sewn button holes can look a lot better. The hand sewn holes are cut first and then sewn which doesn't leave frayed edges and has thread all around the hole. These button holes also lay flatter, which again looks nicer.

Basically any fine detail work, or and stitching meant to create a 3 dimensional shape will be superior when done by a skilled tailor than by a machine.

This of course costs more and doesn't matter for t-shirts or other informal garments.

Watched a documentary on one of the first people producing the lab grown diamonds for rings (jewelry) and he ended up needing to go to China where they were already doing the process for drilling and sandpaper type applications. His process was to add flaws of the right type as to make it almost impossible to tell the difference between lab and non-lab diamonds. From what I can tell from it, about half of diamonds being sold as non-lab are actually lab. When we purchased lab was not big yet so guessing its non-lab (not that it matters other than might have over paid). If we (I) were to do it today would just do lab and be done with it as to ensure did not overpay and end up getting lab anyway. From what I can tell no one can tell the difference other than tiny (id markings/ flaws) that can be faked.

I know there are sellers that claim to know the provenance of the diamonds (can trace them back to the mine), but that would be the best place to introduce them into the chain. For every truck that goes out half could come from another truck and half from the ground.

So you want the positive feelings/associated marketing of a natural diamond but do not feel like paying the price

It sounds similar to paying for a knockoff Hermes bag

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