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Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own
- jzig 10y ago> And larger stones get laser-inscribed, so that the manufactured stones literally have words like "lab-grown" written right on them. Why?
- ISL 10y agoManufacturers want their product to be accepted for what it is, rather than a vehicle for defrauding others. If someone bought a manufactured stone expecting it to have been mined (and paid the premium currently accorded to mined stones), the buyer might direct a fraction of their disappointment at the manufacturer, instead of the deserving fraudulent seller. Adding a nigh-invisible mark makes it trivial for a jeweler to tell the difference, and stops all but the least-informed fraudulent sellers before they begin.
- salmon30salmon 10y agoThis is wonderful! I can't comprehend the need to mine for diamonds any longer. Such a dangerous, dirty, damaging practice. It is sad to see that the industry is trying to paint these as inferior. I would love to see some sort of tariff or sanction placed on mined diamonds to make them restrictively expensive. There is simply no need for them any longer.
- sandworm101 10y agoNot all diamond types/classes are being manufactured. Synthetic diamonds will always be different from natural stones specifically because they lack natural imperfections. Not everyone wants perfection.
- imaginenore 10y agoImperfections can be added
- ThomPete 10y agoImperfection are naturally formed, you cant naturally create imperfections that just become by definition artficially created imperfections.
- xorxornop 10y agoWell, what if it's done randomly? (like, by software that controls the machine that grows it) Or, modify the growing process so that it has a greater element of chance to it? (this is likely multi-dimensional)
- ThomPete 10y agoWhatever randomization isn't natural (and it can't be completely random as it needs to look natural). But it's not really the point. A diamonds primary value is the history of it's making. People are unfortunately always going to be paying more for a diamond which has been digged out by hard labour than created in a lab. Keep in mind the value of diamonds is mostly a perceptive one. I am pretty sure if you only did synthetic diamonds it would soon fail to be valuable as the "womans best friend"
- justinpombrio 10y ago>Not everyone wants perfection. Sure. On the other hand, if the synthetic diamonds were the flawed ones, you'd be saying "not everyone will settle for imperfection".
- gutnor 10y ago> Not everyone wants perfection. Really, diamond is one of those stones where it is the less true. Partially because of brilliant marketing, partially because in such a tiny clear stone the effect is mostly to dull it (speaking of it physical characteristics, not the emotional response). That is not the case in Rubies or Sapphires. Emerald is meant to have imperfection.
- bradleyjg 10y ago"Not everyone wants perfection." So you went with a "natural" N/I1/fair?
- inimino 10y agoThere already is, it's called De Beers. It's exactly because of the artificially inflated price that the mining practices are damaging.
- joering2 10y agoOnce I learnt more about De Beers, I'm wondering if there is any other product that one could pull of such stunt and make themselves billionaires? Step one - find a rare mineral that at this point has value close to zero. It is rare but worthless. Step two - obtain monopoly on mining it or control it as much as you can (buy spots with dense occurrence, etc) Step three - throw money at important and powerful people (such as Spielberg, so that in his new movie today's Marilyn Monroe is wearing your ore as a form of very high luxury) other media stars, politicians etc. Step four - continue with excellent PR until enough wives or soon-to-be wives come to their soon-to-be husbands and request them to update their luxury status by buying your ore. Step five - collect trillions of dollars across the globe, by tightly controlling your ore and its harvest. Edit: step six - rinse and repeat for 50 years getting yourself even wealthier.
- dragonwriter 10y agoCreating artifical preference for something peoplease can only get from you is pretty much what the entire field of marketing is about; deBeers may be an outstanding success, but they aren't doing anything (in those terms) fundamentally different than pretty much every business on the planet is trying to do, just with different mechanisms of establishing moats.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- qb45 10y ago> I'm wondering if there is any other product that one could pull of such stunt and make themselves billionaires? Maybe not exactly billionaires, but If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion. :)
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- cowardlydragon 10y agoOnly 30% cheaper? I once heard a dollar a caret from one of the startups a decade ago...
- remarkEon 10y agoMaybe that's just the current price point, though I haven't a clue what it would cost to produce one of these things. They're probably trying to capture as much surplus as possible right now.
- giblfiz 10y agoWithout actually knowing anything about the subject my guess is that the very cheep synthetic diamonds you heard about were / are intended for tools, (Where all that they care about is the hardness, so they can be small, yellow, and messy) Also, I do know that you can get synthetic ruby for ~$1/carat on ali-baba. (I actually bought a few)
- epx 10y agoAren't pearls cultured for decades now? They are still sought for, nothing is more beautiful in a woman's neck than a pearl collar.
- 13of40 10y agoNot that it really matters at the end of the day, but there's probably some charm in knowing that your "cultured" pearl was still formed inside a bivalve living in the ocean, versus being made in a machine like a porcelain gobstopper. That said, check out this cool picture: https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAZTAAAAJDVmNWFlMzJmLWU0ZWYtNDM5OS04YzAxLWIzYmRjZGQzNDY4ZQ.jpg https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA... I didn't realize it was so industrial...
- welly 10y agoAgreed. There is nothing I enjoy more than to give a woman a pearl necklace.
- zzleeper 10y agoCome on this is not reddit...
- reddytowns 10y agoI didn't think pearl necklaces were in fashion. Is this a new thing?
- cmsmith 10y agoI shopped for created diamonds a year or two ago, and like others was disappointed with the cost savings. It seems awfully odd that on the spectrum from $0.01/caret to $1,000,000/caret, that created diamonds ended up costing exactly the same as a mined diamond, less maybe 30%. It's clear that there are only a couple players in the clear created diamonds market, and no one is too eager for a price war and to stop printing money. In which case it doesn't sound all that different from the mined diamond market
- Teever 10y agoIt's different in that there are a lot less slaves and warfare involved in the production of these new products.
- wehadfun 10y agoIn someway I like the fact that diamonds are only valuable to the women who it is bought for and just like a marriage you really can't get a refund. The resale value of diamonds is garbage.
- ericfranklin 10y agoI have other comments in this thread about cost, but it basically comes down to "they cost a lot more to grow than people think", and the costs after the rough diamond is grown are basically the same as mined diamonds (cutting, grading, etc.). Diamond is the hardest substance on earth, and it costs far more to polish one of those, regardless of origin, than it does to polish an imitation or other gemstone.
- mistermumble 10y agoIn addition to created diamonds, there are other stones that are different from and in some aspects better than diamonds. The best one seems to be Moissanite, which also has the rather pedestrian name of silicon carbide. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/ http://diamondssuck.com/ Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-moissanite/ http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-moissanite/ Moissanite can be 90% cheaper than equivalent diamond, not just 30%.
- yougotborked 10y agoYep, my now fiance loves her Moissanite stone. I actually got it from AliExpress and then had it appraised by a jeweler to check it's authenticity. Saved a bunch of money and got a great product.
- Scoundreller 10y agoLink/source?
- kwhitefoot 10y agoPictures?
- lisivka 10y agoDiamon vs Mossanite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZE3Vkb85Z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZE3Vkb85Z4
- kwhitefoot 10y agoThank you! Both pretty but I can't see myself spending much on either.
- j_s 10y agoBig discussion last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 Apparently moissanite just came off patent protection last year so it is an even better option now than when some of those resources were created.
- ipqk 10y agoAt some point in the near future, maybe 1 year, maybe 10, anyone with a spare couple million dollars will be able to buy a machine to grow diamonds indistinguishable from mined diamonds, defects and all. No one will be able to tell at all, and the market will be flooded. Prices for mined & manufactured alike will crater. There is no future for mined diamonds.
- jghn 10y agoat some point 15-20 years or so ago De Beers started laser etching logos on the diamonds for exactly this reason.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y agoWasn't the public reason for laser etching to prevent conflict diamonds from having a market?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- icantdrive55 10y agoLaser etching machines are going down in price yearly. I once thought about a good etching to put on a diamond; "Hello--file the divorce papers. I hoped this day would never come, but just had a weird feeling. That day has come. Talk to me tonight?" Yes, it would go all the way around the girdle of the diamond. (I used to be romantic, but not anymore. Just too much greed, ugliness in relationships. Or, maybe it was just my generation?)
- Animats 10y agoThe price of a basic CVD system is already much lower than that.[1] The process is slow, though. Weeks of time in the vacuum chamber with vapor being deposited one layer of atoms at a time. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1200C-Chemical-vapor-Deposition-Diamond-machine_60339122728.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1200C-Chemical-vapor-...
- ericfranklin 10y agoI've been running a lab-grown diamond company since 2005. I'd be happy to answer any questions in the morning.
- th0ma5 10y agoWhat is the profit margin? It seems very large.
- ericfranklin 10y agoThey are smaller than people think. Not counting the years of R&D, one average growth cycle for one white diamond actually costs more than what mining companies typically report for their cost-per-rough-carat dug from the ground. Mines use giant diesel earth moving and processing equipment, while we use scientists, electricity, and advanced machinery and alloys, but the variable cost-per-carat for rough diamonds are somewhat comparable. From there, the cost for polishing, grading reports, jewelry, logistics, marketing, etc. are all basically the same whether the diamond was grown or mined. White grown diamonds are generally 10-30% less expensive at retail than mined diamonds, however most of that is just due to lean, vertically integrated companies. We grow, cut, distribute and retail our diamonds as well as jewelry, so have a bigger slice of the rough-to-retail pie. That extra margin isn't huge, but is enough to sustain the business as well as progress the research, development and production. Mined diamonds pass through many more hands between the mine and the consumer, and each step adds some markup. A mined diamond entity that only sells rough, only polishes, or only buys and sells polished mined diamonds at wholesale would see smaller margins, but that can be made up for in greater volume of mined diamonds traded. It is also worth pointing out that the diamond success rate is sustainable, but not every growth cycle is profitable. While we can monitor the external HPHT equipment, we cannot see the actual diamond growth until after the cycle is complete. For example, a cycle may run for two weeks, but we find out afterward that it stopped growing on day three, or there were some bad inclusions on day six, and what could have been polished into a one carat gemstone (and cost the same to grow) may not yield anything, or may only yield a much smaller gemstone. The total production cost has to be averaged over the total successful sales. This includes growing diamonds that sit in inventory for a long time due to lower clarity, less desirable colors, etc.
- mojoe 10y agoThe fact that there is so much concern over how to differentiate mined diamonds from grown diamonds seems like insanity to me. I understand that the diamond trade has a vested interest in differentiating, but why would end consumer care? They're the exact same product to the unaided eye. This is a purely emotional response. I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that it's a misguided emotional response -- it seems clear that it would reduce human and environmental suffering to purchase the grown diamonds.
- remarkEon 10y agoIn Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep owning a "real" animal was considered a status symbol, since most "real" species had died from radiation poisoning. The poor and middle class could, of course, only afford the synthetic animals. Obviously this isn't exactly like that, but I imagine there will still be a market for mined diamonds and they'd be priced accordingly.
- curun1r 10y agoBecause the purveyors of diamonds, and you could argue jewelry in general, have positioned themselves as proxies for love and sex. Those are the things we value and the reasons we spend money, but we're not allowed, either by societal convention or law, to spend money on them directly. But we're allowed to spend exorbitant amounts of money on a glittery status symbols that serves as a measure of devotion. It's not the rock itself that's important, it's the willingness to sacrifice a substantial amount of money. So if the point of buying a diamond is to show your love for someone by sacrificing a meaningful amount of money, it becomes important to distinguish between stones that someone actually sacrificed a substantial amount of money to purchase and stones where someone didn't sacrifice as much. We'd do better to address the insane custom of needing an expensive proxy for love. Think about it...if the custom were for a man to take two months salary, withdraw it from the bank in $100 bills, drop to one knee and present it to his girlfriend while asking her to marry him, we'd find that insulting. It would be like he's paying for love/sex, which our society deems dirty or objectifying to women. But substitute a glittery rock mounted on a hunk of metal, both largely obtained by heaping further misery on various third-world locations, and we somehow find that acceptable? Accepting the money would make her a whore, but accepting the ring just means her boyfriend loves her? It's illogical and hopefully more women start making it known to their boyfriends that the ring isn't necessary and all that extra money, if it needs to be spent on something impractical, can be spent on making the wedding just a bit more lavish.
- daeken 10y agoIt's funny to see this pop up now. I've spent the past few days researching my big experiment project for next year: an open design CVD reactor for artificial diamonds. I don't intend to commercialize it at all, but if I can 1) learn a lot, 2) make an open design that others can build on, and 3) (the long shot) make small diamonds for my wedding ring at the end of the year, I'll be a happy man. If anyone is interested in working on this (particularly if you have experience designing systems dealing with pressurized gasses), my email is in my profile.
- fizixer 10y agoI would love to get into hacking/tinkering based on processes like MBE/CVD etc. Does anyone know where to get started in terms of reading, what are the options for a hobbyist?
- daeken 10y agoI can't speak to MBE, but for CVD I mostly just googled around and read any papers I could find. However, IIT Madras has an entire course on the subject, all of which are on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDO7gUBYjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDO7gUBYjg I've been learning a lot from that, though it's focused on laying down semiconductor layers; most of the info on CVD diamonds seems to be locked away in proprietary processes for various manufacturers. I foresee a lot of failed experiments in my future!
- Synaesthesia 10y agoAre these also going to be artificially inflated like mined diamonds?
- grondilu 10y agoThe largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it? Will it ever be synthetic and if so when?
- undersuit 10y ago>The largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it? It's most definitely a natural diamond, and it's also most definitely undiscovered in some incredibly rich diamond deposit.
- vezycash 10y agoLet's give Moissanite a new catchy, less complex name. Else, it will remain unknown. I propose the name Moon Stone. Star fire would have been great but it'll be confused with Sapphire. See ffg for effect of company name pronunciability on market share, stock price, brand value... http://m.pnas.org/content/103/24/9369.full http://m.pnas.org/content/103/24/9369.full http://russelljame.com/Fluency_JFE_2013.pdf http://russelljame.com/Fluency_JFE_2013.pdf
- gre 10y agoMoonstone already exists. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstone_(gemstone) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstone_(gemstone)
- scotty79 10y agoSilicon carbide is a good name.
- mb_72 10y ago"Sanité" - it's related to 'moissanite', the 'é' makes it sound classy, and of course it's pronounced 'sanity' as that is what it brings to the whole ridiculous diamond situation.
- ebalit 10y agoWe could call it "Pierre de Moissan".
- jvandonsel 10y agoIs it true that it's actually illegal to pick up a diamond off the ground in South Africa?
- jpmattia 10y ago> His lab can tell the difference — they use microscopes and other instruments to look for subtle features that reveal a diamond's origin. Wild guess as to why anyone can tell the difference: Lab-grown diamonds are more perfect than mined ones. It's probably pretty trivial to introduce impurities to degrade the color, or change the deposition temperature in order to create faults in the lattice. Hell, throw in a microparticle or two for inclusions. I'd love to know more though, anyone got a reference?
- ericfranklin 10y agoDiamond growers try their best to keep out impurities and imperfections. Elemental impurities do add color (nitrogen=yellow, boron=blue), same as mined diamonds, and faults and inclusions do naturally happen in the process. However, at an atomic level, they are different than inclusions and imperfections in mined diamonds. As a producer, I don't see any incentive to make them imperfect on purpose, yet still distinguishable from mined diamonds. All larger diamonds intended for gemstones come with independent grading reports, which will still identify it as grown regardless of presence or lack of impurities and imperfections. While not technically correct, some of the advanced detection equipment can be thought of like looking at growth rings on a tree. You (probably) can't replicate the growth rings of a 200 year old tree in a 5 year old tree, yet both are perfectly valid sources of wood (sustainability, etc. aside).