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The Elite Club That Rules the Diamond World Is Starting to Crack
- SE_Student 7y agoLinks from bloomberg.com are always behind a soft-paywall. or is this just happening to me?
- cbsks 7y agoI'm able to see it, but this banner is on the bottom of the page "This is your last free article." I wonder if it the number of articles resets monthly, or if this is my last one until I clear my cookies.
- Digit-Al 7y agoOpen in a private window or use outline.com
- pixelbath 7y agoEasiest way to work around this, for me, is to right-click the "web" link at the top of the HN post, then open that in a private/incognito window, then click through to the actual article from Google. Since publishers are more concerned about not appearing to serve different content to Google (against Google's TOS), they generally show the full article content from that referer.
- irrational 7y ago>It’s a perfect storm: you have too much supply, not enough demand My wife lost the diamond in her wedding ring and we were talking about getting it replaced. I have two daughters in their early 20s and they were aghast at the idea of replacing it with another diamond. They were adamant that nobody should buy diamonds for jewelry and instead should use a synthetic stone. They claim that "everyone" (which apparently means everyone they are in contact with on social media) knows this. If this kind of thinking really is widespread among the younger set then I'm not surprised that the demand is dropping.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tdb7893 7y agoI was blown away when someone told me they wanted a natural diamond. It seemed crazy to me, I don't get why someone would want to pay more for an identical (except for the fact that it was likely mined unethically) stone. I don't think any of my friends have a natural diamond but that's probably partially the people that I hang out with.
- stagger87 7y agoI'm still blown away people want a shiny piece of dirt on their finger at all.
- homonculus1 7y agoI too fail to comprehend why carbon crystals cause humans to secrete pleasure transmitters. I only secrete pleasure transmitters when solving abstract coding problems, and contemplating the agreeable weather up here on my elongated equestrian pedestal.
- foobarian 7y agoJonathan is that you? [1] [1] https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
- pravda 7y agoThat's the power of advertising! You can do it with anything. Spend enough on advertising, and you can get people to hand over $100+ for a pair of sunglasses that cost $5.85 to manufacture. Maybe you are immune, sitting up there on your elevated equus.
- carapace 7y agoThere was a exhibit a few months ago. I am haunted by the Mirror of Paradise. Only a carbon crystal... ;-D https://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/mughal-jewels-auction-al-thani-collection-raises-109-million https://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/mughal-jewels-auction-...
- Konnstann 7y agoDiamonds have had their supply artificially restricted for decades, inflating their prices. That, combined with the ethical dilemmas (blood diamonds, etc.) associated with the stones, it doesn't make sense to me to get them. They don't even look prettier than an emerald or sapphire either, there's just too much hype.
- hangonhn 7y agoThe demand for diamond was entirely driven by their very successful marketing campaign: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho... IIRC the whole 2 months salary "rule" was also invented by them.
- dbalbright 7y agoWhich was brilliant (no pun) as it keeps up with inflation.
- irrational 7y agoMy wife doesn't like colored stones, so emeralds and sapphires are right out. We are looking at Moissanite stones. Not synthetic, but significantly cheaper than diamonds.
- jtaillon 7y agoMoissanite is also synthetic (typically grown via a chemical vapor deposition process). It's not carbon (like diamonds), but made of SiC, a material long used for abrasives and more recently for high-power electronics and LEDs. The 4H-SiC polymorph is actually extraordinarily rare in nature, even moreso than diamonds! We chose moissanites as the primary stones in my wife's engagement rings and everyone talks about how pretty it is. It's a bit more "firey" or "sparkly" than a regular diamond (because of more birefringence), but I guarantee no one outside a very highly trained jeweler would know the difference (if that's important to you). It's worth it to spend the money on the higher quality ones though, since just like diamonds, the inexpensive ones will have yellowish or greenish tints. Even still, they're at least an order of magnitude cheaper than similar diamonds ($600 vs. $6,500 at my quick search for ~1 carat).
- Someone1234 7y agoGood. We purchased a lab grown/man-made diamond on purpose. Even "non-conflict" diamonds are mined in immoral ways. And while in theory it is great to bring outside money into some of the poorest areas of the world, the work conditions and atrocities cannot be ignored[0][1][2]. Ideally people should move beyond diamonds entirely. There's plenty of precious stones. But in the meantime lab grown diamonds are the most moral way to buy a diamond. [0] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15842524/ns/world_news/t/diamonds-journey-grim-reality-tarnishes-glitter/#.XT86ruhKhPY http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15842524/ns/world_news/t/diamonds-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_in... [2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/all-diamonds-out-of-afric_b_2628013 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/all-diamonds-out-of-afric_b_2...
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y agoWhere did you purchase the lab grown diamond?
- Someone1234 7y agoThere's a number of stores on the internet that offer them. You just buy the diamond then have them set into a band of your choice. I don't think large jewelry chains commonly offer them.
- deogeo 7y agoI wouldn't be surprised if their supply or natural diamonds was contingent on them not selling artificial ones.
- bradknowles 7y agoOr maybe they're owned by the companies selling natural stones? Wouldn't be the first time that someone tried to own the whole market from end to end.
- jseliger 7y ago
- hangonhn 7y agoAs a nerd, once I found out that lab grown diamonds and other gems are chemically and physically the same as their natural counterparts for a fraction of the price, it became VERY difficult for me to buy natural gems. It's hard for me to justify being stupid. Thankfully my fiancee was on the same page.
- stagger87 7y agoWhy do you want a diamond (natural or otherwise) on your finger at all?
- skyyler 7y agoYou don't like shiny things? Strange...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- delecti 7y agoWe're all shaped by the culture we live in.
- tempguy9999 7y agoWhoa there! I'd consider it a mark of wisdom to judge and filter society's expectations rather than absorbing them uncritically. Perhaps not let it shape us unless we consciously allow it to?
- hangonhn 7y agoYou and the grandparent aren't necessarily in opposition. It's fair to say that we are all influenced by our culture. We are aware of some things and may not be aware of other things. There are some things I reject and there are others that I just go with. There are even things that I like despite those things are just "how it is". I guess the ring with a gemstone fight was a fight I didn't find necessary to fight over, especially since my fiancee was ok with a lab-grown gem. My fiancee and I sort of just met halfway (actually I paid only a fraction of what I would have been traditionally expected to pay). She wasn't too keen on a huge and expensive ring but I think she would have felt bad if people around her judged her negatively if she didn't have one. We all pick our battles and if I got most of what I wanted, I don't see a need to fight it all the way. It wasn't worth the energy to me and for her to fight it completely. Plus, shiny things are pretty.
- mothsonasloth 7y agoWhen I become lucky to propose to someone, I am not going to go down the route of a diamond that everyone else has. Something more precious like Morganite or Alexandrite (unless they can be lab grown too?)
- moate 7y agoWhy is that? Just curious. When I proposed to my wife I went with a Sapphire as the main stone, mostly because I personally find clear rocks boring to look at (and my wife generally agrees).
- mothsonasloth 7y agoSame reason as you just stated. Why give a loved one something that a lot of other people will have, try and be more unique.
- cremp 7y agoCareful with that. I had the same thought, but was proven 'wrong' because my SO did not want anything but diamond, just because of the 'tradition.' No amount of reading online would get her to change her mind. She was worth it though.
- bradknowles 7y agoSapphire is beautiful, and available in a wide variety of colors. The cool thing about Alexandrite is that it changes color depending on the type of light falling on it. It looks different indoors versus outdoors, for example. And Alexandrite is considerably more rare than most diamonds, at least so-called "white" diamonds. Now, red diamonds, those are exceptionally rare -- I think a sum total of ten are known to exist in the world, at least when it comes to natural red diamonds. And there was a really big deal made in the last few years when someone discovered what might have been the eleventh known red diamond, but I don't recall if it got officially ruled as "red", or if they decided it was some variant of "pink" instead.
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
- cosmodisk 7y agoSome years ago I went to Tate modern in London and saw a massive queue in the engine room,where was a medium size black sort of a kiosk. Having no idea what's inside the booth,yet too curious to ignore it, I join the queue and after 10-15 min. I get to go inside.I walk in and there's 'For the Love of God',which essentially a skull covered in diamonds. The room was black and had some special lightning to make the skull shine.The whole thing looked so ridiculous and was on the same level as something made in China for $10,the ultimate bling bling.I didn't even stop to observe it and left the booth. Diamonds nowadays are like Gucci or louis vuitton products: even if what you are wearing is original,you still look ridiculous..
- tempguy9999 7y agoThis I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_God I agree with you.
- cosmodisk 7y agoYup, that's the one.
- noir_lord 7y agoJesus that’s terrible, no absolutes in taste though I’m sure someone likes it.
- stan_rogers 7y agoThe ultimate vanitas.
- stordoff 7y agoI do have to wonder if it wasn't made by Damien Hirst[1] whether we'd even be discussing it. Even setting aside my perceived vulgarity (a criticism I would apply to much of Hirst's work), it doesn't seem particularly new or interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst
- 7y ago
- dguo 7y agoI recently purchased a moissanite[1] ring and was very happy that it was a choice. My disillusionment with diamonds started when I read this article[2] on how the industry manufactured demand. The argument against diamonds and for moissanite is succinctly made by http://diamondssuck.com/ http://diamondssuck.com/ (I have no affiliation. I am just grateful that the author made it, and I try to share it as much as possible.) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
- loydb 7y agoMoissanite makes a beautiful stone.
- 01100011 7y agoThey're pretty, but they're not diamonds. They refract the light differently. They're more colorful. I can spot one from several feet away. We went with a man made diamond and love it. Less than half the price of an equivalent natural stone.
- StavrosK 7y agoWhat's a man-made diamond?
- lccarrasco 7y agoA diamond made in a laboratory
- bonniemuffin 7y agoI have a moissanite wedding ring; it's very popular among my mid-30s social circle. I prefer it over diamonds, both for ethical reasons and material science nerd reasons.
- loydb 7y agoI'm an amateur gem faceter -- if you want something that's actually rare, choose a non-diamond colored stone. A ruby or sapphire is far more rare. Personally, I advocate for lab created stones. It is flawless, you can get the exact color you want (I have something like 20 different colors of sapphire), and won't break the bank. You can spend your money where it counts -- paying for the skills of the cutter -- rather than on a chunk of rough that has been cut sub-optimally to maximize preserving the weight of the stone rather than the brilliance of the cut.
- aggie 7y agoIt seems some posters here are missing an important point about engagement rings: they are a gesture of financial commitment. The expensive price tag is a feature, not a bug that can be solved by creating chemically-identical but inexpensive alternatives. If lab-grown stones become the norm for ethical reasons, but they are priced too low, I can see culture shifting to new gestures of commitment.
- wwweston 7y agoconspicuous consumption != financial commitment If you have the money to burn on a symbol without any particular utility (and, usually, a fractional resale value that makes driving new car off the lot look like a relatively good investment), you may well also have the money to burn on a divorce lawyer. Some other form of marriage bond could potentially pop up, I suppose, but meanwhile we have laws which aren't mere gestures of financial commitment, they're enforceable obligations.
- MisterTea 7y ago> It seems some posters here are missing an important point about engagement rings: they are a gesture of financial commitment. And all this time I thought it was to indicate a commitment to marriage. > The expensive price tag is a feature, not a bug... Feature? For who? The diamond industry?
- NickBusey 7y agoYea, not sure how this is a feature. I want to prove my loyalty so I'll waste a bunch of what will soon be your money buying you a temporary ring? I made an engagement ring from a coconut husk in about ten seconds and it did the trick just fine. No need to spend any money really, let alone the "three month's pay" rule of thumb that gets tossed around.
- usuallymatt 7y agoAgreed and anyway the 3 months pay thing was part of DeBeers advertising campaign way back when.
- bluedevil2k 7y agoThe breakup has been on going for about 7 years now. As the article says, the old way of buying diamonds was a take it or leave it proposition. About 7 years ago though, some of the smaller players in the field (Dominion, Rio Tinto, Okavango) decided to start auctioning their rough stone every couple of months. They invited dozens, up to 100 bidders for each auction. This was the first time buyers could get a real market price for the rough stone, and there were no repercussionsn if they were outbid. It’s become the industry practice now to sell a portion of the rough using auction software and using that market price to set the prices for these sight holders, who still buy a large proportion of the rough. Even DeBeers and Alrosa use auctions to set prices. The sales of diamonds has changed more in the last decade than it did the previous 100. (Disclosure, my company supplies software for these auctions).
- bluedevil2k 7y agoTo add to my comment a little, and this was touched up in the article. The vast majority of rough diamonds are sent to India for cutting/polishing, before being sold to the retail channels (Tiffany, Zales, Wal-Mart, etc). The profit margin for the miners is rather small, the profit margin for the cutters/polishers is razor thin, and the profit margin for the retailers is HUGE.
- Invictus0 7y agoIs it at all possible to buy direct from the cutters and polishers?
- bluedevil2k 7y agoJust speculating here, maybe if you fly to India and visit their cutting shops in Surat. The fairest prices as I understand it are on BlueNile, which charges about 10-15% above cut price, which is much better than the 100+% you'll find in retail.
- jquery 7y ago+1 for BlueNile, you can do better than them but they are a huge improvement over the mall stores.
- thstart 7y agoJames Bond : “Diamonds Are Forever” was made as an ad.
- mxuribe 7y agoBeyond the horrific conflict-side of things surrounding this industry, it is this artificial market inflation and artificial scarcity that really bugs me. If there's anything that i think should go the way of the dodo bird, its this industry. Bleh.
- _bxg1 7y agoNatural diamonds have been the most shamelessly wealth-signaling purchase a person can make, ever since the artificial process was perfected. As far as I know there is literally no difference between an artificial and a natural diamond except the fact that the latter is more scarce and harder to get, and therefore more expensive. Unlike other traditional wealth-signal purchases, there is no pretense of utility or even pleasure or fashion. It's purely to say, "I can afford this."
- bluedevil2k 7y agoNatural diamonds are far more plentiful than lab grown diamonds.
- _bxg1 7y agoI mean, technically, since lab grown ones are made on-demand and haven't been an option for nearly as long. Let's not get pedantic. The point is they're much cheaper to "produce".
- Havoc 7y ago>He argues that demand remains robust, and millennials will covet diamonds the same way their parents and grandparents did. RIP diamond industry.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoDiamonds are industrially useful but calling them "precious stones" or "permanent" has always seemed silly to me. They literally burn up if you heat them in an oxygen atmosphere. Most rocks don't do that.
- Arbalest 7y agoThey do burn, but not easily. They only seem to char slightly with an oxy acetylene torch (I assume that's what is being used here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_yqriai7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_yqriai7E It might be a heatsinking thing, as diamond does transfer heat well, and the metal underneath would continue to carry it away.
- ggm 7y agoSimple test about diamonds: Putting so-called "investment diamonds" and heritage pieces to one side, has anyone who bought an item of diamond jewellery here ever experienced selling it for remotely close to what they bought it for? Investment diamonds are a semi self-regulated shell-game of hedging which tries to be like gold, but basically isn't. Gold is equally irrational in some ways, but it is used by the state banks as part of their hedge. I believe only diamond producing nations use diamonds as their financial strategic reserve. Nobody else seems to regard them as a viable mechanism for national financial resilience. Consumer grade diamond is a propped up market where the cost and price disfunction is about as big as it can be. Pink diamonds, now thats a scarce resource. As long as small girls are obsessed with the colour pink, and the Argyll mine in Australia has reserves (the pipe is exhausted but they banked huge numbers of stones) there is value in scarcity. Buy shares in bort: industrial construction needs diamond grit
- bluedevil2k 7y agoThe diamonds people are buying for investments are not stones you’d ever see at a store - think 30ct flawless stones, up to 1000ct rough stones. The uniqueness and scarcity of those stones in particular is what makes them a suitable, yet speculative, investment. Pink diamonds, I’ve 100+ of them, they are hugely popular in Hong Kong and China, where they are mainly bought for a “flaunting investment”.
- elliekelly 7y ago> Consumer grade diamond is a propped up market where the cost and price disfunction is about as big as it can be. A few years ago I purchased a pair of diamond earrings for myself at one of the big chains. Kay I think it was. When I paid I was prompted to get a paper receipt or have a receipt emailed to me. I hit paper and then decided I probably should have gone with email in case I needed to get them serviced or anything so I asked the woman helping me if I could change my selection. The two women working spent quite a bit of time at the computer trying to figure it out before one of them said "I'm just going to do this and be done with it." I should have known that wasn't a good sign. They must have added my email address as some sort of corporate/store account because I was emailed a copy of every receipt for every. single. purchase. made at that location from then on. I called the location, I called their headquarters, I talked to someone in IT at HQ. The receipts kept coming and no one at Kay knew why nor did they seem to care. I finally just gave up and abandoned the gmail address but I've often wondered if I'm sitting on one of the most comprehensive consumer diamond data sets of "retail price" vs "purchase price" in the world.
- julius_set 7y agoWell if this is based on old traditions indicating a gesture of financial commitments then we should expect more to be buying engagement rings now: Apparently some women are earning more than men, why should I spend my hard earned cash to impress your friends family over a rock? Why not invest the money into something productive. An idiotic tradition. https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/google-found-it-paid-men-less-than-women-for-the-same-job/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/googl...
- FreeFull 7y agoThe whole diamond ring thing is basically the result of a really effective advertising campaign. It's definitely dumb to get a diamond ring when you can get a much more beautiful, intricate ring for significantly cheaper.
- jdkee 7y agoTo see the actual market in action, try selling off your spouse's engagement ring and see the value it brings on the secondary market.
- khazhou 7y agoIs the answer: almost nothing?
- kashyapmehta 7y agoThe article does a good job of pointing out issues with the diamond industry including margins getting smaller due to consolidation in the space and lack of financing. However, a couple of points are just old and mute at this point: 1. De Beers' monopoly in the diamond world has long been over. It now supplies only about 20 percent of the world's rough diamonds. 2. Demand of diamonds is creeping up whereas supply is limited: https://www.bain.com/contentassets/7b9f04068ca64542a17b7171365277cb/bain-diamond-report-2018-fig31_1440x810.gif?width=1440&height=810&mode=crop https://www.bain.com/contentassets/7b9f04068ca64542a17b71713... Disclaimer: We, at Liquid Diamonds, are building an online exchange for naturally mined diamonds; think Nasdaq for diamonds. https://liquid.diamonds/ https://liquid.diamonds/
- jquery 7y agoThis thread is kind of funny on a meta-level. People are saying things roughly equivalent to: "I purchased cheese for my wife because she wanted it" and others are countering with "cheese isn't rare, lab-grown cheese is superior, my wife doesn't even like cheese, my wife likes nuts more than cheese, acktshually nuts are superior to cheese, cows are mistreated, I'm not purchasing cheese for my future wife, your wife should have bought you cheese, check out these cheese-alternatives that are even better than cheese, there are secret vaults full of uneaten cheese, eating is bad for your health, etc. etc." There's still a lot of emotion tied to diamonds. Diamonds will truly be on their way out when a thread about diamonds is mostly ignored instead of becoming a bizarre flame war.
- jquery 7y agoSomething I've noticed over the years: on websites that have a female majority demographic, diamonds are generally talked about in revered terms, but the polar opposite sentiment is seen on male dominated websites. Pinterest: effusive towards diamonds. Popular articles include "What diamond shape fits your personality type?" Reddit: hates diamonds. Popular articles include "Diamonds are a myth created by corporations."