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I bought a good quality moissanite stone for an engagement ring for 2% of the price of an equivalent diamond and not a single person who has seen it has ever th

I bought a good quality moissanite stone for an engagement ring for 2% of the price of an equivalent diamond and not a single person who has seen it has ever thought it was anything but a diamond. My wife gets compliments on it all the time. "What a beautiful diamond!" Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond. The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so. Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point. I effectively saved $20,000 USD going this route and no one is the wiser, execpt my wife of course :)

puranjay 7y ago
My wife is a very pragmatic, smart and pragmatic person. But even then she couldn't be convinced not to get a diamond. She was happy skipping the honeymoon and reducing wedding expenses, but the diamond was a no go. The marketing is too strong.
- francisofascii 7y ago
  It is probably more cultural pressure rather than marketing. Especially if your mother, aunts, sisters, cousins, are all getting diamonds. It takes a special level of courage to go against the grain. The desire to "fit in" is strong.
- throwaway-hn123 7y ago
  Or perhaps you and your wife are shallow losers?
- andrepd 7y ago
  She was happy skipping travelling but not an indistinguishable rock on a ring? The marketing is too strong indeed.
  - 1980phipsi 7y ago
    It's the social factor. It takes a special kind of person to not only be happy with the cheaper thing but also to not let people know that it's cheaper. If I bought my wife a cheaper ring, I'd be telling everybody the deal I got. However, that is the opposite of the purpose here...
    - wavefunction 7y ago
      It takes a special kind of person to be happy with a cheap thing they paid way too much for.
      - incongruity 7y ago
        As much as I want to applaud the wit here, the truth is that it really doesn’t - that phenomenon is quintessentially human. We (as a species) will go cognitive miles to avoid actually facing embarrassment or admitting to being fooled. Your thing might not be overpaying for a diamond and it’s unlikely you can see your own instance(s) but I’m sure you have seen it in others on the regular.
      - nyolfen 7y ago
        yes, but we love them all the same
        papln 7y ago
        Honestly I think the diamond-ring culture is deeply unhealthy - it creates an artificial large resentment event right at the beginning of a commitment, that may destabilize the whole relationship.
        hombre_fatal 7y ago
        I've seen threads on r/relationship_advice and r/TwoXChromosomes where women are desperately distraught over issues having to do with the ring their fiancé/husband bought them, it really does seem like unnecessary hardship. Though, as a man, figuring out your partner's expectations of rings and weddings (and family and children and ...) is part of the dating process. You really shouldn't be blindsided at the engagement phase. I'm reminded of a friend from high school who is got divorced after finding out his wife of two years didn't want and never wanted children. His defense was "it just never came up!"
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bildung 7y ago
    To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either. It's a matter of the specific personality profile that makes a person attracted to one or both or neither of those two modes of consumption.
    - chris_overseas 7y ago
      Well there's evidence that spending money on experiences rather than material goods will make you happier: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/feel-happier-talk-about-experiences-not-things https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/feel-happier-talk-a...
    - throw0101a 7y ago
      > To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either. Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things. From a researcher who wrote (the) book on happiness: > "Shifting from buying stuff to buying experiences, and from spending on yourself to spending on others, can have a dramatic impact on happiness," writes Dunn and her co-author Michael Norton. * https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/happiness-is-buying-experience-not-stuff-29833931.html https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/happiness-is-buying-exp... * https://dunn.psych.ubc.ca https://dunn.psych.ubc.ca * http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Money-Science-Happier-Spending/dp/1451665075 http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Money-Science-Happier-Spending/d... If, per Aristotle, happiness is the supreme good, it would objectively be better to spend your limited resources on things that are more likely to give it to you. * https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201301/aristotle-happiness https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201301/ar...
      - bildung 7y ago
        > Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things. Yes, but a) travelling is not the only way to buy experiences by any means, b) Actually doing/ creating things or experiences is infinitely more rewarding than consumption[1]. Programming, making music, painting, woodworking, cooking, gardening, whatever tickles your fancy. All those studies still only are about buying. [1] for certain personalities.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    One way I've seen engagement rings used is as an unspoken pre-prenup. He cheats, she bails and sells the ring. I say "unspoken" but I've heard men and women speak rather frankly about the exchange
    - papln 7y ago
      The ring doesn't have enough resale value for that (and the breakup would spoil the sentimental value of keeping the gem). The incentive isn't compensation for her, it's sunk cost for him.
      - klyrs 7y ago
        Just reporting what I've heard. If he spends $20k and she sells it for $2k, it's still a $2k bonus to her.
- renjimen 7y ago
  Did you ask her why? It doesn't outwardly seem pragmatic if she's happy to forego expense which provide a service or experience, but not a piece of stone that weighs less than a gram and serves no function other than to display wealth. You'd be better spending that money on a fancy sports car - at least you'd get some fun out of it and a fair resale value.
  - slig 7y ago
    > and serves no function other than to display wealth That's the point: signal to peers that you've found a great partner that's willing to throw this kind of money away just for your status.
    - agent008t 7y ago
      Why is signalling that to peers useful or a good thing?
      - ableal 7y ago
        That's been thought out a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
      - austhrow743 7y ago
        Makes you feel good.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I suppose you could accomplish the same thing by just not telling people that it's moissanite.
      - lelima 7y ago
        I think most girls check somehow the ring/diamond value.
        7y ago
- friendlybus 7y ago
  It's difficult to separate out the marketing and social side from her own values and feelings.
  - theshadowknows 7y ago
    This is it. My family as it currently stands has two “ring” related stories: Story 1. Both my and my wife’s wedding rings were stolen. The wedding bands were my parents’ and had been in the family for the better part of a hundred years. Though they were extremely simple, plain gold rings with very little value (prob got $50 at a pawn shop if that). We replaced them with similar rings just because we wanted them. Story 2. My wife had a ring that had belonged to her grandmother. It was very ornate and had many kinds of jewel including diamonds and Ruby’s. It was very old school in design but was quite pretty. It was also stolen. I found a similar one for about $14,000 online and offered to buy it for my wife who was devastated at the loss but she refused because it “wasn’t the same” which I of course understood. So there’s more than just the dollar value of the thing is what I’m saying.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      Pedantic: it had gems, and was a jewel.
- grogenaut 7y ago
  My wife is pretty rational but was emotional on this point. I made my position and moral issues with diamonds clear from the second date. she went with the value argument until I hit her with appraisals of her grandmother's ring and industry trends. Wife bought a really pretty sapphire ring from Etsy in the days when it was hand made for around $650. She's very happy with it. It's actually unique.
- bane 7y ago
  My wife is as well. When we were married we were too poor to buy a diamond, but she always held out the desire for one. Coincidentally, about the time the movie "Blood Diamond" came out (2006) was about the time we were able to afford a decent diamond for her. The movie had a huge impact on her and she spent weeks slipping in between diamond shopping and learning about blood diamonds. While she knew that diamonds are more or less worthless logically, the marketing and social drivers kept it in her head that she needed one - the emotional need was very very high. But the more she read about the human cost the more in conflict the social worth of the things became. Ultimately she decided that the moral cost aligned with her logical mind and that's what finally overrode her emotional desire to get one. She still wanted a sparkly thing and after spending some time looking in to lab grown diamonds, she coudn't get over the basic worthlessness of having an expensive sparkly thing and ended up just getting a modest lab grown moissanite ring -- on sale and with a discount coupon.
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    No matter how much we pat ourselves on the back for how rational and smart beings we humans are, the reality is that emotions are running the show much more than logic. Evidence is everywhere - elections, fashion, life, shopping and partner choices and so on. For some people its almost purely emotions, and their lives usually look accordingly. Peer pressure, status symbols etc - all just variations of same emotional loops. Congrats to having such a smart wife.
    - dwoozle 7y ago
      You can get pretty far by modeling humans as 1/2 bacteria and 1/2 beagle.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Not only are emotions running the show, the emotions are being run by very rational marketers and politicians. Although this may have been less true in past centuries, today being run by emotions means being run by other people.
      - 7y ago
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  I told the spouse that I am not buying a diamond, ever, nearly 20 years ago, and I haven't. I like synthetic corundums: sapphires and rubies. I understand the synthesis process, which does not involve hired enforcer thugs and criminal exploitation of poor laborers. They are hard enough to resist scratches from most things, and they fracture conchoidally, instead of along 4 perfect planes of cleavage. I'm also good with nephrite and jadeite, which can take a pounding, due to their fibrous crystals and interlocking crystals, respectively. The spouse is not okay with this, and makes only token efforts to hide disdain, but I am stubborn enough to die before giving a single penny to some parasitic international diamond cartel, just for a little bit more refractive index, hardness, and thermal conductivity. We're still not a diamond-free household, though. Some have been inherited from more foolish ancestors. We have also "mined" natural corundums at a touristy dirt-washing operation in western North Carolina. This, of course, led immediately to talk about digging up yellow/brown rough diamonds in Crater of Diamonds (Arkansas) State Park, which immediately informed me that the venomous DeBeers brain-hooks were still set. It just makes me hate the cartel more. I think what irritates me most is that their marketing is so effective. You can show an entire feature film, starring A-list actors, about people getting brutally murdered over the diamond trade, and people will unabashedly say they still want diamond jewelry after watching. Hell, you can watch Marathon Man, and hear, "I'm afraid of dentists now, but I would also like to keep all the diamonds I can eat." They have somehow made diamonds bypass all reason, and link directly to the emotional center of the psyche, with nothing more than decades of persistent advertising.
  - privateSFacct 7y ago
    Get a lab grown diamond. Seriously - hey look great, undercut the cartels and are physically basically the same by any reasonable measure.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      All gemstone diamonds, lab-grown or not, contribute to the collective cultural mind-warp that DeBeers has created. Diamonds do not make you look great. Or, at minimum, they do not make you look better than cheaper, non-cartelized clear gemstones, such as moissanite, cubic zirconia, clear sapphire, clear beryl (goshenite), clear topaz, or even clear quartz. Think about why you would rather have a diamond than any other mineral. Think about why a synthetic carbon allotrope sells at such a large premium over its actual cost of synthesis. They're still riding along on the coattails of DeBeers' 9 decades of unrelenting marketing. If I were getting a pure carbon allotrope jewelry centerpiece, I would very much prefer a single graphene molecule, 235 km long, rolled up into a spiral 1 cm thick--preferably oriented to be most conductive along the axis. Now that would be something worth wearing!
- Thaxll 7y ago
  Sorry but it doesn't sound like someone pragmatic or smart, diamond is just a rock that's worth x amount of $ nothing more. Someone pragmatic would be happy with "any" kind of ring, when I see those big diamonds it reminds me of those dumb people showing off their ring to friends in TV shows. I'm not sure for other countries but diamond is a very US thing.
- wnevets 7y ago
  I ran into the same issue. I don't know if was the marketing, just wanted the commitment in dollars before telling everyone she's engaged or the status symbol to show off to other people but it had to be a significant diamond. One of the things that surprised me was man made diamonds at the size and quality she wanted weren't actually cheaper.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Cheaper for them, just not for you. Same as the dug ones, really.
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  It's not the marketing. It's the fact that it's what biologists call expensive signaling. You are spending money, not on a trip that you both enjoy, but on a ring that really only she enjoys. This is an expensive (therefore hard to fake) signal that you care about how she feels. Now, imagine that the diamond is cheaper. It is no longer an expensive signal. Therefore, although the diamond is the same, it no longer serves the same purpose. So, the cheaper diamonds get, the less demand there is from prospective brides, even if only marginally. This fuels further declines, although that is probably already happening due to better industrial diamonds. This takes time, of course. But that also means it has a lot of momentum. As the price decline continues, and the word of that spreads, it will accelerate.
  - standardUser 7y ago
    This reminds me of the popular idea of "love languages". I was always baffled by the idea that some people considered "gifts" to be the most important way to express love. But diamond rings seem to fit this paradigm perfectly.
    - magduf 7y ago
      No, it's different. For instance, gift-giving is a really big deal in Asian cultures. It's not about throwing lots of money around, it's just showing that you're thinking of someone, so gifts can be very small and inexpensive. So gift-giving is certainly a valid love language, just like physical touch, words of affection, etc. Some people just really like to give their loved one small gifts, and some people really like getting them. They can be small clothing items, candies/food, whatever. Diamonds aren't "small gifts"; they're absurdly expensive ornaments. Their primary purpose is so American women can show off to other women how much money their husbands have. It's a bit like having a really expensive luxury car: it's a signal to others to show you're rich, not a way for someone to show affection to another. Edit: About Asian cultures, I'll also add, it's just just lovers. Coworkers will frequently get each other small gifts, or gifts for everyone on the team. This is usually small food items, not anything at all expensive. They might do this if they travel somewhere. I had an Asian (i.e., he had just moved from SE Asia for this job) coworker once give everyone on our team some nice variety of tea, for instance.
- 0000011111 7y ago
  Ya, I read the introduction to book blood diamonds with my wife. It helped us see past the engagement diamond consumer culture.
- papln 7y ago
  My partner is very smart and pragmatic, and opted for a non-diamond engagement gem. A few years later, an upgrade to a diamond was demanded, on threat of divorce. Peer pressure is amazing on this topic. (It's fun to have this conversation with gender-neutral pronouns.)
  - jp555 7y ago
    "an upgrade to a diamond was demanded, on threat of divorce" this sounds like the opposite of a true marriage to me. *But of course I have no idea about your lives and wish you the very best.
  - bdamm 7y ago
    Meanwhile, my wife and I have not even worn rings for years, and no plan on the table to get new ones. Initially it was caused because we went through a very rough patch and we both were giving up on the marriage. But that turned around, and now years later the work we've done in our marriage stands on its own, and the rings are only a reminder of the shredded remains of the old marriage. So we don't wear them.
  - mlrtime 7y ago
    Sounds like she values a rock over you, don't negotiate with terrorists.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Huh. I've been married three times, and the issue of diamond rings never came up. But then, I would never have married someone who raised the issue. Edit: In case it's not obvious, the "diamonds for women" thing is blatantly sexist. And it's a flag for other attitudes.
- mrtweetyhack 7y ago
  Sheep
- BubRoss 7y ago
  I hope you at least got a diamond with an official certificate containing the picture and signature of the child soldier that found it.
- smegger001 7y ago
  Mine wanted a Diamond so we compromised and bought it at a pawn shop for a far lower price. Second hand diamonds are cheap because there are so many they aren't worth anything. The whole retail diamond market is all just scam.
- t0ughcritic 7y ago
  It’s just silly how women get away with this. In a equal world. Imagine if a man said I like the cultural aspect of you staying home and cooking/cleaning while I work and it’s non negotiable.
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    The wrong part of that inequality is the backlash that man would receive. Ideal world, both of them feel free to express their wants clearly and early. Equality in being shamed for wants is a bad equality.
- sytelus 7y ago
  I've recommended a test called "canoe test" for figuring out compatibility with your future partner. If you can't figure out how to canoe together over the long enough period and make it a more pleasurable experience than if you would be canoeing alone, probably things would get messy in other strata of life. I think I would add the "moissanite test" as well into my harness.
jacquesm 7y ago
Spending $20K on a ring is ridiculous.
- chadmeister 7y ago
  It's a weird American thing. People here even take out a mortgage to buy these ludicrously expensive engagement rings.
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    For our international readers, this is very uncommon behavior among Americans (taking out mortgages for a diamond ring) and it seems unlikely since it would require one of the two members of the marriage to own a house as a single person, which is also uncommon among Americans. Spending too much on a diamond ring is common though
    - Merrill 7y ago
      It's not uncommon for engagement and wedding expenditures to exceed what could otherwise be the down payment on a starter home.
    - mywittyname 7y ago
      It's very common for people to purchase engagement rings on loan. I had a friend who sold jewelry back in the 00s and he said it was pretty rare for someone to pay cash for engagement rings. Most people got 12-36 months loans. It's possible this changed between 09-13 because of the recession, but I'd bet it's very common now that the economy is doing really well. This might not be a mortgage, in the sense of being a lifetime payment. But it's a (semi-)secured loan.
  - dr_win 7y ago
    Doesn't really matter how you spend the money. It is a signalling thing. The money must be burnt. With limited resources it ensures you can't repeat engagement with multiple women... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selec...
lysium 7y ago
Thermal conductivity is about the same but birefringence is different.
- Nodraak 7y ago
  To save other people a clic: "Birefringence is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence
alberto_ol 7y ago
I didn't know what a 'mosanite stone' is so I googled it. It seems that the correct spelling is moissanite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite
- chadmeister 7y ago
  Thank you for the correction. I've edited my post
juskrey 7y ago
The diamond is a costly signal, nothing more. But this signal transmits a lot of information to the receiver (your wife).
formercoder 7y ago
We felt that we could tell the difference in reflection between moissanite and diamond. However we did go with a lab grown diamond which is 30%-60% of the price and ethically produced.
- greggman2 7y ago
  Did you blind yourself or did you know going in which was which? Did you separate so that each of your opinions would not influence the other? Of course maybe there is a noticable difference but often people see/taste/hear/smell/feel something that's not there if they already know which is A and which is B.
  - corey_moncure 7y ago
    The tells are obvious and easy to spot once you know what you're looking for. The moissanite has more fire than the diamond of the same shape and cut, and the angle of the point is shallower. The angle is particularly the easiest way to tell if the setting allows you to see it. I guess in the grandparent's post the point was hidden from the jeweler. I don't think any of this stuff really matters, btw, just get what looks good to you.
    - Miraste 7y ago
      Isn't the angle of the point whatever the cutter wants it to be? What am I missing here?
      - corey_moncure 7y ago
        The angle in the facets of the point has to be right to keep the light bouncing back out through the face and not right out the bottom, and it's determined by the physical properties of the material. For silicon carbide the index of refraction is higher, so the light will be bent more sharply when it enters, resulting in greater separation of white light into color components ("fire") and necessitating shallower angles in the point to maximize internal reflection
  - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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ryanmercer 7y ago
>Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point. Indeed, my fiance was completely happy with sterling silver and a white sapphire. It's a hand-carved design (lost wax) and it cost me less than our recent trip to the zoo and in her own words "I don't have to worry about being nervous about losing some dumb expensive ring, this one is perfect". Sure, over time the sapphire will scratch a lot easier and get cloudy but we're talking about a few dollar stone. It can easily be replaced.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Sure, over time the sapphire will scratch a lot easier Huh? The sapphire will scratch easier... if you spend a lot of time rubbing your hand against diamonds. Sapphire is one of the hardest stones there is. It's the 9th point on the (ordinal) 10-point Mohs scale, with 10 being diamond.
  - chopin 7y ago
    You don't know her friends though. They might wear all rings covered with diamonds.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      I think at the point where everybody's wearing rings with set stones, they mostly stop fist bumping.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    Chemical exposure in normal household settings (chlorine bleach, lemon juice, ammonia), diamond on sapphire, sapphire on sapphire etc. Just chlorine exposure over time (swimming, doing household cleaning) can actually weaken sapphire to the point of disintegrating. Remember, precious and semi-precious stones are just fancy chemical compounds.
  - mnw21cam 7y ago
    I have a tungsten carbide wedding ring, which also rates 9 on the Mohs scale. It's totally scratched up around the outside, and shiny around the inside, after ten years. And I'm careful to take the ring off before I use abrasive materials such as sandpaper and diamond sharpening tools.
jliptzin 7y ago
If I were your wife I would be even more turned on when you told me you saved $20,000 and no one can tell the difference
- chadmeister 7y ago
  I don't know if you're joking or not, but this was actually the case! ;)
growlist 7y ago
I've not found a good source for Moissanite in the UK, as in, one that doesn't seem overpriced - it's almost like there's a conspiracy to prevent any good deals on engagement/wedding rings.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so. It is extremely easy to distinguish a moissanite from a diamond using a reliable, low-tech test: the moissanite can't scratch a diamond, but a diamond will scratch the moissanite. The problem, if you're a jeweler talking to a customer, is that this will damage the moissanite.
- chadmeister 7y ago
  But you can only scratch it with something as hard as diamonds.Who is really considering that when buying jewelry? Resistent to blemish from everything but diamond...oh nooo...
- rayuela 7y ago
  Moissanite is a 9.5/10 on the hardness scale, with diamond being a 10. Outside of industrial applications this is a totally insignificant difference. This reads like the other criticisms of moissanite I've read where people claim that it is "too shiny" making it look too much like a diamond you couldn't possibly afford and therefore giving away it's identity.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I'm not saying that moissanite's slightly lower hardness will cause problems in use as jewelry. I'm saying that, contra the parent comment's implication, it's very easy to tell the difference.
frazzlednpe 7y ago
Other than moissanite there are also lab diamonds. I found this on lab vs earth diamonds https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth (scroll down for the crazy graph for the price difference). Overall they seem to share lots of analytics on the diamond market. After a discussion with my fiancee I did end up finding a earth/natural diamond(I know). I did end up using the same site to help me find a good deal and seemed to save a chunk of change.
ijidak 7y ago
Where did you find the moissanite? My wife wants to upgrade her diamond and I think she is convinced that moissanite is a good substitute. But I find that moissanite is still far more expensive than I expected (for 1.5 carats, it wasn't 2% of the price of a diamond). But maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. If you don't mind me asking. Where did you find yours?
- tshanmu 7y ago
  same with me - the big price difference does not seem to be there - where can one buy these amazingly priced moissanites?
  - kop316 7y ago
    When I bought one, Charles & Colvard was a good source. Helzberg Diamonds is also a good place to look, and they can set one you bought online for a reasonable price.
  - 0xcafecafe 7y ago
    I got a 3 carat moissanite pendant necklace from Helzberg for ~$1500. The same thing in diamond would have been well into 5 digits. My wife loves it and gets a lot of compliments on it.
- chadmeister 7y ago
  I bought a 1.75 carat Charles & Colvard loose gem for $400 and had it set by a local jeweler for $50. Cheapest identically spec'd diamond I could find at the time was $22,000. They seem to sell this brand of stones everywhere now. I would highly recommend you check it out in person next to an actual diamond and you will immediately see what I mean. I ordered several from C&C, whom at the time had a very generous return policy, and kept the nicest one. I would recommend you check out a few different places tho because there are definitely people out there trying to pawn off lower quality slightly green/gray stones on unsuspecting buyers.
  - Loughla 7y ago
perseusprime11 7y ago
Where did you buy the moissanite stone?
lightedman 7y ago
"Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond" Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond. Any jeweler worth their salt should be able to discern between them with only a visual inspection. https://i.imgur.com/Cm6gwyL.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Cm6gwyL.jpg - I design and make jewelry, from scratch, as a hobby. I can just look at a stone and tell you if CZ/Goshenite/Moissanite/Diamond/Glass. The differences in the stones when cut is quite apparent.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  That's easy to claim. Ever done a blind test? Anyway, I imagine no jeweler when asked to clean a stone, is going to blurt out "That's not a diamond!" No positive customer reaction possible there.
  - lightedman 7y ago
    Rutile - http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/0957/articles/JC8_1d1c80bf-4b36-4361-b379-c67b87929ca1_grande.PNG?v=1556195043 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/0957/articles/JC8_1d1c... highest RI out of pretty much anything. Insane fire. Moissanite - https://www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g9/M01/71/E4/rBVaVVy8bpaAT6oMAAGhJOhOvjg431.jpg https://www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g9/M01/71/E4/rBVaVVy8... Higher RI than diamond but less than rutile. Still great fire. Diamond - http://img.fruugo.com/product/1/70/74615701_max.jpg http://img.fruugo.com/product/1/70/74615701_max.jpg Pretty plain and dull. Hardly any prismatic/chromatic display. Even CZ has more 'fire' than this.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    We did blind tests when we were shopping for rings. It was stupidly easy to tell - moissanite sparkles more. Didn't go the way the jeweler wanted, though - he only sold diamonds, but had a moissanite ring he was cleaning for a customer for comparison, and we liked the moissanite better.
- magduf 7y ago
  >Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond. This makes the cachet that diamonds possess even more ridiculous. They're literally orders of magnitude more expensive, for something that's objectively worse in terms of the properties that actually matter for a gemstone.
really3452 7y ago
I got my wife a colored sapphire (champaine). She loves it but the moissanite stone was a no go for her as her perception of it was that it was a fake diamond. The cost for the sapphire vs. the moissanite stone were the same so I just wanted to mention this alternative.
- jdmichal 7y ago
  We did a sapphire also, though just plain blue. We both enjoy the contrast between the colored main stone and the smaller set diamonds. (The ring is not halo set, but has bands that roughly surround the main stone.)
eloff 7y ago
I tried and failed to interest my wife in moissanite or lab diamonds. DeBeers 1. Me -20,000.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
Your a smart man. I wish I had been so wise when I made my purchase. :(
nostrademons 7y ago
My wife also has a moissanite engagement ring that we love. It was more like 1/5 the cost of a diamond ring, although maybe I'm figuring "equivalent diamond" differently than you (doing the math on your comment indicates about $400, which is around what we paid, but I'm seeing similar diamond settings for about $2-3K on Brilliant Earth, though with slightly smaller & fewer stones). Our main motivation was actually social justice over price, though - my wife is big into a number of social justice causes, and couldn't justify killing villagers in the Congo so she could have a diamond engagement ring. We looked into lab-grown diamonds as well, but just found that we liked the look of moissanite more. You can totally tell the difference if you have a trained eye, but to mine moissanite is better in basically every respect you would care about: it sparkles more, has more defined facets, and tends to be clearer with a brighter light.
peg_leg 7y ago
My wife INSISTED … NO DIAMOND. Her engagement ring cost $70 at JCPenney.
riffraff 7y ago
> Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point to be fair, it probably always was.
trianglem 7y ago
This is still riding on a "real" diamonds coat tails. There's no reason they should be this expensive but you're not helping either.
bitL 7y ago
Moissanite is actually much rarer than diamond in nature (the only sources are meteorites and rarely diamond mines); it should be much more expensive if we couldn't cheaply synthesize it.
Jean-Philipe 7y ago
Is this maybe an American thing? I live in Germany and I know nobody of my age who got a diamond for their engagement or wedding ring, including friends from other countries.

puranjay 7y ago

My wife is a very pragmatic, smart and pragmatic person. But even then she couldn't be convinced not to get a diamond. She was happy skipping the honeymoon and reducing wedding expenses, but the diamond was a no go. The marketing is too strong.

francisofascii 7y ago
It is probably more cultural pressure rather than marketing. Especially if your mother, aunts, sisters, cousins, are all getting diamonds. It takes a special level of courage to go against the grain. The desire to "fit in" is strong.
throwaway-hn123 7y ago
Or perhaps you and your wife are shallow losers?
andrepd 7y ago
She was happy skipping travelling but not an indistinguishable rock on a ring? The marketing is too strong indeed.
- 1980phipsi 7y ago
  It's the social factor. It takes a special kind of person to not only be happy with the cheaper thing but also to not let people know that it's cheaper. If I bought my wife a cheaper ring, I'd be telling everybody the deal I got. However, that is the opposite of the purpose here...
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    It takes a special kind of person to be happy with a cheap thing they paid way too much for.
    - incongruity 7y ago
      As much as I want to applaud the wit here, the truth is that it really doesn’t - that phenomenon is quintessentially human. We (as a species) will go cognitive miles to avoid actually facing embarrassment or admitting to being fooled. Your thing might not be overpaying for a diamond and it’s unlikely you can see your own instance(s) but I’m sure you have seen it in others on the regular.
    - nyolfen 7y ago
      yes, but we love them all the same
      - papln 7y ago
        Honestly I think the diamond-ring culture is deeply unhealthy - it creates an artificial large resentment event right at the beginning of a commitment, that may destabilize the whole relationship.
        hombre_fatal 7y ago
        I've seen threads on r/relationship_advice and r/TwoXChromosomes where women are desperately distraught over issues having to do with the ring their fiancé/husband bought them, it really does seem like unnecessary hardship. Though, as a man, figuring out your partner's expectations of rings and weddings (and family and children and ...) is part of the dating process. You really shouldn't be blindsided at the engagement phase. I'm reminded of a friend from high school who is got divorced after finding out his wife of two years didn't want and never wanted children. His defense was "it just never came up!"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bildung 7y ago
  To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either. It's a matter of the specific personality profile that makes a person attracted to one or both or neither of those two modes of consumption.
  - chris_overseas 7y ago
    Well there's evidence that spending money on experiences rather than material goods will make you happier: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/feel-happier-talk-about-experiences-not-things https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/feel-happier-talk-a...
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    > To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either. Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things. From a researcher who wrote (the) book on happiness: > "Shifting from buying stuff to buying experiences, and from spending on yourself to spending on others, can have a dramatic impact on happiness," writes Dunn and her co-author Michael Norton. * https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/happiness-is-buying-experience-not-stuff-29833931.html https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/happiness-is-buying-exp... * https://dunn.psych.ubc.ca https://dunn.psych.ubc.ca * http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Money-Science-Happier-Spending/dp/1451665075 http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Money-Science-Happier-Spending/d... If, per Aristotle, happiness is the supreme good, it would objectively be better to spend your limited resources on things that are more likely to give it to you. * https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201301/aristotle-happiness https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201301/ar...
    - bildung 7y ago
      > Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things. Yes, but a) travelling is not the only way to buy experiences by any means, b) Actually doing/ creating things or experiences is infinitely more rewarding than consumption[1]. Programming, making music, painting, woodworking, cooking, gardening, whatever tickles your fancy. All those studies still only are about buying. [1] for certain personalities.
- klyrs 7y ago
  One way I've seen engagement rings used is as an unspoken pre-prenup. He cheats, she bails and sells the ring. I say "unspoken" but I've heard men and women speak rather frankly about the exchange
  - papln 7y ago
    The ring doesn't have enough resale value for that (and the breakup would spoil the sentimental value of keeping the gem). The incentive isn't compensation for her, it's sunk cost for him.
    - klyrs 7y ago
      Just reporting what I've heard. If he spends $20k and she sells it for $2k, it's still a $2k bonus to her.
renjimen 7y ago
Did you ask her why? It doesn't outwardly seem pragmatic if she's happy to forego expense which provide a service or experience, but not a piece of stone that weighs less than a gram and serves no function other than to display wealth. You'd be better spending that money on a fancy sports car - at least you'd get some fun out of it and a fair resale value.
- slig 7y ago
  > and serves no function other than to display wealth That's the point: signal to peers that you've found a great partner that's willing to throw this kind of money away just for your status.
  - agent008t 7y ago
    Why is signalling that to peers useful or a good thing?
    - ableal 7y ago
      That's been thought out a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
    - austhrow743 7y ago
      Makes you feel good.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I suppose you could accomplish the same thing by just not telling people that it's moissanite.
    - lelima 7y ago
      I think most girls check somehow the ring/diamond value.
      - 7y ago
friendlybus 7y ago
It's difficult to separate out the marketing and social side from her own values and feelings.
- theshadowknows 7y ago
  This is it. My family as it currently stands has two “ring” related stories: Story 1. Both my and my wife’s wedding rings were stolen. The wedding bands were my parents’ and had been in the family for the better part of a hundred years. Though they were extremely simple, plain gold rings with very little value (prob got $50 at a pawn shop if that). We replaced them with similar rings just because we wanted them. Story 2. My wife had a ring that had belonged to her grandmother. It was very ornate and had many kinds of jewel including diamonds and Ruby’s. It was very old school in design but was quite pretty. It was also stolen. I found a similar one for about $14,000 online and offered to buy it for my wife who was devastated at the loss but she refused because it “wasn’t the same” which I of course understood. So there’s more than just the dollar value of the thing is what I’m saying.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Pedantic: it had gems, and was a jewel.
grogenaut 7y ago
My wife is pretty rational but was emotional on this point. I made my position and moral issues with diamonds clear from the second date. she went with the value argument until I hit her with appraisals of her grandmother's ring and industry trends. Wife bought a really pretty sapphire ring from Etsy in the days when it was hand made for around $650. She's very happy with it. It's actually unique.
bane 7y ago
My wife is as well. When we were married we were too poor to buy a diamond, but she always held out the desire for one. Coincidentally, about the time the movie "Blood Diamond" came out (2006) was about the time we were able to afford a decent diamond for her. The movie had a huge impact on her and she spent weeks slipping in between diamond shopping and learning about blood diamonds. While she knew that diamonds are more or less worthless logically, the marketing and social drivers kept it in her head that she needed one - the emotional need was very very high. But the more she read about the human cost the more in conflict the social worth of the things became. Ultimately she decided that the moral cost aligned with her logical mind and that's what finally overrode her emotional desire to get one. She still wanted a sparkly thing and after spending some time looking in to lab grown diamonds, she coudn't get over the basic worthlessness of having an expensive sparkly thing and ended up just getting a modest lab grown moissanite ring -- on sale and with a discount coupon.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  No matter how much we pat ourselves on the back for how rational and smart beings we humans are, the reality is that emotions are running the show much more than logic. Evidence is everywhere - elections, fashion, life, shopping and partner choices and so on. For some people its almost purely emotions, and their lives usually look accordingly. Peer pressure, status symbols etc - all just variations of same emotional loops. Congrats to having such a smart wife.
  - dwoozle 7y ago
    You can get pretty far by modeling humans as 1/2 bacteria and 1/2 beagle.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Not only are emotions running the show, the emotions are being run by very rational marketers and politicians. Although this may have been less true in past centuries, today being run by emotions means being run by other people.
    - 7y ago
logfromblammo 7y ago
I told the spouse that I am not buying a diamond, ever, nearly 20 years ago, and I haven't. I like synthetic corundums: sapphires and rubies. I understand the synthesis process, which does not involve hired enforcer thugs and criminal exploitation of poor laborers. They are hard enough to resist scratches from most things, and they fracture conchoidally, instead of along 4 perfect planes of cleavage. I'm also good with nephrite and jadeite, which can take a pounding, due to their fibrous crystals and interlocking crystals, respectively. The spouse is not okay with this, and makes only token efforts to hide disdain, but I am stubborn enough to die before giving a single penny to some parasitic international diamond cartel, just for a little bit more refractive index, hardness, and thermal conductivity. We're still not a diamond-free household, though. Some have been inherited from more foolish ancestors. We have also "mined" natural corundums at a touristy dirt-washing operation in western North Carolina. This, of course, led immediately to talk about digging up yellow/brown rough diamonds in Crater of Diamonds (Arkansas) State Park, which immediately informed me that the venomous DeBeers brain-hooks were still set. It just makes me hate the cartel more. I think what irritates me most is that their marketing is so effective. You can show an entire feature film, starring A-list actors, about people getting brutally murdered over the diamond trade, and people will unabashedly say they still want diamond jewelry after watching. Hell, you can watch Marathon Man, and hear, "I'm afraid of dentists now, but I would also like to keep all the diamonds I can eat." They have somehow made diamonds bypass all reason, and link directly to the emotional center of the psyche, with nothing more than decades of persistent advertising.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  Get a lab grown diamond. Seriously - hey look great, undercut the cartels and are physically basically the same by any reasonable measure.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    All gemstone diamonds, lab-grown or not, contribute to the collective cultural mind-warp that DeBeers has created. Diamonds do not make you look great. Or, at minimum, they do not make you look better than cheaper, non-cartelized clear gemstones, such as moissanite, cubic zirconia, clear sapphire, clear beryl (goshenite), clear topaz, or even clear quartz. Think about why you would rather have a diamond than any other mineral. Think about why a synthetic carbon allotrope sells at such a large premium over its actual cost of synthesis. They're still riding along on the coattails of DeBeers' 9 decades of unrelenting marketing. If I were getting a pure carbon allotrope jewelry centerpiece, I would very much prefer a single graphene molecule, 235 km long, rolled up into a spiral 1 cm thick--preferably oriented to be most conductive along the axis. Now that would be something worth wearing!
Thaxll 7y ago
Sorry but it doesn't sound like someone pragmatic or smart, diamond is just a rock that's worth x amount of $ nothing more. Someone pragmatic would be happy with "any" kind of ring, when I see those big diamonds it reminds me of those dumb people showing off their ring to friends in TV shows. I'm not sure for other countries but diamond is a very US thing.
wnevets 7y ago
I ran into the same issue. I don't know if was the marketing, just wanted the commitment in dollars before telling everyone she's engaged or the status symbol to show off to other people but it had to be a significant diamond. One of the things that surprised me was man made diamonds at the size and quality she wanted weren't actually cheaper.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Cheaper for them, just not for you. Same as the dug ones, really.
rossdavidh 7y ago
It's not the marketing. It's the fact that it's what biologists call expensive signaling. You are spending money, not on a trip that you both enjoy, but on a ring that really only she enjoys. This is an expensive (therefore hard to fake) signal that you care about how she feels. Now, imagine that the diamond is cheaper. It is no longer an expensive signal. Therefore, although the diamond is the same, it no longer serves the same purpose. So, the cheaper diamonds get, the less demand there is from prospective brides, even if only marginally. This fuels further declines, although that is probably already happening due to better industrial diamonds. This takes time, of course. But that also means it has a lot of momentum. As the price decline continues, and the word of that spreads, it will accelerate.
- standardUser 7y ago
  This reminds me of the popular idea of "love languages". I was always baffled by the idea that some people considered "gifts" to be the most important way to express love. But diamond rings seem to fit this paradigm perfectly.
  - magduf 7y ago
    No, it's different. For instance, gift-giving is a really big deal in Asian cultures. It's not about throwing lots of money around, it's just showing that you're thinking of someone, so gifts can be very small and inexpensive. So gift-giving is certainly a valid love language, just like physical touch, words of affection, etc. Some people just really like to give their loved one small gifts, and some people really like getting them. They can be small clothing items, candies/food, whatever. Diamonds aren't "small gifts"; they're absurdly expensive ornaments. Their primary purpose is so American women can show off to other women how much money their husbands have. It's a bit like having a really expensive luxury car: it's a signal to others to show you're rich, not a way for someone to show affection to another. Edit: About Asian cultures, I'll also add, it's just just lovers. Coworkers will frequently get each other small gifts, or gifts for everyone on the team. This is usually small food items, not anything at all expensive. They might do this if they travel somewhere. I had an Asian (i.e., he had just moved from SE Asia for this job) coworker once give everyone on our team some nice variety of tea, for instance.
0000011111 7y ago
Ya, I read the introduction to book blood diamonds with my wife. It helped us see past the engagement diamond consumer culture.
papln 7y ago
My partner is very smart and pragmatic, and opted for a non-diamond engagement gem. A few years later, an upgrade to a diamond was demanded, on threat of divorce. Peer pressure is amazing on this topic. (It's fun to have this conversation with gender-neutral pronouns.)
- jp555 7y ago
  "an upgrade to a diamond was demanded, on threat of divorce" this sounds like the opposite of a true marriage to me. *But of course I have no idea about your lives and wish you the very best.
- bdamm 7y ago
  Meanwhile, my wife and I have not even worn rings for years, and no plan on the table to get new ones. Initially it was caused because we went through a very rough patch and we both were giving up on the marriage. But that turned around, and now years later the work we've done in our marriage stands on its own, and the rings are only a reminder of the shredded remains of the old marriage. So we don't wear them.
- mlrtime 7y ago
  Sounds like she values a rock over you, don't negotiate with terrorists.
mirimir 7y ago
Huh. I've been married three times, and the issue of diamond rings never came up. But then, I would never have married someone who raised the issue. Edit: In case it's not obvious, the "diamonds for women" thing is blatantly sexist. And it's a flag for other attitudes.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
Sheep
BubRoss 7y ago
I hope you at least got a diamond with an official certificate containing the picture and signature of the child soldier that found it.
smegger001 7y ago
Mine wanted a Diamond so we compromised and bought it at a pawn shop for a far lower price. Second hand diamonds are cheap because there are so many they aren't worth anything. The whole retail diamond market is all just scam.
t0ughcritic 7y ago
It’s just silly how women get away with this. In a equal world. Imagine if a man said I like the cultural aspect of you staying home and cooking/cleaning while I work and it’s non negotiable.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  The wrong part of that inequality is the backlash that man would receive. Ideal world, both of them feel free to express their wants clearly and early. Equality in being shamed for wants is a bad equality.
sytelus 7y ago
I've recommended a test called "canoe test" for figuring out compatibility with your future partner. If you can't figure out how to canoe together over the long enough period and make it a more pleasurable experience than if you would be canoeing alone, probably things would get messy in other strata of life. I think I would add the "moissanite test" as well into my harness.

jacquesm 7y ago

Spending $20K on a ring is ridiculous.

chadmeister 7y ago
It's a weird American thing. People here even take out a mortgage to buy these ludicrously expensive engagement rings.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  For our international readers, this is very uncommon behavior among Americans (taking out mortgages for a diamond ring) and it seems unlikely since it would require one of the two members of the marriage to own a house as a single person, which is also uncommon among Americans. Spending too much on a diamond ring is common though
  - Merrill 7y ago
    It's not uncommon for engagement and wedding expenditures to exceed what could otherwise be the down payment on a starter home.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    It's very common for people to purchase engagement rings on loan. I had a friend who sold jewelry back in the 00s and he said it was pretty rare for someone to pay cash for engagement rings. Most people got 12-36 months loans. It's possible this changed between 09-13 because of the recession, but I'd bet it's very common now that the economy is doing really well. This might not be a mortgage, in the sense of being a lifetime payment. But it's a (semi-)secured loan.
- dr_win 7y ago
  Doesn't really matter how you spend the money. It is a signalling thing. The money must be burnt. With limited resources it ensures you can't repeat engagement with multiple women... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selec...

lysium 7y ago

Thermal conductivity is about the same but birefringence is different.

Nodraak 7y ago
To save other people a clic: "Birefringence is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence

alberto_ol 7y ago

I didn't know what a 'mosanite stone' is so I googled it. It seems that the correct spelling is moissanite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite

chadmeister 7y ago
Thank you for the correction. I've edited my post

juskrey 7y ago

The diamond is a costly signal, nothing more. But this signal transmits a lot of information to the receiver (your wife).

formercoder 7y ago

We felt that we could tell the difference in reflection between moissanite and diamond. However we did go with a lab grown diamond which is 30%-60% of the price and ethically produced.

greggman2 7y ago
Did you blind yourself or did you know going in which was which? Did you separate so that each of your opinions would not influence the other? Of course maybe there is a noticable difference but often people see/taste/hear/smell/feel something that's not there if they already know which is A and which is B.
- corey_moncure 7y ago
  The tells are obvious and easy to spot once you know what you're looking for. The moissanite has more fire than the diamond of the same shape and cut, and the angle of the point is shallower. The angle is particularly the easiest way to tell if the setting allows you to see it. I guess in the grandparent's post the point was hidden from the jeweler. I don't think any of this stuff really matters, btw, just get what looks good to you.
  - Miraste 7y ago
    Isn't the angle of the point whatever the cutter wants it to be? What am I missing here?
    - corey_moncure 7y ago
      The angle in the facets of the point has to be right to keep the light bouncing back out through the face and not right out the bottom, and it's determined by the physical properties of the material. For silicon carbide the index of refraction is higher, so the light will be bent more sharply when it enters, resulting in greater separation of white light into color components ("fire") and necessitating shallower angles in the point to maximize internal reflection
- 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ryanmercer 7y ago

>Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point. Indeed, my fiance was completely happy with sterling silver and a white sapphire. It's a hand-carved design (lost wax) and it cost me less than our recent trip to the zoo and in her own words "I don't have to worry about being nervous about losing some dumb expensive ring, this one is perfect". Sure, over time the sapphire will scratch a lot easier and get cloudy but we're talking about a few dollar stone. It can easily be replaced.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Sure, over time the sapphire will scratch a lot easier Huh? The sapphire will scratch easier... if you spend a lot of time rubbing your hand against diamonds. Sapphire is one of the hardest stones there is. It's the 9th point on the (ordinal) 10-point Mohs scale, with 10 being diamond.
- chopin 7y ago
  You don't know her friends though. They might wear all rings covered with diamonds.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I think at the point where everybody's wearing rings with set stones, they mostly stop fist bumping.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  Chemical exposure in normal household settings (chlorine bleach, lemon juice, ammonia), diamond on sapphire, sapphire on sapphire etc. Just chlorine exposure over time (swimming, doing household cleaning) can actually weaken sapphire to the point of disintegrating. Remember, precious and semi-precious stones are just fancy chemical compounds.
- mnw21cam 7y ago
  I have a tungsten carbide wedding ring, which also rates 9 on the Mohs scale. It's totally scratched up around the outside, and shiny around the inside, after ten years. And I'm careful to take the ring off before I use abrasive materials such as sandpaper and diamond sharpening tools.

jliptzin 7y ago

If I were your wife I would be even more turned on when you told me you saved $20,000 and no one can tell the difference

chadmeister 7y ago
I don't know if you're joking or not, but this was actually the case! ;)

growlist 7y ago

I've not found a good source for Moissanite in the UK, as in, one that doesn't seem overpriced - it's almost like there's a conspiracy to prevent any good deals on engagement/wedding rings.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so. It is extremely easy to distinguish a moissanite from a diamond using a reliable, low-tech test: the moissanite can't scratch a diamond, but a diamond will scratch the moissanite. The problem, if you're a jeweler talking to a customer, is that this will damage the moissanite.

chadmeister 7y ago
But you can only scratch it with something as hard as diamonds.Who is really considering that when buying jewelry? Resistent to blemish from everything but diamond...oh nooo...
rayuela 7y ago
Moissanite is a 9.5/10 on the hardness scale, with diamond being a 10. Outside of industrial applications this is a totally insignificant difference. This reads like the other criticisms of moissanite I've read where people claim that it is "too shiny" making it look too much like a diamond you couldn't possibly afford and therefore giving away it's identity.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  I'm not saying that moissanite's slightly lower hardness will cause problems in use as jewelry. I'm saying that, contra the parent comment's implication, it's very easy to tell the difference.

frazzlednpe 7y ago

Other than moissanite there are also lab diamonds. I found this on lab vs earth diamonds https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth (scroll down for the crazy graph for the price difference). Overall they seem to share lots of analytics on the diamond market. After a discussion with my fiancee I did end up finding a earth/natural diamond(I know). I did end up using the same site to help me find a good deal and seemed to save a chunk of change.

ijidak 7y ago

Where did you find the moissanite? My wife wants to upgrade her diamond and I think she is convinced that moissanite is a good substitute. But I find that moissanite is still far more expensive than I expected (for 1.5 carats, it wasn't 2% of the price of a diamond). But maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. If you don't mind me asking. Where did you find yours?

tshanmu 7y ago
same with me - the big price difference does not seem to be there - where can one buy these amazingly priced moissanites?
- kop316 7y ago
  When I bought one, Charles & Colvard was a good source. Helzberg Diamonds is also a good place to look, and they can set one you bought online for a reasonable price.
- 0xcafecafe 7y ago
  I got a 3 carat moissanite pendant necklace from Helzberg for ~$1500. The same thing in diamond would have been well into 5 digits. My wife loves it and gets a lot of compliments on it.
chadmeister 7y ago
I bought a 1.75 carat Charles & Colvard loose gem for $400 and had it set by a local jeweler for $50. Cheapest identically spec'd diamond I could find at the time was $22,000. They seem to sell this brand of stones everywhere now. I would highly recommend you check it out in person next to an actual diamond and you will immediately see what I mean. I ordered several from C&C, whom at the time had a very generous return policy, and kept the nicest one. I would recommend you check out a few different places tho because there are definitely people out there trying to pawn off lower quality slightly green/gray stones on unsuspecting buyers.
- Loughla 7y ago

perseusprime11 7y ago

Where did you buy the moissanite stone?

lightedman 7y ago

"Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond" Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond. Any jeweler worth their salt should be able to discern between them with only a visual inspection. https://i.imgur.com/Cm6gwyL.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Cm6gwyL.jpg - I design and make jewelry, from scratch, as a hobby. I can just look at a stone and tell you if CZ/Goshenite/Moissanite/Diamond/Glass. The differences in the stones when cut is quite apparent.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
That's easy to claim. Ever done a blind test? Anyway, I imagine no jeweler when asked to clean a stone, is going to blurt out "That's not a diamond!" No positive customer reaction possible there.
- lightedman 7y ago
  Rutile - http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/0957/articles/JC8_1d1c80bf-4b36-4361-b379-c67b87929ca1_grande.PNG?v=1556195043 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/0957/articles/JC8_1d1c... highest RI out of pretty much anything. Insane fire. Moissanite - https://www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g9/M01/71/E4/rBVaVVy8bpaAT6oMAAGhJOhOvjg431.jpg https://www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g9/M01/71/E4/rBVaVVy8... Higher RI than diamond but less than rutile. Still great fire. Diamond - http://img.fruugo.com/product/1/70/74615701_max.jpg http://img.fruugo.com/product/1/70/74615701_max.jpg Pretty plain and dull. Hardly any prismatic/chromatic display. Even CZ has more 'fire' than this.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  We did blind tests when we were shopping for rings. It was stupidly easy to tell - moissanite sparkles more. Didn't go the way the jeweler wanted, though - he only sold diamonds, but had a moissanite ring he was cleaning for a customer for comparison, and we liked the moissanite better.
magduf 7y ago
>Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond. This makes the cachet that diamonds possess even more ridiculous. They're literally orders of magnitude more expensive, for something that's objectively worse in terms of the properties that actually matter for a gemstone.

really3452 7y ago

I got my wife a colored sapphire (champaine). She loves it but the moissanite stone was a no go for her as her perception of it was that it was a fake diamond. The cost for the sapphire vs. the moissanite stone were the same so I just wanted to mention this alternative.

jdmichal 7y ago
We did a sapphire also, though just plain blue. We both enjoy the contrast between the colored main stone and the smaller set diamonds. (The ring is not halo set, but has bands that roughly surround the main stone.)

eloff 7y ago

I tried and failed to interest my wife in moissanite or lab diamonds. DeBeers 1. Me -20,000.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

Your a smart man. I wish I had been so wise when I made my purchase. :(

nostrademons 7y ago

My wife also has a moissanite engagement ring that we love. It was more like 1/5 the cost of a diamond ring, although maybe I'm figuring "equivalent diamond" differently than you (doing the math on your comment indicates about $400, which is around what we paid, but I'm seeing similar diamond settings for about $2-3K on Brilliant Earth, though with slightly smaller & fewer stones). Our main motivation was actually social justice over price, though - my wife is big into a number of social justice causes, and couldn't justify killing villagers in the Congo so she could have a diamond engagement ring. We looked into lab-grown diamonds as well, but just found that we liked the look of moissanite more. You can totally tell the difference if you have a trained eye, but to mine moissanite is better in basically every respect you would care about: it sparkles more, has more defined facets, and tends to be clearer with a brighter light.

peg_leg 7y ago

My wife INSISTED … NO DIAMOND. Her engagement ring cost $70 at JCPenney.

riffraff 7y ago

> Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point to be fair, it probably always was.

trianglem 7y ago

This is still riding on a "real" diamonds coat tails. There's no reason they should be this expensive but you're not helping either.

bitL 7y ago

Moissanite is actually much rarer than diamond in nature (the only sources are meteorites and rarely diamond mines); it should be much more expensive if we couldn't cheaply synthesize it.

Jean-Philipe 7y ago

Is this maybe an American thing? I live in Germany and I know nobody of my age who got a diamond for their engagement or wedding ring, including friends from other countries.