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From what I understand about diamonds they’re completely uninteresting to me. The way you measure how valuable a diamond is? Purity. The way you tell a lab mad

From what I understand about diamonds they’re completely uninteresting to me. The way you measure how valuable a diamond is? Purity. The way you tell a lab made diamond from a “real” diamond? Purity. If it’s too pure it’s fake. There is this weird market where you want the purist diamond you can find, but not too pure. So you want some imperfections, just the perfect number of imperfections. Too many imperfections and it’s low quality. Too few imperfections and it’s worthless enough to grind to dust and use on consumable parts for power tools. The modern jewelry market is also substantially different than what past generations taught me jewelry was. To them, jewelry was meant to be a value store. You purchase a valuable ring, the stone and metal held their value and you or your heirs could sell it later if times were tough. Now jewelry seems more like buying a new car. It loses half its value when you drive it off the lot.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Too few imperfections and it’s worthless enough to grind to dust and use on consumable parts for power tools. Industrial diamonds have been important for much longer than synthetic gem-quality diamonds have. Abrasive tools need diamonds, but they don't need to be attractive, so they aren't.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Cheap industrial diamond tooling is one of my favourite things about living in the future. Just incredibly useful.
BurningFrog 3y ago
At least gold still keeps its value, while looking good/expensive.
pizzaknife 3y ago
I dont have a dog in this fight but hilariously the argument //for imperfection// i see here: People are flawed, damaged and utterly fragile. Is a "pure diamond" the projection of unrealistic expectations? Legal disclosures: - I am married (for much longer than the bell curve would suggest) - I did buy a diamond - I did stress about spending that money - I don't see the diamond as any real asset (financially or otherwise) - I bought said diamond AFTER i asked my SO's patriarch for permission - I DID NOT receive a dowry (imagine all of the dirtbikes i could have purchased with that sweet, sweet chattel monies!) My opinion: Diamonds are hotpockets: there is a lot of money going into advertising an otherwise unhealthy thing (for you and global society as a whole).
- pizzaknife 3y ago
  I see i was down voted - gentle request for the opportunity to understand why?
np- 3y ago
> There is this weird market where you want the purist diamond you can find, but not too pure. So you want some imperfections, just the perfect number of imperfections. Another "weird" market where this holds true is the dating market. In general it seems similar to how we evaluate other humans or forms of life in general. If another person is too perfect they either seem fake or trigger a weird uncanny valley effect.
- highfrequency 3y ago
  Art is another prime example. A photograph is the most accurate portrayal of a scene, but a painting is often more interesting/valuable.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Not to diminish any skills a photographer has, but it's a totally different skill set than a painter. A photograph can be duplicated in 1:1 quality so there is no difference from the original to the bazillionth copy. There is only one original painting. A photograph is taken in (typically) a fraction of a second with the obvious long exposure still within in seconds of time. A painting obviously takes much longer. I say all of this as one that has made a living with various modes of image capture with a camera.
Vvector 3y ago
Marketing The sentimental value of a diamond is its rarity. And natural diamonds with few imperfections are rare. And a big diamond, useless for anything else, is the only way to show how much the marriage is worth. This is what is being sold to us. Synthetic diamonds are destroying 50 years of marketing.
- benterix 3y ago
  > And a big diamond, useless for anything else, is the only way to show how much the marriage is worth. This is what is being sold to us. And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this. Literally any use of this money could have been better.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this* *In the USA.
  - anthony_d 3y ago
    > And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this. Literally any use of this money could have been better. Seems pretty narrow minded. Of course engagements rings are symbolic. The best symbols are deeply rooted in cultural context anyway. If diamonds aren’t the best symbol for you that’s fine, but try not to fool yourself into thinking you’re being more rational. You might have different priorities or values. You might also just be a 2 dimensional NPC with nothing to share and therefore no need for symbolism. /jk
    - benterix 3y ago
      > The best symbols are deeply rooted in cultural context anyway. The irony here is that diamonds as engagement gifts given by males to females (why not the other way round btw?) have very shallow and well-documented roots. Moreover, given the exploitation around it, it's really bad to found your marriage on if you really think about it.
  - 3y ago
crazygringo 3y ago
Is there evidence that jewelry was a good store of value in previous generations though? We hear about families selling their jewelry to escape the country or when they're short on funds, but did they actually get a good price for it?
- bloggie 3y ago
  I suppose losing half your money in jewelry devaluation is better than losing all your money in currency devaluation or asset seizure?
  - refurb 3y ago
    It’s like real estate in China and other less developed countries. It’s used as a store of wealth that is likely to appreciate. Doesn’t matter if the currency goes bust, ownership is recognized by the government in all but the most extreme examples. We’re spoiled in the developed countries where you have thing like government bonds and equities (where public companies are vetted to some standard) and courts that can reliably protect ownership of an otherwise intangible asset.
- ISL 3y ago
  They got liquidity. Sometimes that has a lot of value.
- zvolsky 3y ago
  One of my relatives, uncle George, was fired ~30 years ago. His most valuable possession was a gold watch that baroness Coudenhove gave to a her maid 2-3 generations earlier. I don't remember who exactly the maid was, but she was somehow related to the family. In order to raise funds to buy his own tipper truck, George went to the Charles Bridge in Prague and found a buyer for the watch, a German tourist. The money was at least 50% of the price of the truck. These were the first steps on a long journey leading to a successful business. This was in a country with high inflation that's just gone through a regime change. Did he get a good price for the watch? Yes, at that moment, the truck was more valuable than the watch.
colechristensen 3y ago
Now I'm wondering what the markup is on a plain gold band compared to the spot price of gold. There's a business idea, figure out how to sell jewelry at a markup low enough that it makes sense as a store of value and then actually participate in both buying and selling.
- dylan604 3y ago
  jewelry is rarely pure gold. so you'd have to take that into consideration of your spot price. the person you sell that jewelry to later will also incur an expense at melting and separating the gold of the lesser metals. so not really sure how jewelry is a good way to store gold value
- jerf 3y ago
  If you just stroll into a standard jewelry store looking for gold, markup over spot is disastrous. I've heard of people making that sort of thing on a limited basis, but the market isn't there. There aren't enough people aware enough of the issue, and the temptation to just go ahead and charge the jewelry premium as a result is pretty overwhelming.
ethbr1 3y ago
> The modern jewelry market is also substantially different than what past generations taught me jewelry was. To them, jewelry was meant to be a value store. You purchase a valuable ring, the stone and metal held their value and you or your heirs could sell it later if times were tough. Jewelry sellers pretend their product is like precious metals: a store of value. In fact, it's more like collectable trading cards: popularity contributes more value than component materials. I.e. why heritage Tiffany or Rolex pieces still have substantial value
- eestrada 3y ago
  A while ago I checked to see how much gold actually exists in circulation. It is less than 22 meters cubed. That's it. Diamond mines regularly dump more than that in the ocean to create artificial scarcity. And at the end of the day, it is just carbon, one of the most abundant elements on the planet. Diamonds can just be produced in a lab with raw carbon, heat, and pressure. Companies even exist to make a diamond from a deceased person's ashes. Diamond value is amazingly artificial. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-in-the-world/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-i... https://lifegem.com/ https://lifegem.com/
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Hunh, the gold mining output vs underground reserves is fascinating. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_pr... At current rate, China will have mined all its reserves in under 6 years.
solardev 3y ago
Diamonds are basically the AI of burnt carbon
chaostheory 3y ago
It’s also hard to discern purity with the naked eye unless you’re trained, and it’s anything but a scarce resource
habitue 3y ago
Diamonds are a lot like luxury clothing lines. What makes a Louis Vuitton bag genuine? It's all a mental category, there's no physical property test that can classify Louis Vuitton atoms from counterfeit atoms. Diamonds have the unfortunate (for diamond sellers) property that they have a very simple chemical structure. So what DeBeers is trying to do is create a mental category for "natural diamonds" vs. "lab grown diamonds". The last thing they want is for diamonds (the investment / luxury good) to be defined by the diamond crystal structure. Consumers are very happy to pay extra for these mental categories when they know the belief in the category is widespread. Let's say you know your significant other will be disappointed if you buy her a lab grown diamond. Well, you have no choice but to buy a natural diamond I guess. A social fiction like this is self reinforcing once it reaches a critical mass. That's what they're driving for
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  Watches are moving in a similar direction. Time telling moved from a mechanical masterpiece to a digital commodity and watchmakers have become luxury brands. > Diamonds have the unfortunate (for diamond sellers) property that they have a very simple chemical structure. On the bright side (for diamond sellers) they're known to originate from a certain location. So they could in theory be protected by Champagne style trademarks and extract higher pricing that way.
tomatotomato37 3y ago
It's funny because most diamonds actually manufactured are impure too due to generic engineering reasons
david38 3y ago
Not weird. Literally how beauty is measured. Symmetry and skin smoothness are markers of beauty. Too much and a girl looks like she’s had too much work done, or the photo is shopped.
hydrok9 3y ago
Purest*

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> Too few imperfections and it’s worthless enough to grind to dust and use on consumable parts for power tools. Industrial diamonds have been important for much longer than synthetic gem-quality diamonds have. Abrasive tools need diamonds, but they don't need to be attractive, so they aren't.

XorNot 3y ago
Cheap industrial diamond tooling is one of my favourite things about living in the future. Just incredibly useful.

BurningFrog 3y ago

At least gold still keeps its value, while looking good/expensive.

pizzaknife 3y ago

I dont have a dog in this fight but hilariously the argument //for imperfection// i see here: People are flawed, damaged and utterly fragile. Is a "pure diamond" the projection of unrealistic expectations? Legal disclosures: - I am married (for much longer than the bell curve would suggest) - I did buy a diamond - I did stress about spending that money - I don't see the diamond as any real asset (financially or otherwise) - I bought said diamond AFTER i asked my SO's patriarch for permission - I DID NOT receive a dowry (imagine all of the dirtbikes i could have purchased with that sweet, sweet chattel monies!) My opinion: Diamonds are hotpockets: there is a lot of money going into advertising an otherwise unhealthy thing (for you and global society as a whole).

pizzaknife 3y ago
I see i was down voted - gentle request for the opportunity to understand why?

np- 3y ago

> There is this weird market where you want the purist diamond you can find, but not too pure. So you want some imperfections, just the perfect number of imperfections. Another "weird" market where this holds true is the dating market. In general it seems similar to how we evaluate other humans or forms of life in general. If another person is too perfect they either seem fake or trigger a weird uncanny valley effect.

highfrequency 3y ago
Art is another prime example. A photograph is the most accurate portrayal of a scene, but a painting is often more interesting/valuable.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Not to diminish any skills a photographer has, but it's a totally different skill set than a painter. A photograph can be duplicated in 1:1 quality so there is no difference from the original to the bazillionth copy. There is only one original painting. A photograph is taken in (typically) a fraction of a second with the obvious long exposure still within in seconds of time. A painting obviously takes much longer. I say all of this as one that has made a living with various modes of image capture with a camera.

Vvector 3y ago

Marketing The sentimental value of a diamond is its rarity. And natural diamonds with few imperfections are rare. And a big diamond, useless for anything else, is the only way to show how much the marriage is worth. This is what is being sold to us. Synthetic diamonds are destroying 50 years of marketing.

benterix 3y ago
> And a big diamond, useless for anything else, is the only way to show how much the marriage is worth. This is what is being sold to us. And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this. Literally any use of this money could have been better.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  > And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this* *In the USA.
- anthony_d 3y ago
  > And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this. Literally any use of this money could have been better. Seems pretty narrow minded. Of course engagements rings are symbolic. The best symbols are deeply rooted in cultural context anyway. If diamonds aren’t the best symbol for you that’s fine, but try not to fool yourself into thinking you’re being more rational. You might have different priorities or values. You might also just be a 2 dimensional NPC with nothing to share and therefore no need for symbolism. /jk
  - benterix 3y ago
    > The best symbols are deeply rooted in cultural context anyway. The irony here is that diamonds as engagement gifts given by males to females (why not the other way round btw?) have very shallow and well-documented roots. Moreover, given the exploitation around it, it's really bad to found your marriage on if you really think about it.
- 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago

Is there evidence that jewelry was a good store of value in previous generations though? We hear about families selling their jewelry to escape the country or when they're short on funds, but did they actually get a good price for it?

bloggie 3y ago
I suppose losing half your money in jewelry devaluation is better than losing all your money in currency devaluation or asset seizure?
- refurb 3y ago
  It’s like real estate in China and other less developed countries. It’s used as a store of wealth that is likely to appreciate. Doesn’t matter if the currency goes bust, ownership is recognized by the government in all but the most extreme examples. We’re spoiled in the developed countries where you have thing like government bonds and equities (where public companies are vetted to some standard) and courts that can reliably protect ownership of an otherwise intangible asset.
ISL 3y ago
They got liquidity. Sometimes that has a lot of value.
zvolsky 3y ago
One of my relatives, uncle George, was fired ~30 years ago. His most valuable possession was a gold watch that baroness Coudenhove gave to a her maid 2-3 generations earlier. I don't remember who exactly the maid was, but she was somehow related to the family. In order to raise funds to buy his own tipper truck, George went to the Charles Bridge in Prague and found a buyer for the watch, a German tourist. The money was at least 50% of the price of the truck. These were the first steps on a long journey leading to a successful business. This was in a country with high inflation that's just gone through a regime change. Did he get a good price for the watch? Yes, at that moment, the truck was more valuable than the watch.

colechristensen 3y ago

Now I'm wondering what the markup is on a plain gold band compared to the spot price of gold. There's a business idea, figure out how to sell jewelry at a markup low enough that it makes sense as a store of value and then actually participate in both buying and selling.

dylan604 3y ago
jewelry is rarely pure gold. so you'd have to take that into consideration of your spot price. the person you sell that jewelry to later will also incur an expense at melting and separating the gold of the lesser metals. so not really sure how jewelry is a good way to store gold value
jerf 3y ago
If you just stroll into a standard jewelry store looking for gold, markup over spot is disastrous. I've heard of people making that sort of thing on a limited basis, but the market isn't there. There aren't enough people aware enough of the issue, and the temptation to just go ahead and charge the jewelry premium as a result is pretty overwhelming.

ethbr1 3y ago

> The modern jewelry market is also substantially different than what past generations taught me jewelry was. To them, jewelry was meant to be a value store. You purchase a valuable ring, the stone and metal held their value and you or your heirs could sell it later if times were tough. Jewelry sellers pretend their product is like precious metals: a store of value. In fact, it's more like collectable trading cards: popularity contributes more value than component materials. I.e. why heritage Tiffany or Rolex pieces still have substantial value

eestrada 3y ago
A while ago I checked to see how much gold actually exists in circulation. It is less than 22 meters cubed. That's it. Diamond mines regularly dump more than that in the ocean to create artificial scarcity. And at the end of the day, it is just carbon, one of the most abundant elements on the planet. Diamonds can just be produced in a lab with raw carbon, heat, and pressure. Companies even exist to make a diamond from a deceased person's ashes. Diamond value is amazingly artificial. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-in-the-world/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-i... https://lifegem.com/ https://lifegem.com/
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Hunh, the gold mining output vs underground reserves is fascinating. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_pr... At current rate, China will have mined all its reserves in under 6 years.

solardev 3y ago

Diamonds are basically the AI of burnt carbon

chaostheory 3y ago

It’s also hard to discern purity with the naked eye unless you’re trained, and it’s anything but a scarce resource

habitue 3y ago

Diamonds are a lot like luxury clothing lines. What makes a Louis Vuitton bag genuine? It's all a mental category, there's no physical property test that can classify Louis Vuitton atoms from counterfeit atoms. Diamonds have the unfortunate (for diamond sellers) property that they have a very simple chemical structure. So what DeBeers is trying to do is create a mental category for "natural diamonds" vs. "lab grown diamonds". The last thing they want is for diamonds (the investment / luxury good) to be defined by the diamond crystal structure. Consumers are very happy to pay extra for these mental categories when they know the belief in the category is widespread. Let's say you know your significant other will be disappointed if you buy her a lab grown diamond. Well, you have no choice but to buy a natural diamond I guess. A social fiction like this is self reinforcing once it reaches a critical mass. That's what they're driving for

spacebanana7 3y ago
Watches are moving in a similar direction. Time telling moved from a mechanical masterpiece to a digital commodity and watchmakers have become luxury brands. > Diamonds have the unfortunate (for diamond sellers) property that they have a very simple chemical structure. On the bright side (for diamond sellers) they're known to originate from a certain location. So they could in theory be protected by Champagne style trademarks and extract higher pricing that way.

tomatotomato37 3y ago

It's funny because most diamonds actually manufactured are impure too due to generic engineering reasons

david38 3y ago

Not weird. Literally how beauty is measured. Symmetry and skin smoothness are markers of beauty. Too much and a girl looks like she’s had too much work done, or the photo is shopped.

hydrok9 3y ago

Purest*