8 ms·

Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion in cheap lab diamond and moissanite producers in China and India. 10 years ago, it was hard to find quality

Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion in cheap lab diamond and moissanite producers in China and India. 10 years ago, it was hard to find quality lab diamonds at a reasonable price, and moissanite was still reasonably expensive at $400-600/ct. Today, given cutthroat competition and "race to the bottom" pricing strategies, lab diamonds are ubiquitous, extremely high quality, and cheap. Less than $200/ct and sometimes much less: https://detail.1688.com/offer/751071300271.html https://detail.1688.com/offer/751071300271.html Moissanites are now less than $5/carat at retail: https://detail.1688.com/offer/586468555080.html https://detail.1688.com/offer/586468555080.html These are legit. I've bought some. Within 10 years of today, I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Moissanites have already become as near-worthless as synthetic rubies. This is going to open up new industrial uses for those gemstones.

jajko 2y ago
They never had any value, apart from specialized ie glass cutting tool. Only when DeBeers realized they could push some fictious heavy marketing 'to prove your worth to woman you are asking to marry' for those shiny stones nobody wanted to buy, people who didn't know better got manipulated into buying them. They are supposedly very common in universe, and probably in deeper Earth too. Correction is healthy and benefits mankind long term, there was nothing good coming from ie impact on Africa. Nobody cared about that, so things are fixed from another direction.
- RandomLensman 2y ago
  Diamonds where valued before DeBeers even existed, but diamonds in engagement rings (especially in the US) are (at least partially) from a heavy marketing push by them in the 20th century. Previously engagement rings tended to be colored gemstones.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    Yes, I've read that in the early 20th century, other precious gemstones (like rubies & emeralds) had more than a third of the market for engagement rings.
- tonetegeatinst 2y ago
  I think diamonds are used in some lathes as cutting tools. So suprising thats not more common. I though diamonds strength and iirc its heat tolerance would be attractive to the folks who cut stuff.
  - folmar 2y ago
    The hardness is attractive but the poor heat resistance is a major problem for many uses. For a normal angle grinder you can use normal abrasive disc without paying much attention, but with a diamond-grit one you can easily burn the diamonds.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Diamonds are excellent for cutting some materials, e.g. ceramics or some non-ferrous alloys, but they are bad for cutting metals that are good at dissolving carbon, e.g. iron, cobalt and nickel alloys. So for the iron alloys, which are the material most frequently processed by machining, diamond is not suitable. Other hard crystals, like alumina a.k.a. corundum, are much better for this purpose, even if they are less hard than diamond.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      For those metals, cubic boron nitride works and has about half the Knoop hardness of diamond (and more than twice the hardness of aluminum oxide.) c-BN is isoelectronic with diamond; h-BN is isoelectronic with graphite (but is an insulator).
  - avhon1 2y ago
    Diamond turning is used to produce optical surfaces with lathes. Here's a recent example on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTFFPLOzCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTFFPLOzCw
  - grues-dinner 2y ago
    They're not that heat tolerant. They're fantastic heat conductors, but they'll burn away into carbon dioxide (via carbon monoxide). The temperatures needed to do that are high, around 900C, but that's not that high. Angle grinder sparks can be hotter than 1000C, as can the edges of carbide tools.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  There's no market for e.g. diamond lenses? Sure it's going to be on the expensive end of the market but the same forces are pushing those prices down.
- thehappypm 2y ago
  Diamonds certainly have value as a material for jewelry -- essentially unscratchable jewelry is pretty awesome. They also don't get cloudy over time or anything. That's the cool part.
  - cma 2y ago
    They can be burned up in a house fire though.
    - modderation 2y ago
      Who needs a house fire? A bit of quartz glass, a blow torch, and an oxygen supply, and you can convert your unused diamonds into carbon dioxide without losing the house* Nile Red uses this approach to make Diamond Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wvDwSnzcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wvDwSnzcw * You might still lose the house if you opt for the bigger diamonds.
- ipsento606 2y ago
  > Who does not love diamonds? Where is there a mind in > which the bare mention of them does not excite a > pleasant emotion? Is there any one of rank too exalted > to care for such baubles? The highest potentates of the > earth esteem them as their choicest treasures, and > kingdoms have been at war for their possession From "Diamonds" by William Pole, published in 1861 [1] (27 years before the formation of the De Beers company) [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diamonds/ENwOAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=diamonds&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diamonds/ENwOAAAAYAAJ?h...
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    The Europeans have encountered for the first time what are now called diamonds during the expedition of Alexander the Great in India, where they had been appreciated for jewelry for a long time. This is why the Romans, e.g. Pliny the Elder, used for diamonds the name "Indian adamant". The name "adamant" without the "Indian" specifier had already been used for many hundreds of years (the oldest attestation is in Hesiod), but it had not been applied to a gem, but to nuggets of native osmium-iridium alloy, which can be found mixed with the nuggets of native gold in the alluvial deposits of gold (and which, unlike the gold with which they were mixed, could be neither melted nor forged, hence their name, "untameable"; "unconquerable", which is used in the article is a bad translation for "adamant"). Pliny the Elder described the "Indian adamant" as consisting of octahedral crystals, which is the most frequent form of the natural diamonds. It appears that at that time it was impossible to cut the diamonds, at most they might have been polished a little, so the crystals used in jewelry retained their native shape. By the time of Pliny the Elder, the "Indian adamant" was the most expensive gem, surpassing even the noble opals, the pearls, the emeralds and the beryls, which were the next most expensive gems at that time. The Romans did not care much for transparent crystals, they appreciated much more the higher quality exemplars of noble opals or pearls, if those exhibited a nice play of colors.
- khazhoux 2y ago
  > They never had any value The Crown Jewels disagree with you https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/#gs.evxbai https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/t...
- murukesh_s 2y ago
  >They never had any value They had immense value in ancient world. They were valued much more than gold - due to their rarity. Southern India was the only known source for mining diamonds in ancient world [1]. They were used as currency and was valued higher than gold. In fact there were wars fought for diamonds. There is a saying about Koh-i-Noor, one of the most famous Diamond - "If a strong man were to throw four stones – one north, one south, one east, one west, and a fifth stone up into the air – and if the space between them were to be filled with gold, all would not equal the value of the Koh-i-Noor" [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_diamonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_diamonds [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-noor-diamond-britain-illegally-india-pakistan-afghanistan-history-tower https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    Good quality sapphires, rubies and emeralds are rarer and in some parts of history were considered more valuable. They’re not hyped to the extent that diamonds have been in the last 100 years.
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    The 5 stone gold comparison is utter BS (unless those 5 stones are like 5 stones heavy :P). All the gold available to humans on earth right now fits into a ~20m cube, and that is most certainly worth orders of magnitude more than a single diamond in a historical artifact.
    - murukesh_s 2y ago
      Not at that time when the diamonds were mined only from one mine in the entire world for several hundreds of thousands of years.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Anything rare does have value. So why not big enough diamonds. With big being critical part. The tiny stuff really is very stuff. The big is rare and thus rarity along reasonably brings some value.
- Vox_Leone 2y ago
  >>They never had any value As they say, "If you want to know a diamond's worth, try selling one"
fortran77 2y ago
I need diamonds to play my records! What do you think a record stylus ("needle") is made from?
- jalk 2y ago
  Worthless (as in low monetary value) doesn't mean useless.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    Funnily enough this concept is literally called the "diamond-water paradox".
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  Sure, but those aren't gem-grade. They're usually black and opaque (polycrystalline) or yellow. And in any case they're very small. When I say new industrial uses, I'm thinking of things that haven't been done before and hinge on large bulk volumes of material: Windows, very large diamond anvil cells, high-performance heatsinks, and stuff like that. Lots of cool things are going to be developed.
- euroderf 2y ago
  Shibata needles always commanded a premium. Can they now be manufactured in that shape ? Can all vinyl lovers now get Shibata needles ? The great thing about them is that they go deeper in the record grooves, so even if your record has been played a lot using cheaper needles, a Shibata might find virgin vinyl. Which also means that on the first play with the Shibata, it will excavate a lot of gunk.
- anjel 2y ago
  The moon-rock tipped styluses are vastly superior. /Zappa
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Moissanites have already become as near-worthless as synthetic rubies. I've noticed that synthetic sapphires are (or were?) much more expensive than synthetic rubies. Do you know why?
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  I'm also curious about this. Especially since natural rubies and natural sapphires are the same type of gemstone, just in different colors. It sounds like the synthetic equivalents might not be similar at all!
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    The synthetic equivalents have to be similar, because they're the same thing as the natural stones, and the natural stones are similar. A ruby is corundum with chromium coloring it; a sapphire is corundum with (most typically) iron coloring it. Iron isn't rare, so either it affects the process used to make rubies, or there's no real reason for the price gap.
    - spondylosaurus 2y ago
      "No real" reason wouldn't shock me. Not a gemstone expert so I can't say, but if natural sapphires are more expensive/in higher demand than natural rubies (despite both being corundum) then it makes sense for that demand to map onto their synthetic counterparts. But with the synthetic stones, it's more obvious how arbitrary that demand/price difference is.
      - thaumasiotes 2y ago
        My impression was that natural rubies are generally more expensive than natural sapphires.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      Iron is not enough for sapphires, it must be combined with titanium. I do not know how this is done, but while the doping with chromium for rubies is simple, chromium will just substitute aluminum in the crystal lattice and it will provide a color determined by its concentration, for sapphires there may be necessary a more complex thermal treatment, so that the iron and titanium will form the right type of coupled defects in the crystal, in order to have the desired color.
Joker_vD 2y ago
> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.
- striking 2y ago
  I'd expect this to be true if you could tell at a glance. But the new stuff looks like the old stuff, but bigger and better.
- batch12 2y ago
  Now we just need artificial diamonds that are flawed enough to be indistinguishable from real diamonds.
  - Joker_vD 2y ago
    There is a whole sub-industry of putting fake mosquitoes into fake amber.
    - sdenton4 2y ago
      As long as the mosquitos contain real dinosaur blood, it's all good.
      - schmidtleonard 2y ago
        "We spared no expense!"
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        From chickens, right?
        red1reaper 2y ago
        Chickens are indeed dinosaurs by all means, so sure, from chickens.
gwbas1c 2y ago
> Within 10 years of today, I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Moissanites have already become as near-worthless as synthetic rubies. This is going to open up new industrial uses for those gemstones. And for jewelry too. I bought my wife a 2ct moissanite in 2012. There was no way we could have done that ring with a real diamond back then. When I was shopping, I happened to see a girl at a conference who had many large moissanites on her ring. It was gorgeous, and well within the price range of upper-middle-class.
hintymad 2y ago
And I'd be very happy to see the demise of De Beers. It's amazing that De Beers can thrive for more than 100 years, but still, using clever marketing and tight control of supply to artificially jack up the price of diamond is counter-productive.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  I have heard that they are the ones that made diamonds the engagement stone, and that was relatively recently. My mother and grandmother had sapphire engagement rings.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    So did Princess Diana. Some of this is regional -- the US is the epicenter of marketing diamonds while other places don't value them so much.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      Both me mum and grandmum were British.
      - jamiek88 2y ago
        We don’t say grandmum btw! But then you don’t say grandmom either and it’s just occurred to me that you were probably joking. Sigh.
        ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
        It was a joke. Here’s me mum: https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm
        jamiek88 2y ago
        Where was she from?
godelski 2y ago
Diamonds have lots of uses beyond being pretty. I have to bring this up because a lot of people are talking as if this is the entirety of the reason for their decrease. But there's diamond files, diamond cutting blades/wheels/drills, you can make glass from it (really only used in labs that absolutely need them because the price), and many more uses. Many of these don't care about size, quality, or clarity. So instead of pulling from scrap material from jewelry making or rejected diamonds you could just make your own and ensure your own supply. One of the things I've loved about synthetic diamond prices coming down is just how cheap and available diamond cutting wheels and filing tools have become. You can now get a set of diamond files on Amazon for under $10. That's crazy
- notfed 2y ago
  > diamond files on Amazon for under $10 Link? I'm skeptical. It seems more likely someone is abusing the term "diamond", no?
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    Not the same thing, but you can get diamond tipped 3d printer nozzles for ~$100: https://www.amazon.com/Diamondback-Nozzles-Compatible-Polycrystalline-Efficiency/dp/B09LLWY2YK https://www.amazon.com/Diamondback-Nozzles-Compatible-Polycr... Considering that these are a niche product requiring a precisely shaped diamond insert made by a relatively small operation in the US, I think it's believable that a Chinese company could produce diamond files for ~$10, considering that it only needs diamond powder and has more space for mass production.
  - avhon1 2y ago
    Sets like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092D4CV56 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092D4CV56 are also sold in U.S. hardware stores https://www.harborfreight.com/needle-file-set-10-piece-69876.html https://www.harborfreight.com/needle-file-set-10-piece-69876... https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/files/tool-shop-reg-diamond-file-set-5-piece/ts-dg-5fs/p-1642874299975480-c-1550852385008.htm https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/files/tool-sho... They are very cheaply made, but as far as I can tell are actually diamond. They're good for shaping glass and ceramics. For metal, you're better off using hardened steel files, but these ones will work, just slowly and with less precision.
Glyptodon 2y ago
I think large natural diamonds will exist as a market. Just expect large real gems to become much less common for the non-wealthy. And large gemstone jewelry to become more ubiquitous with the increasing spread of lab gems. Definitely a trend towards seeing more such gems paired with silver as the prices have gone down.
- neallindsay 2y ago
  Sorry for the pedantry, but “real” isn't a synonym for “natural”. My phone is real and is as artificial an object as I can imagine.
dist-epoch 2y ago
How big can you get? Do they make olive sized ones (1-2 cm diameter)? How much would such one cost?
- namibj 2y ago
  They make 150mm wafers in quantity, up to a couple mm thick, but I don't see why they shouldn't be about to go olive thick. Other than the slow growth, that is; I think it might take a couple months to grow optical grade that thick.
Modified3019 2y ago
Yeah, these days when it comes to gems like diamond or moissanite meant for high quality beauty, the actual cost is in the time and skill it takes to properly cut one for optimal optical properties. Mind you most people won’t be able to tell a difference unless you put the $5 cut next to a $500 cut.
iamgopal 2y ago
200 USD is retail price, bulk purchase is even less than 100 USD
sinuhe69 2y ago
You said they are legit, does that mean you have them tested by an independent lab? I know that almost all shops in China (and India) show nice certificates for such purchases. But I also know from experience that many of these certificates are worthless as rubber stamps. Maybe you live in China and know more about such things? I'm thinking about buying and would like to know more from your perspective. Thanks!
wonderwonder 2y ago
Radio waves around me are just constant drumbeat from large jewelry stores about why its such a bad idea to buy a synthetic diamond as it wont hold its value. They already know what is coming.
IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
For those that bought into natural stuff at exhorbitant prices, what would you suggest the appropriate move is?
- garbageman 2y ago
  Keep it if you have sentimental feelings towards it. Sell it if the primary value is the price of the materials.
- rhplus 2y ago
  Cut your loses and chalk it up as a learning opportunity.
silexia 2y ago
Awesome! This is how the free market works without government regulations.

jajko 2y ago

They never had any value, apart from specialized ie glass cutting tool. Only when DeBeers realized they could push some fictious heavy marketing 'to prove your worth to woman you are asking to marry' for those shiny stones nobody wanted to buy, people who didn't know better got manipulated into buying them. They are supposedly very common in universe, and probably in deeper Earth too. Correction is healthy and benefits mankind long term, there was nothing good coming from ie impact on Africa. Nobody cared about that, so things are fixed from another direction.

RandomLensman 2y ago
Diamonds where valued before DeBeers even existed, but diamonds in engagement rings (especially in the US) are (at least partially) from a heavy marketing push by them in the 20th century. Previously engagement rings tended to be colored gemstones.
- euroderf 2y ago
  Yes, I've read that in the early 20th century, other precious gemstones (like rubies & emeralds) had more than a third of the market for engagement rings.
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
I think diamonds are used in some lathes as cutting tools. So suprising thats not more common. I though diamonds strength and iirc its heat tolerance would be attractive to the folks who cut stuff.
- folmar 2y ago
  The hardness is attractive but the poor heat resistance is a major problem for many uses. For a normal angle grinder you can use normal abrasive disc without paying much attention, but with a diamond-grit one you can easily burn the diamonds.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Diamonds are excellent for cutting some materials, e.g. ceramics or some non-ferrous alloys, but they are bad for cutting metals that are good at dissolving carbon, e.g. iron, cobalt and nickel alloys. So for the iron alloys, which are the material most frequently processed by machining, diamond is not suitable. Other hard crystals, like alumina a.k.a. corundum, are much better for this purpose, even if they are less hard than diamond.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    For those metals, cubic boron nitride works and has about half the Knoop hardness of diamond (and more than twice the hardness of aluminum oxide.) c-BN is isoelectronic with diamond; h-BN is isoelectronic with graphite (but is an insulator).
- avhon1 2y ago
  Diamond turning is used to produce optical surfaces with lathes. Here's a recent example on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTFFPLOzCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTFFPLOzCw
- grues-dinner 2y ago
  They're not that heat tolerant. They're fantastic heat conductors, but they'll burn away into carbon dioxide (via carbon monoxide). The temperatures needed to do that are high, around 900C, but that's not that high. Angle grinder sparks can be hotter than 1000C, as can the edges of carbide tools.
darby_nine 2y ago
There's no market for e.g. diamond lenses? Sure it's going to be on the expensive end of the market but the same forces are pushing those prices down.
thehappypm 2y ago
Diamonds certainly have value as a material for jewelry -- essentially unscratchable jewelry is pretty awesome. They also don't get cloudy over time or anything. That's the cool part.
- cma 2y ago
  They can be burned up in a house fire though.
  - modderation 2y ago
    Who needs a house fire? A bit of quartz glass, a blow torch, and an oxygen supply, and you can convert your unused diamonds into carbon dioxide without losing the house* Nile Red uses this approach to make Diamond Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wvDwSnzcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wvDwSnzcw * You might still lose the house if you opt for the bigger diamonds.
ipsento606 2y ago
> Who does not love diamonds? Where is there a mind in > which the bare mention of them does not excite a > pleasant emotion? Is there any one of rank too exalted > to care for such baubles? The highest potentates of the > earth esteem them as their choicest treasures, and > kingdoms have been at war for their possession From "Diamonds" by William Pole, published in 1861 [1] (27 years before the formation of the De Beers company) [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diamonds/ENwOAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=diamonds&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diamonds/ENwOAAAAYAAJ?h...
- adrian_b 2y ago
  The Europeans have encountered for the first time what are now called diamonds during the expedition of Alexander the Great in India, where they had been appreciated for jewelry for a long time. This is why the Romans, e.g. Pliny the Elder, used for diamonds the name "Indian adamant". The name "adamant" without the "Indian" specifier had already been used for many hundreds of years (the oldest attestation is in Hesiod), but it had not been applied to a gem, but to nuggets of native osmium-iridium alloy, which can be found mixed with the nuggets of native gold in the alluvial deposits of gold (and which, unlike the gold with which they were mixed, could be neither melted nor forged, hence their name, "untameable"; "unconquerable", which is used in the article is a bad translation for "adamant"). Pliny the Elder described the "Indian adamant" as consisting of octahedral crystals, which is the most frequent form of the natural diamonds. It appears that at that time it was impossible to cut the diamonds, at most they might have been polished a little, so the crystals used in jewelry retained their native shape. By the time of Pliny the Elder, the "Indian adamant" was the most expensive gem, surpassing even the noble opals, the pearls, the emeralds and the beryls, which were the next most expensive gems at that time. The Romans did not care much for transparent crystals, they appreciated much more the higher quality exemplars of noble opals or pearls, if those exhibited a nice play of colors.
khazhoux 2y ago
> They never had any value The Crown Jewels disagree with you https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/#gs.evxbai https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/t...
murukesh_s 2y ago
>They never had any value They had immense value in ancient world. They were valued much more than gold - due to their rarity. Southern India was the only known source for mining diamonds in ancient world [1]. They were used as currency and was valued higher than gold. In fact there were wars fought for diamonds. There is a saying about Koh-i-Noor, one of the most famous Diamond - "If a strong man were to throw four stones – one north, one south, one east, one west, and a fifth stone up into the air – and if the space between them were to be filled with gold, all would not equal the value of the Koh-i-Noor" [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_diamonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_diamonds [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-noor-diamond-britain-illegally-india-pakistan-afghanistan-history-tower https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- mr_toad 2y ago
  Good quality sapphires, rubies and emeralds are rarer and in some parts of history were considered more valuable. They’re not hyped to the extent that diamonds have been in the last 100 years.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  The 5 stone gold comparison is utter BS (unless those 5 stones are like 5 stones heavy :P). All the gold available to humans on earth right now fits into a ~20m cube, and that is most certainly worth orders of magnitude more than a single diamond in a historical artifact.
  - murukesh_s 2y ago
    Not at that time when the diamonds were mined only from one mine in the entire world for several hundreds of thousands of years.
Ekaros 2y ago
Anything rare does have value. So why not big enough diamonds. With big being critical part. The tiny stuff really is very stuff. The big is rare and thus rarity along reasonably brings some value.
Vox_Leone 2y ago
>>They never had any value As they say, "If you want to know a diamond's worth, try selling one"

fortran77 2y ago

I need diamonds to play my records! What do you think a record stylus ("needle") is made from?

jalk 2y ago
Worthless (as in low monetary value) doesn't mean useless.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Funnily enough this concept is literally called the "diamond-water paradox".
A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
Sure, but those aren't gem-grade. They're usually black and opaque (polycrystalline) or yellow. And in any case they're very small. When I say new industrial uses, I'm thinking of things that haven't been done before and hinge on large bulk volumes of material: Windows, very large diamond anvil cells, high-performance heatsinks, and stuff like that. Lots of cool things are going to be developed.
euroderf 2y ago
Shibata needles always commanded a premium. Can they now be manufactured in that shape ? Can all vinyl lovers now get Shibata needles ? The great thing about them is that they go deeper in the record grooves, so even if your record has been played a lot using cheaper needles, a Shibata might find virgin vinyl. Which also means that on the first play with the Shibata, it will excavate a lot of gunk.
anjel 2y ago
The moon-rock tipped styluses are vastly superior. /Zappa

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> Moissanites have already become as near-worthless as synthetic rubies. I've noticed that synthetic sapphires are (or were?) much more expensive than synthetic rubies. Do you know why?

spondylosaurus 2y ago
I'm also curious about this. Especially since natural rubies and natural sapphires are the same type of gemstone, just in different colors. It sounds like the synthetic equivalents might not be similar at all!
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  The synthetic equivalents have to be similar, because they're the same thing as the natural stones, and the natural stones are similar. A ruby is corundum with chromium coloring it; a sapphire is corundum with (most typically) iron coloring it. Iron isn't rare, so either it affects the process used to make rubies, or there's no real reason for the price gap.
  - spondylosaurus 2y ago
    "No real" reason wouldn't shock me. Not a gemstone expert so I can't say, but if natural sapphires are more expensive/in higher demand than natural rubies (despite both being corundum) then it makes sense for that demand to map onto their synthetic counterparts. But with the synthetic stones, it's more obvious how arbitrary that demand/price difference is.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      My impression was that natural rubies are generally more expensive than natural sapphires.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Iron is not enough for sapphires, it must be combined with titanium. I do not know how this is done, but while the doping with chromium for rubies is simple, chromium will just substitute aluminum in the crystal lattice and it will provide a color determined by its concentration, for sapphires there may be necessary a more complex thermal treatment, so that the iron and titanium will form the right type of coupled defects in the crystal, in order to have the desired color.

Joker_vD 2y ago

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.

striking 2y ago
I'd expect this to be true if you could tell at a glance. But the new stuff looks like the old stuff, but bigger and better.
batch12 2y ago
Now we just need artificial diamonds that are flawed enough to be indistinguishable from real diamonds.
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  There is a whole sub-industry of putting fake mosquitoes into fake amber.
  - sdenton4 2y ago
    As long as the mosquitos contain real dinosaur blood, it's all good.
    - schmidtleonard 2y ago
      "We spared no expense!"
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      From chickens, right?
      - red1reaper 2y ago
        Chickens are indeed dinosaurs by all means, so sure, from chickens.

gwbas1c 2y ago

> Within 10 years of today, I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Moissanites have already become as near-worthless as synthetic rubies. This is going to open up new industrial uses for those gemstones. And for jewelry too. I bought my wife a 2ct moissanite in 2012. There was no way we could have done that ring with a real diamond back then. When I was shopping, I happened to see a girl at a conference who had many large moissanites on her ring. It was gorgeous, and well within the price range of upper-middle-class.

hintymad 2y ago

And I'd be very happy to see the demise of De Beers. It's amazing that De Beers can thrive for more than 100 years, but still, using clever marketing and tight control of supply to artificially jack up the price of diamond is counter-productive.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
I have heard that they are the ones that made diamonds the engagement stone, and that was relatively recently. My mother and grandmother had sapphire engagement rings.
- dboreham 2y ago
  So did Princess Diana. Some of this is regional -- the US is the epicenter of marketing diamonds while other places don't value them so much.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    Both me mum and grandmum were British.
    - jamiek88 2y ago
      We don’t say grandmum btw! But then you don’t say grandmom either and it’s just occurred to me that you were probably joking. Sigh.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
        It was a joke. Here’s me mum: https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm
        jamiek88 2y ago
        Where was she from?

godelski 2y ago

Diamonds have lots of uses beyond being pretty. I have to bring this up because a lot of people are talking as if this is the entirety of the reason for their decrease. But there's diamond files, diamond cutting blades/wheels/drills, you can make glass from it (really only used in labs that absolutely need them because the price), and many more uses. Many of these don't care about size, quality, or clarity. So instead of pulling from scrap material from jewelry making or rejected diamonds you could just make your own and ensure your own supply. One of the things I've loved about synthetic diamond prices coming down is just how cheap and available diamond cutting wheels and filing tools have become. You can now get a set of diamond files on Amazon for under $10. That's crazy

notfed 2y ago
> diamond files on Amazon for under $10 Link? I'm skeptical. It seems more likely someone is abusing the term "diamond", no?
- dotnet00 2y ago
  Not the same thing, but you can get diamond tipped 3d printer nozzles for ~$100: https://www.amazon.com/Diamondback-Nozzles-Compatible-Polycrystalline-Efficiency/dp/B09LLWY2YK https://www.amazon.com/Diamondback-Nozzles-Compatible-Polycr... Considering that these are a niche product requiring a precisely shaped diamond insert made by a relatively small operation in the US, I think it's believable that a Chinese company could produce diamond files for ~$10, considering that it only needs diamond powder and has more space for mass production.
- avhon1 2y ago
  Sets like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092D4CV56 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092D4CV56 are also sold in U.S. hardware stores https://www.harborfreight.com/needle-file-set-10-piece-69876.html https://www.harborfreight.com/needle-file-set-10-piece-69876... https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/files/tool-shop-reg-diamond-file-set-5-piece/ts-dg-5fs/p-1642874299975480-c-1550852385008.htm https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/files/tool-sho... They are very cheaply made, but as far as I can tell are actually diamond. They're good for shaping glass and ceramics. For metal, you're better off using hardened steel files, but these ones will work, just slowly and with less precision.

Glyptodon 2y ago

I think large natural diamonds will exist as a market. Just expect large real gems to become much less common for the non-wealthy. And large gemstone jewelry to become more ubiquitous with the increasing spread of lab gems. Definitely a trend towards seeing more such gems paired with silver as the prices have gone down.

neallindsay 2y ago
Sorry for the pedantry, but “real” isn't a synonym for “natural”. My phone is real and is as artificial an object as I can imagine.

dist-epoch 2y ago

How big can you get? Do they make olive sized ones (1-2 cm diameter)? How much would such one cost?

namibj 2y ago
They make 150mm wafers in quantity, up to a couple mm thick, but I don't see why they shouldn't be about to go olive thick. Other than the slow growth, that is; I think it might take a couple months to grow optical grade that thick.

Modified3019 2y ago

Yeah, these days when it comes to gems like diamond or moissanite meant for high quality beauty, the actual cost is in the time and skill it takes to properly cut one for optimal optical properties. Mind you most people won’t be able to tell a difference unless you put the $5 cut next to a $500 cut.

iamgopal 2y ago

200 USD is retail price, bulk purchase is even less than 100 USD

sinuhe69 2y ago

You said they are legit, does that mean you have them tested by an independent lab? I know that almost all shops in China (and India) show nice certificates for such purchases. But I also know from experience that many of these certificates are worthless as rubber stamps. Maybe you live in China and know more about such things? I'm thinking about buying and would like to know more from your perspective. Thanks!

wonderwonder 2y ago

Radio waves around me are just constant drumbeat from large jewelry stores about why its such a bad idea to buy a synthetic diamond as it wont hold its value. They already know what is coming.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago

For those that bought into natural stuff at exhorbitant prices, what would you suggest the appropriate move is?

garbageman 2y ago
Keep it if you have sentimental feelings towards it. Sell it if the primary value is the price of the materials.
rhplus 2y ago
Cut your loses and chalk it up as a learning opportunity.

silexia 2y ago

Awesome! This is how the free market works without government regulations.