So.. tell me about man-made/lab grown/synthetic diamonds.

[Juddog]

1. Yes they are real diamonds.
2. Yes the higher quality ones need expensive equipment to tell the difference.
3. Plenty of answers above
4. Aside from brain washing? There is no reason. DeBeers has been hoarding extra diamonds for decades to keep them out of the market and to artificially keep the price inflated. Chemically speaking it's the exact same thing, and you even get to pick the color and type you want. Diamonds have always been an artificially inflated item, all that artificially created diamonds have done is bring the market to where it should have been.

For example I bought my wife a man-made ruby necklace. Huge ruby for the price and it is flawless. She loves it.

 

[soulcougher73]

Tell her you are getting a man-made diamond. If she objects dump her for being too materialistic.

But first knock her up so she can be a single mother right?

 

[bfdd]

Diamonds are next to worthless, if you pay a lot of money you're a tool.

 

[drebo]

err, the sparkle is cut related.

Partially, yes.

But if you take an SI1 diamond and look at it with the naked eye against a VVS1 of the same cut, the SI1 diamond will "shine" more. That's because there's other stuff in the diamond (minerals, etc) that increase reflectivity.

I went through this when I bought my wife's engagement ring. I looked at 50+ diamonds of varying ratings and cuts. If you're obsessed with having the highest quality, then that's you. My wife prefers things that shine, so for me a VS-quality diamond was the best bet. It was the shiniest diamond I could find.

Yes, cut helps, but it's not the only thing that contributes to the overall macro look of the diamond.

 

[ichy]

4. If 1 & 2 all check out, why would anyone spend a fortune and buy the mined diamonds aside from industry brain washing? (I actually feel 'fake' myself considering them.)

DeBeers marketing is the only reason there's a market for "real" diamonds.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Gave my wife a man made diamond for her engagement ring. Can't remember who I went with.
She is aware that it is man made. I explained my logic in doing so and she had no issues with it. One of the upsides is that she isn't paranoid about losing it. To the casual eye, you can't tell the difference. Over the years she has received a lot of compliments on how nice her ring is.

Really not sure why anyone would get a mined diamond at the inflated prices. $3K+ for a ring is crazy.

 

[seepy83]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I was in the market for a diamond/engagement ring about 18 months ago. At first, I thought that a lot of money could be saved by getting a lab-created diamond. But, the more I looked into it, what I found out was (and this is all from memory:
1 - The "real" lab-created diamonds are not less expensive than a natural diamond
2 - They are all relatively small (I think the largest I found was .75 carats)
3 - I honestly couldn't find anywhere that the "real" lab-created diamonds could be purchased.

Do your own research...maybe what I found isn't factual. But don't be fooled by a website that's actually selling you a CZ or some other non-diamond substitute.

 

[rudder]

Cubic Zirconia for the win. Just make sure you are the one to take it to the jewelers for cleaning. She will never know.

 

[Juddog]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I was in the market for a diamond/engagement ring about 18 months ago. At first, I thought that a lot of money could be saved by getting a lab-created diamond. But, the more I looked into it, what I found out was (and this is all from memory:
1 - The "real" lab-created diamonds are not less expensive than a natural diamond
2 - They are all relatively small (I think the largest I found was .75 carats)
3 - I honestly couldn't find anywhere that the "real" lab-created diamonds could be purchased.

Do your own research...maybe what I found isn't factual. But don't be fooled by a website that's actually selling you a CZ or some other non-diamond substitute.

1 - false
2 - false
3 - really? It took me literally 2 minutes of searching to find a store nearby that was a reseller of chatham lab grown diamonds.

 

[xochi]

Here is another website that sells manmade dimanonds, look at the simulants diamonds.

They offer pure carbon diamonds, but in yellow only.

http://www.diamondnexus.com

 

[AnitaPeterson]

The marketing is strong in this thread.

DeBeers must be rubbing their hands with glee, seeing how successful their brainwashing campaign was.

I'm glad this whole "you must give a diamond that's the equivalent of X months of your salary" craze doesn't affect the rest of the world.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Someone mentioned Moissanite on here -

They too are lab created, and all natural stones are tiny in size and not suitable for jewlery.

They sell Moisannite and Diamond stimulants.


http://betterthandiamond.com/

 

[Insomniator]

Buying a man made diamond completely misses the point.

Just get something else if you cant get a real one.

 

[IronWing]

Buying a man made diamond completely misses the point.

Just get something else if you cant get a real one.

The point being?

 

[surfsatwerk]

Tagged for later.

 

[crownjules]

It's not love if you don't spend thousands on a rock that is mined by slave labor and was sold to finance violence.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

lol. You guys wives are so lucky to have not gotten with a fool... Tell her that with the money you saved you bought some wheels for the car. While you're at it buy a silver ring instead of gold and tell her it's white gold.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

The point being?

Here honey here's some bling. Enjoy... Not really that hard to understand is it?

Btw it's worth a pretty penny so if you're ever in a bind and im dead sell the thing.

 

[bignateyk]

Both are real diamonds. Here's how it works (thanks to the diamond cartels)

The better quality the diamond, the more expensive it is. Better clarity, less imperfections, etc..., will drive the price of a diamond up drastically.

Up until it is absolutely perfect. Then it's worthless because it's man made.

So ultimately what makes a diamond a diamond is how many starving kids in africa died obtaining it.

 

[IronWing]

Here honey here's some bling. Enjoy... Not really that hard to understand is it?

Btw it's worth a pretty penny so if you're ever in a bind and im dead sell the thing.

That can't be the point though. Synthetic diamonds, cubic zirconia, and rrhinestones have bling and diamond resale values suck.

 

[Fausto]

Buying a man made diamond completely misses the point.

Just get something else if you cant get a real one.

The point being that you don't love her unless you're willing to shell out a comparatively vast amount of cash for something with an artificially inflated value that may or may not have been hauled out of the ground by child slave laborers?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Man im such a fool.. They've taken something such as a rare mineral and assigned a value to them. Next thing you know there gonna make rare metals worth something then that'll really be off the wall..

 

[poopaskoopa]

I'll answer #4 and this was pretty much the only reason I went and bought one from a jeweler like everyone else, and this was in 2009.

No selection and long lead time.

I thought an engagement ring was something I could get in a matter of days, Amazon Prime style or like every other online transaction. No. No such luck, and this is a problem if you still haven't bought a ring before Thanksgiving with the plan to pop the question on Christmas. First, the selection was much, much smaller. The size, the cut, you name it. There just weren't that many. I called up all the shops that I thought were pretty popular in the industry, and I really had a problem getting my hands on anything bigger than .25 carat within 4 weeks. I didn't want a round cut, too. That may have contributed to my problem. I think I was looking for a princess cut. Or whatever the square cut is called. I haven't looked at them since, but clear diamonds were harder to come by back then.

Anyway, if I had 6 months to look I would start with artificial diamonds first. But, really, my now-wife was obviously happy when I proposed, regardless of the origin of the diamond, and we're not so crunchy that we deeply delve into how this stuff get to us. I suppose that's nothing to brag about, but I still manage to sleep. All we remember about the ring now is how happy we both were when we got engaged. Or how nervous I was, if you ask my wife. My mouth did get really dry seconds before the proposal due to being ultra-nervous.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

That can't be the point though. Synthetic diamonds, cubic zirconia, and rrhinestones have bling and diamond resale values suck.

So why buy a Rolex? Just get a Rolex knockoff. Only the hardcore would notice. In fact why even buy anything beyond a Casio.

And how are the resale values on synthetic diamonds? My guess is terrible if you could even resale it.

 

[Printer Bandit]

russia sitting on trillions of carats

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...90837a4-019c-11e2-9367-4e1bafb958db_blog.html