This is just a reseller. An overpriced one. "If you're only getting [a] 20, 30 percent price difference, just pick the right [mined] diamond." Gemesys (now "Pure Grown Diamonds") is the US's biggest manufacturer. New Diamond Technology is Russia's biggest manufacturer. Industrial diamonds you buy by the kilo on Alibaba.
There are two main processes for making diamonds - High Pressure High Temperature, and Chemical Vapor Deposition. The first was developed at General Electric in 1955. With a big press, carbon can be squeezed down to diamond. Impurities used to color diamonds made this way, but that problem has been solved and now clear diamonds can be made.[1]
CVD is a process borrowed from the semiconductor industry. The product has very regular crystal structure. This bugs the gem industry, which claims that the best diamonds are the ones which are a perfect crystal with "flawless" crystal structure.
Gemesys used to sell their diamonds directly. I've bought from them years ago. (Like many people I couldn't accept spending money on a potential blood diamond or giving it to a company like DeBeers.) However, their name change signaled a change in business strategy. They no longer sell diamonds to consumers. You can only get their diamonds through resellers now. Even when Gemesys sold their diamonds to consumers, it was only 30% off unless you were willing to buy a yellow diamond. Also like most cars their diamonds weren't made to order; they would have batches available to buy. Not sure if this was due to how they manufactured the diamonds & the economics of it, or just a sales strategy. As for the diamonds themselves, yeah jewelers are unable to tell the difference.
Are there any processes yet that can yield a blade for a kitchen knife? 8-12 inch/20-30 cm, for an affordable price? Due to the high hardness it would be possible to cut the edge very shallow, possibly even with a slight undercut near the blade.
It could retain razor sharpness for days, possibly longer. This enables much sharper knifes at tool life suitable for normal usage.
I'd even settle for a carbide blade, which, while I know one company made one [0], I am unable to find a source for such a knife.
Any resellers that aren't garbage? I've found good ones for other gems over the years, but somehow not for diamonds. I've only found stupid prices for lab grown diamonds.
One of the articles cited there is an excellent article that Edward Epstein wrote for The Atlantic [0].
It's well written, but that's not the impressive part. The impressive thing is that this "expose" was written in 1982, 36 years ago. As Epstein mentions, diamonds are not "forever", or even particularly robust (they can be burned, crushed, chipped, etc), but the industry seems to age quite well. In the half-lifetime since that article came out, nothing has changed.
Point number 1 about the De Beers cartel inflating the market is really a big one. Diamonds are not rare. They are released to the market by controlling monopolies to maintain a false market value. Is the cost of a lab-grown diamond really almost as much as a market-controlled, mined diamond in that case?
I like the pitch about Moissanite, and I'll have to check it out for other purposes other than an engagement ring!
From the right sellers, actual lab diamonds are also vastly cheaper than this. I'm not sure if there are consumer sources yet, but the issue certainly isn't on the supply end.
It looks rather like the startup is trying to undercut mined diamond cartel prices, but keep a hefty cut of that markup while the artificial market is still low on competition.
And for $5 you can get 1 carat CZ. It is softer ( while still more than hard enough ), it is optically closer to diamond than moissanite.
Moissanite is a great stone, but its price follow the same tactic as the diamond industry including ridiculous level of artificial scarcity. The biggest selling point they have over CS is that "surely you are not the kind of man that spend $5 for his fiancée"
From my rudimentary research you can get an optical-quality 1 carat polycrystal disk for $700. Only problem is that it's half a millimeter thick.
CVD diamonds all seem to come in the form of a very thin sheet/disk, so getting something thick enough to use as jewelry may actually approach that price
Checking the prices on their site, I'm not sure where the article's author got his figures from. The price for a spec-identical set of earrings is nearly 7x what I paid six months ago. If you're ever in the market for diamonds, never ever ever go to a retail outfit. If they advertise, stay away. Ask around - someone will always know a private jeweler that works solely on referrals, and it will save you a ton. They also frequently have more personalized service and coverage for what you buy.
What's funny about this attitude is how little the value of your engagement ring matters once the wedding is over, and the dust settles. Maybe in certain social circles, the size/quality of an engagement ring continues to be important, but from my anecdotal experience, no one notices or cares about my wife's engagement ring, unless they are getting married soon.
I recalled this joke after reading your comment, one guy working in finances asks another guy working in finances:
- How much did you pay for your tie?
- $400 in the store next door.
- They tricked you! Store across the street sells the same tie for $800.
If you are paying 10K for an engagement ring and I can buy the same exact engagement ring for 1K, it is just matter of time when your ring will loose it's "social show off value", because "everyone" will have similar rings.
I think after some time De Beers or a company similar to theirs will find for rich and/or overly emotional people something else very expensive to buy to show their "love".
It is just a social signal "my ring is better than yours" => "my male ape is better than your male ape" => "I am more superior". People are social animals,
social signals are very important for them, they'll always find a way to send social signals: super expensive cars, shiny things, handbags for $5K, golden iPhone for 18K, ... Look at luxury industry, it is booming.
And De Beers now say they will sell lab-grown diamonds for 90% less. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17183603) So either De Beers will make a huge loss on each diamond, or the synthetic diamond startups must be making huge profits?
>Morgan Stanley estimates that the capital costs for lab-grown diamonds are negligibly lower than minded [sic] diamonds: $343 per carat vs. $367 per carat for mined.
>Yet, at the wholesale level, they may sell at a 30% to 40% discount to mined stone. This is in part because lab-grown diamond producers are a fragmented, independent channel, while the mined diamond industry is highly consolidated and coordinated, in terms of supply, distribution, marketing and pricing. The labs aren’t just competing with the mined diamond industry, but also with each other for market share.
So costs are around 350 US$ per carat, and they sell retail the ring ".95-carat lab-grown stone" for US$ 4,000, let's say that US$ 500 are for the (white) gold and craftmanship (the ring seems a very simple one).
It would be interesting to understand where the remaining 9/10th of the price go.
I think the difference is that De Beers brands those diamonds as lab grown, to be able to differentiate it. That does not seem to happen with these diamonds.
Great example of a startup (Ada Diamonds) getting valuable PR/press by piggybacking off of current news/trends. While the meat of the article has been discussed to death here at HN, the marketing success is something other startup founders should take notice of and attempt to emulate.
There was an article a while back on here I believe that talked about how lab grown diamonds, especially coming out of China have reached the point of being almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing. To the point of that the fakes fooled pretty much every human expert that tried to tell the difference, the only way to really tell the difference is using very expensive machinery.
I welcome the flood of diamonds to the market. The only entities scrambling to combat this are the diamond companies who have everything to lose because they can no longer extort people.
I am curious to know if current generation and future still interested in buying expensive items like diamonds, jewelry, watches. Because I notice is, you very rarely sell these when you need money unlike like other assets (like House, stocks).
Wonder if only past generation people are the ones who still interested to buy these and feel like whole price is fall down once people loose interest in materialistic things.
Honestly, this is really up to women to make a change. There is a zillion other beautiful stones out there, but for some reason they are all obsessed with the diamond. They want it at any cost. I'd much prefer to buy something uncommon for the woman I loved, maybe my birthstone?
I understand what you're getting at, but I respectfully disagree about this being clickbait.
A clickbait headline would be something like 'He made cheaper diamonds using this one simple trick. Jewelers hate him!', because you'd have to click to find out what that one simple trick is.
This headline seems to be literally true: A startup is making lab-grown diamonds that are 30% cheaper than mined diamonds, and jewelers can't tell the diamonds are lab grown. I think this might actually be the opposite of clickbait, because the headline is a complete summary of the story. You know what happened without needing to click at all. You only need to click if you want to learn more about the why and the how.
The "jewellers can't tell" is BS. Unless you put quotes around the jewellers (as most jewellers are now just importers/re-sellers). As someone who bought lab grown diamonds for some custom made jewellery and had them tested by the best jeweller in town (one of the few true jewellers still remaining) they certainly can tell.
The lab grown diamond passed every test except conductivity. The jeweller found this curious as usually if a stone fails conductivity it also fails, for example, refraction tests. A bit of research on this topic led me to discover that the lab grown diamonds have a slightly higher metal content than natural diamonds which makes them slightly more conductive.
TLDR; A good jeweller with the right equipment can tell.
Glass is a terrible diamond simulant. Even very specialised lead crystal glass has far lower refraction and dispersion than diamond, giving a dull gemstone with little fire. It's also far softer than diamond and quickly becomes dull and scratched with wear.
Synthetic moissanite (silicon carbide) is optically superior to diamond at drastically lower cost. Even to an untrained eye, moissanite has visibly superior brightness and fire. Cubic zirconia is optically comparable to diamond and ludicrously cheap. Moissanite is only marginally softer than diamond and cubic zirconia is comparable in hardness to topaz, emerald and spinel.
[+] [-] Animats|7 years ago|reply
There are two main processes for making diamonds - High Pressure High Temperature, and Chemical Vapor Deposition. The first was developed at General Electric in 1955. With a big press, carbon can be squeezed down to diamond. Impurities used to color diamonds made this way, but that problem has been solved and now clear diamonds can be made.[1]
CVD is a process borrowed from the semiconductor industry. The product has very regular crystal structure. This bugs the gem industry, which claims that the best diamonds are the ones which are a perfect crystal with "flawless" crystal structure.
[1] https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/fall-2017-observations-hph...
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
https://www.puregrowndiamonds.com/store-locator/
I wonder how much Ada Diamonds pays their PR firm for that submarine article
[+] [-] namibj|7 years ago|reply
[0]: This is a publicity stunt, but from what I can tell, this does not need to be faked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcyluvvEfQo
[+] [-] Blackthorn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fghtr|7 years ago|reply
[0] http://diamondssuck.com/
via
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464
[+] [-] dguest|7 years ago|reply
It's well written, but that's not the impressive part. The impressive thing is that this "expose" was written in 1982, 36 years ago. As Epstein mentions, diamonds are not "forever", or even particularly robust (they can be burned, crushed, chipped, etc), but the industry seems to age quite well. In the half-lifetime since that article came out, nothing has changed.
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...
[+] [-] eggy|7 years ago|reply
I like the pitch about Moissanite, and I'll have to check it out for other purposes other than an engagement ring!
[+] [-] boudewijnrempt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kolpa|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legohead|7 years ago|reply
You can get a 1 carat moissanite for ~$400. They shine better, are nearly as hard, and nobody can tell the difference.
[+] [-] Bartweiss|7 years ago|reply
It looks rather like the startup is trying to undercut mined diamond cartel prices, but keep a hefty cut of that markup while the artificial market is still low on competition.
[+] [-] gutnor|7 years ago|reply
Moissanite is a great stone, but its price follow the same tactic as the diamond industry including ridiculous level of artificial scarcity. The biggest selling point they have over CS is that "surely you are not the kind of man that spend $5 for his fiancée"
[+] [-] anonymous5133|7 years ago|reply
I've always told people if the girl is concerned about what type of stone you get her then that is a real cause for concern IMO.
[+] [-] tomatotomato37|7 years ago|reply
CVD diamonds all seem to come in the form of a very thin sheet/disk, so getting something thick enough to use as jewelry may actually approach that price
[+] [-] jquery|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackCh|7 years ago|reply
I don't know much about gems, but this seems contradictory.
[+] [-] andrew_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abandonliberty|7 years ago|reply
This seems written for an audience with very wealthy friends and family.
[+] [-] Retric|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kpennell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alangpierce|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomatotomato37|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hospes|7 years ago|reply
- How much did you pay for your tie?
- $400 in the store next door.
- They tricked you! Store across the street sells the same tie for $800.
If you are paying 10K for an engagement ring and I can buy the same exact engagement ring for 1K, it is just matter of time when your ring will loose it's "social show off value", because "everyone" will have similar rings.
I think after some time De Beers or a company similar to theirs will find for rich and/or overly emotional people something else very expensive to buy to show their "love". It is just a social signal "my ring is better than yours" => "my male ape is better than your male ape" => "I am more superior". People are social animals, social signals are very important for them, they'll always find a way to send social signals: super expensive cars, shiny things, handbags for $5K, golden iPhone for 18K, ... Look at luxury industry, it is booming.
[+] [-] eximius|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vilhelm_s|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaclaz|7 years ago|reply
https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/diamond-market-lab-grown...
>Morgan Stanley estimates that the capital costs for lab-grown diamonds are negligibly lower than minded [sic] diamonds: $343 per carat vs. $367 per carat for mined.
>Yet, at the wholesale level, they may sell at a 30% to 40% discount to mined stone. This is in part because lab-grown diamond producers are a fragmented, independent channel, while the mined diamond industry is highly consolidated and coordinated, in terms of supply, distribution, marketing and pricing. The labs aren’t just competing with the mined diamond industry, but also with each other for market share.
So costs are around 350 US$ per carat, and they sell retail the ring ".95-carat lab-grown stone" for US$ 4,000, let's say that US$ 500 are for the (white) gold and craftmanship (the ring seems a very simple one).
It would be interesting to understand where the remaining 9/10th of the price go.
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shinryuu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ed|7 years ago|reply
And I'd love to believe most founders are motivated by value creation, not market manipulation.
[+] [-] Rotdhizon|7 years ago|reply
I welcome the flood of diamonds to the market. The only entities scrambling to combat this are the diamond companies who have everything to lose because they can no longer extort people.
[+] [-] technological|7 years ago|reply
Wonder if only past generation people are the ones who still interested to buy these and feel like whole price is fall down once people loose interest in materialistic things.
[+] [-] overcast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otterley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpeden|7 years ago|reply
A clickbait headline would be something like 'He made cheaper diamonds using this one simple trick. Jewelers hate him!', because you'd have to click to find out what that one simple trick is.
This headline seems to be literally true: A startup is making lab-grown diamonds that are 30% cheaper than mined diamonds, and jewelers can't tell the diamonds are lab grown. I think this might actually be the opposite of clickbait, because the headline is a complete summary of the story. You know what happened without needing to click at all. You only need to click if you want to learn more about the why and the how.
[+] [-] retrogradeorbit|7 years ago|reply
The lab grown diamond passed every test except conductivity. The jeweller found this curious as usually if a stone fails conductivity it also fails, for example, refraction tests. A bit of research on this topic led me to discover that the lab grown diamonds have a slightly higher metal content than natural diamonds which makes them slightly more conductive.
TLDR; A good jeweller with the right equipment can tell.
[+] [-] angel_j|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astura|7 years ago|reply
That being said, this topic always generates a lot of discussion.
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matte_black|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uspmm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|7 years ago|reply
Synthetic moissanite (silicon carbide) is optically superior to diamond at drastically lower cost. Even to an untrained eye, moissanite has visibly superior brightness and fire. Cubic zirconia is optically comparable to diamond and ludicrously cheap. Moissanite is only marginally softer than diamond and cubic zirconia is comparable in hardness to topaz, emerald and spinel.
[+] [-] exelius|7 years ago|reply
What’s the point of owning the real thing at that point?
[+] [-] psergeant|7 years ago|reply