Lab grown diamond or other gemstone

opinionated3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225042#Comment_118225042

Well designed rings with intricate settings and good diamonds will probably actually appreciate in value over time ......

[Deleted User]

If you want to save some money, watch Blood Diamond with the misses before heading to the jeweller. Lab-grown all the way.

old_aussie

Synthetic diamond prices are generally lower than natural diamonds, and the price of lab-created diamonds continues to drop (as much as 30% in a year). This is due to lab-grown diamonds not having any resale value and that the demand for lab-grown diamonds continues to decrease. 

No matter the synthetic diamond price, lab-grown diamonds have no resale value. Take a look at this 1.21ct diamond from James Allen. There’s no doubt that it’s a nice-looking diamond. Yet no jeweler will buy it back. If you try to sell lab-grown diamonds on eBay, you’ll get pennies on the dollar for it.

What are Lab Created (Man-Made) Diamonds - A Complete Guide

old_aussie

Just bought a pair(different batch numbers, which are laser cut into the diamonds) of round .08 carat purple hued pink diamonds.

These were mined at the Argyle diamond mine in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Currently this mine is closed.

Absolutely beautiful to look at. My 9 yo granddaughter will be getting them for Christmas.

Some people think you can just go to the diamond mines and buy them.

matt.v

Unless your wife is a trained professional she'll never know the difference, not that there is any shame in getting a lab grown diamond either. I've heard of people going for vintage jewellery / getting old jewellery repurposed to avoid supporting an industry that is reliant on child labour and has a massive environmental impact. I think its a small compromise to keep the "wonder" of a millions year old rock sitting on your hand.

opinionated3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231036#Comment_118231036

It's not reliant on child labour. It's very easy for a goldsmith to purchase authentic, conflict free diamonds, or any precious stone really.

And there's also the possibility that your wife will find out it's fake when she brings it to a good goldsmith to have it professionally valued for insurance purposes. I wouldn't fancy having to explain that one to her 😁

[Deleted User]

All rocks are millions of years old. And something like iron is far more interesting than a diamond since the former "is only formed in the massive stars which end their lives in supernova explosions."

Diamonds are pretty of course but that's the only quality they have for me.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230960#Comment_118230960

Not unless they're of a large size and/or from a known and in demand jeweller. If the ring is gold or platinum that'll hold more value than the diamonds involved.

It's been said more than once already, but it seems DeBeers marketing still has a strong hold on attitudes. Diamonds are not rare. They're one of the most common precious stones on the planet. As was noted earlier the annual output of diamonds would fill a small cup with them for every American. By carat rubies are worth more, even with DeBeers marketing. One reason DeBeers pushed the "diamonds are forever" line was they didn't want people selling them on and noticing the crap return on them. They also pushed clarity as a thing because the vast majority of diamonds are clear. At one time coloured diamonds were far more sought after and valuable. They also came up with the months wages for an engagement ring(later six months) and that diamonds were the engagement jewel. The gra for diamonds is pretty much entirely artificially marketing driven.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230918#Comment_118230918

But, they are no way fake diamonds. But debeers HQ thank you. Marketing's greatest achievement. Borderline brainwashing.

opinionated3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231799#Comment_118231799

If they're not traditionally obtained i.e mined, then to my mind they're fake.

I play golf. Plenty of fake Chinese made clubs in the market that most golfers would struggle to see the difference between, say, a top of the range mizuno iron Vs an identical one produced in a "factory" somewhere in China. If the wife bought me the Chinese ones as a gift, well I'm sorry, but they're going in the bin.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231969#Comment_118231969

Your analogy is incorrect. It's more correct to say your wife bought you superior golf clubs but you binned them because they weren't the "in" brand. Yeah, that's how silly it is.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231991#Comment_118231991

That's a how a lot of branding works mind you, particularly luxury branding. It's one big reason why such brands crap themselves over fakes and prime their buyers against them. Take Rolex. A once mid tier "good watch" brand, now trading as top luxury, with models that have barely changed over fifty years, but are at least five times more expensive than they were. In the old days someone might pick up a fake from a dodgy looking character on a Benidorm beach with a cheap quartz movement that would last about as long as your tan when you got home. These days you can buy extremely convincing fakes that even experts would have to take time to spot for under a grand(in some cases like hand finishing the fakes can be better), when the real deal would cost eight times that. That's a big concern to the brand because it shows the "value" gulf all too clearly and telegraphs you're paying for the brand name as much as anything.

With stuff like luxury handbags and clothes costing a kings ransom this can be even more in play. A few years ago there was a glut of fake handbags doing the rounds, made in Italy by organised crime types in small workshops and some of the fakes could be spotted because they were better made than the real thing.

Those who buy luxury items are buying into that layer of absraction to justify the cost and that's hard to justify if the "fake" is as good or better.

[Deleted User]

I buy fake Onitsuka Tigers but they're called "clones". Goat leather, far more comfortable and durable than the real ones, and around the same price. They're what the originals should be.

quokula

To me lab diamonds are superior - they are not fakes, they are absolutely real diamonds, just created in a different way. A way that is far, far less problematic for the environment and for human rights.

However, there is a big but. Lab grown diamonds depreciate in value while mined diamonds generally don’t (depending on quality). This may not always be the case but it has been to date. So a good quality mined diamond may be an investment you can pass down to your kids or grandkids, while a lab grown diamond will not hold the same value. You could argue that this is wrong, that it’s market manipulation or whatever, but it’s a market we all have to live in and it’s just a fact.

Maybe this will change as perceptions change. Or maybe it will actually magnify as lab grown diamonds become more common and mined diamonds become more rare. But for now a mined diamond, though more expensive, represents better value financially as it doesn’t start dramatically losing its value the second you walk out the door of the jewellers in the way a lab grown diamond does.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118219659#Comment_118219659

Why? A diamond is a carbon crystal. Same thing.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118219857#Comment_118219857

They aren’t rare. You’ve been totally taken in by DeBeers marketing.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118219697#Comment_118219697

There is very little resale value in diamond rings. They're just like cars. As soon as they're taken out of the jewelers shop, the value drops

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230960#Comment_118230960

SuperS54

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118234232#Comment_118234232

Mined diamonds absolutely depreciate in value! Try to resell one of those typically used in an engagement ring, it's worth SFA. Talk of clarity and imperfections is complete nonsense for someone purchasing an engagement ring, NO-ONE at the dinner table is ever going to see the difference. If you future wife is the type that insists on spending 50% extra for the same thing then fire ahead, you're going to have bigger issues in the future anyway...

Hello 2D Person Below

The diamond market is an even greater scam than the art world.

100% correct decision to go with the lab grown diamond, OP.

If the wife wants something that's millions of years old, you can get her a 400,000,000 year old fossilised goniatite dish on The Rock Shop for €30

Capt'n Midnight

The classic article on diamonds from Feb 1982 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/

The patents on artificially made Silicon Carbide crystals expired a few years back. So Mossanite is way cheaper than a diamond, harder than most things that aren't diamonds and shinier than diamonds because of a slightly higher refractive index.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118235563#Comment_118235563

Great article and shows just how easy it is to sway a market and people's perceptions and make them defend those perceptions to the hilt, if you have real clever boyos doing it and very clever they were. They turned one of the most common gemstones out there(in the small carat sizes they shift) into people believing they were among the rarest and most exclusive and most "luxury" and worth a small fortune, yet pretty much every married woman on the planet has a crop of the things on her ring finger.

Actually funny enough my mum didn't. My dad bought her an opel engagement ring. He had lived in both Africa and Austrlalia before he go hitched and knew a couple of lads in the gemstone trade in both and he considered diamonds to be a bit meh because of that inside track, so one of these mates of his in Oz sent him five little black opals and he had them set into a ring here in Ireland. I clearly remember him when I was a kid telling people that diamonds were a bit of a scam.

Of diamonds, I can't begin to think of a more commonly seen cut and set gemstone out there. Rubys and sapphires and the like are much rarer to see. Even if they were rare and exclusive and all that I have always thought of diamonds as pale bloodless things. A very big one has its draw, as the actress said to the bishop, especially if it's an unusual colour, but the usual ones you see? Nah.

Another marketing trick was the shift from gold jewellery to silver. A couple of generations ago gold was the luxury "everyday" metal, but because of the cost jewellers couldn't shift that much of it. An early attempt was the charm bracelet, where you or your amour would buy your gold in little installments. Another was lowering the content in the gold alloy. 9Kt being a helluva lot cheaper than 18kt(Americans also had 14kt as a popular mix), but the move to the far cheaper silver really fired up the market. Much cheaper so you could shift more of it, more often, bigger pieces too and with more of a profit margin.

One I could never understand is "white gold". It's literally a contradiction in terms. Sure it's subtly different to steel, platinum and silver, but c'mon like... Excuse me, could I pruchase some White Black, that's actually white please? Why certainly sir, that'll be eleventy million euros.

Skyrimaddict

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230927#Comment_118230927

Hi, I dont think its a sure it will do.

Also, she has a large diamond engagement ring, and diamond wedding ring, one finger alone being worth a few grand.

The lab grown all come with certs also. The resale value, I dont plan to resell any of them, and I would hope my daughter in years to come wouldnt either.

On a side note, a family friend is an antique jeweler, she has some massive rings that are all types of gem stones, and they dont sell for as much as the new ones in the windows of jewellers. I know most dont come with certs being the issue.

seamus

Lab diamonds aren't "fake". They're the exact same element as mined diamonds. Calling a lab diamond fake because it wasn't pulled out of a mine is like calling a beef steak "fake" because the cow was raised on a farm rather than caught in the wild.

For the most part people who persist in diamond snobbery are engaging in the sunken costs fallacy and defending their own decision to purchase a mined diamond on the basis that it's "better", even though it's not.

Effects

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230918#Comment_118230918

She'll never know the difference.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118239035#Comment_118239035

And sure if someone wants the natural "charm" of "real" diamonds, why don't they set these into rings?

BrianD3

I knew this was a dirty industry but that linked article is eye opening. And we have millions of saps who think that they MUST spend x% of their salary on this crap and get down on one knee to propose to some equally stupid woman. Vomit. MGTOW all the way. Alternatively, nip this in the bud by educating schoolkids about the scam as part of a life/financial skills class.

Skyrimaddict

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118239510#Comment_118239510

I actually spoke to my younger brother who got engaged recently. He did exactly that, spend 2.5 times his months take-home pay on the ring !

Capt'n Midnight

From this report by the US Geological Survey

In 2020, total domestic primary production of manufactured industrial diamond bort, grit, and dust and powder was estimated to be 110 million carats with a value of $44 million, a slight decrease from that in 2019. No diamond stone was produced domestically. One firm with facilities in Florida and Ohio and a second firm in Pennsylvania accounted for all of the production

...

In 2020, China was the leading producing country of synthetic industrial diamond, followed by the United States, Russia, Ireland, and South Africa,

So € 0.35 a carat see also https://shannonabrasives.com/

Further on they say that no new major deposit discovered in 20 years , forecast for natural production is 120 million carats by 2030 compared to 14,600 million carats of manufactured industrial diamonds today. Expect lots of mislabelling in the future.

( €8.48 for 24 carat ? 😜)

growleaves

@Wibbs 'Of diamonds, I can't begin to think of a more commonly seen cut and set gemstone out there. Rubys and sapphires and the like are much rarer to see.'

Rubies are so easy to synthesise you could make them in your shed with a few tools and pieces of equipment. So by the logic employed in this thread - that natural and lab grown are the same - there's no reason for rubies to be considered rare.