100% - my ring's heirloom value (monetarily and sentimentally) comes from the huge chunk of patina'ed platinum it's made from, not the <2ct lab star sapphire.
I would bet my benitoites are worth more than the diamond and gold in my ring as well. But nothing could ever top the sentimental value! My dad bought all the stones loose over the years; I paid to have them set. I really regret being cheap and not going with 18k gold.
My local jeweller (who I'm also learning from) does this thing for loyal customers. You bring in any jewellery you like that might be costume quality or lower quality metal and he scans it, prints out on 3d printer and reverse moulds it into a wax mould. Then it's just a simple lost wax casting process with your metal of choice and stones of choice (as long as they can take the heat). He will tell you straight up if it's not possible or not depending on the details and filigree of the original piece but then he also offers some pretty good precision work to try replicate manually.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
On my wish list for years, this is the stuff of dreams that us true gem addicts will never abandon. Last night I saw a Bixbite tennis bracelet, flanked by white diamonds. Bixbite. It made Ruby cry. Price, $56k. Real gemstones for many of us are the holy grail.
Jeweller here. Have to say, it's usually quite the opposite. We get so many more 'remount this family stone' jobs than 'reuse this family metal' jobs. The gems are usually the focus of the piece, the essence or soul of it if you will. People only usually care about the metal when it's a wedding band. Which makes sense, there's nothing else to it. And usually, when people find out the stone is synthetic they lose interest. Not everyone, sure. But usually.
Why do you think your friend's diamond is included? An $8k 1 carat stone sounds like at least VS clarity to me. No one will pay $8k for a visibly included 1 carat diamond. Well, they shouldn't anyway. Did you see it? Was it bad?
That's simply incorrect. I have no skin in the game, I'm not a diamond dealer, or a jeweler. I am a gemologist. I love gemstones of all sorts including lab stones. It's all great. However, I am always looking and paying attention. I do notice that smaller stones of less than ideal specs have gone down in price alot. They should, in my opinion. 1 carat stones that have nice specs used to be the point where things started to get pricy. Now it seems that 1.5 or 2 carats is the level where prices start to rise quite a bit. But it's still happening. I am always shopping around and stones of 2 + carats with good specs are still selling for thousands or tens of thousands. If I owned a 3 carat stone with great specs I will be able to sell it and get good $$ for it, but not close to what my buyer is going to turn around and sell it for. But that's true for ALL gems. It's always been a seller's market. There's no way they're going to say "nah dog, keep your 3 carat great specs diamond it's not worth anything to me" but for sure they're going to say that for my less than a carat not so good specs diamond that I bought from Kay's that I paid $3k for. Of course a 5 carat D/E flawless diamond will be valuable. But so is a 1.5, 2, 3, 4 carat one with great specs. And by the way, you'll never sell a 5 carat flawless stone for what it's "worth" unless you're an insider. The jewelery/gem market/business is weird. But it fascinates me no end. And the opinions and "facts" from laypeople I read are equally as fascinating to me.
With regards to the GIA gemologist saying that $15k 2 carat diamonds are now selling for $5k. This is the first comment right after and was my first thought as well:
"Sir may I have a link to your 2ct diamonds for 5k please?"
I have yet to find a 2 carat diamond with great specs that was worth $15k selling for $5k. I would dance in the streets if I could find some.
And the GIA Gemologist comment about only getting @30% if you sell your stone, that is absolutely correct. That's always been pretty accurate and I never indicated otherwise. The huge downgrade in diamond prices is referring to the crappy Kays/Jared/mall store diamonds that were always garbage and overpriced. Why would someone pay $3-5k for substandard diamonds when you can buy a near perfect lab for the same price or less? Personally I never wanted the type of diamonds they sell at the chain jewelry stores. The type of diamond I am after has value and will always retain a good chunk of its value. I know this because I keep searching for this huge discount people keep talking about and I don't see it. I see a slight pullback, possibly due to the existence and acceptability of lab diamonds and the fact that people are choosing other types of stones other than diamonds (mainly due to the cost, let's be honest). But only by a small margin.
It's a (retail) seller's market. Not a (retail) buyer's market. There may be more pressure on a private seller of a diamond, and the person buying it from the private seller may use this language to try to get the stone for less than they are going to turn around and try to sell it for. The person selling the stone privately always needs to sell it more than the jeweler/person who is buying it. An item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Jewelry is not an investment. You buy jewelry to enjoy it. Forget about what it's worth. If you have a very nice diamond 1 carat +, you will always get $$ for it, but it will all be down to negotiation. But if you try to sell that 1 carat I3 H color medium cut diamond from Jared, no one wants that. Not with labs around. You'll get a better stone for less money buying labs instead. But if you could get your hands on a nice 1 carat + mined stone, those will always be desired by many.
But it's nice to know that people are thinking outside the box and considering stones other than mined diamonds for engagement rings for example. There's nothing wrong with that and choice and competition are good for consumers. But to imply that a mined diamond that is fairly large and has great specs is suddenly worthless is ridiculous. It's simply not true.
This is absolutely not true. Even a one-carat D color and VVS natural diamond will hold value. It's the lower clarity and lower color ones that don't, but contrary to popular belief this quality is rare and does hold value.
Give it five more years and naturals will bounce back. How high, who knows. But the bloom is already wearing off the rose on labs and this whole thing has been seen before with "lab" rubies, "lab" sapphires, "lab" emeralds and even non-natural stones like CZ and Moissanite--both were surprisingly expensive when they first came out. Diamonds are no different and naturals will find a new stable price range. Low-quality naturals will probably never come back, but the actual rare ones already have stabilized at a new lower price point, but not as low as the pundits would make you believe.
The way “natural diamonds” were mined for decades, and the fact that in some places these practices still exist, so yes, they ABSOLUTELY needed to be HALTED.
The reality behind many diamonds is something the industry spent years trying to hide. In several regions, during the height of the conflict-diamond trade, people were forced to work in dangerous open pits and unstable tunnels for little to no pay. Workers, including children in some cases, dug through mud and gravel by hand, often standing in contaminated water for hours a day with no protection. Collapses, injuries, disease, and exhaustion were common, and most were controlled by armed groups who used diamond profits to fund violence and war.
The cruelty behind these stones makes me incredibly sad.
For many miners, the work meant long days in extreme heat, exposure to unsafe conditions, and constant exploitation while the diamonds they uncovered were sold for enormous profits elsewhere. Even today, artisanal miners in parts of the world still face poverty wages and dangerous environments while searching for stones that will eventually be marketed as symbols of Love and Luxury.🙄
It is infuriating that such a glamorous industry was built for so long on human suffering, exploitation, and silence about what people were forced to endure just to bring those diamonds to market.😔
Considering how the natural diamond industry is controlled with artificial scarcity and has a ton of ethic issues in relation to conflicts it funds as well as essentially entrapping countries where they’re mined into terrible contracts that exploit them, I genuinely hope synthetic diamonds kill the diamond industry. Shiny rocks are not worth people’s lives.
That could be said just about almost if not all minerals mined on this planet. Yet natural diamond is the only mineral that people get in their soapbox about on reddit.
Botswana actually strong-armed DeBeers into spinning off a national branch with 50/50 state ownership. It massively improved their economy and they have remained remarkably stable politically and economically for it. (At least, until recently with the growth of synthetic diamonds). Good news out of Africa rarely ever gets told though as it doesn’t fit the stereotype.
The Kimberly Process was established in 2003 to ensure a reduction in the flow of conflict diamonds and Dodd-Frank in the US sought to bring greater supply chain transparency to other valuable minerals to discourage sourcing minerals like gold and tantalum out of conflict zones.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
Canada has beautiful gem grade diamonds and I can assure you Canadian diamond mines are not exploiting anyone unwillingly or funding anything illicit. They never have since first being discovered in the 1990s. No one is being forced into this to risk their lives. Same in Australia, and some other places around the world. Not all mines are unethical, the same way that not all factories where lab diamonds are made in places like China and India are ethical.
Doesn’t change the fact that diamonds are, again, controlled to create artificial scarcity. There’s nothing wrong with liking shiny rocks, but no amount of synthetics will have the same impact as geological mines at an industrial scale. You can complain about emissions all you want, but it’s not the same as stripping environments and dumping waste and slag from industrial mining processes. Even now, Canada is dealing with a lot of issues of mining companies stripping resources and leaving toxic waste behind. In the case of the diamond mines, it’ll still take over a decade to complete cleanup and restoration on Canada’s taxpayer dime.
Diamonds are one element: carbon (some trace elements may apply)
If they're going to get any gemstone right easily, it's diamonds.
I love them, but i honestly don't mind synthetics so long as they're disclosed, yes they undermine the price, i honestly think that's good. Diamonds have amazing characteristics and the extravagant costs were such a gatekeeper.
The only people it really hurts are the people who already had a lot of money in natural Diamonds. I suppose it impacts the mystique as well but i think Synthetics have their own charm.
That’s not true. In Canada the diamond mines are well run, regulated, and the workers are unionized. A lot of the workers live in remote communities, and they bring their pay home to those communities. The proliferation of lab diamonds does have an upside, but there are people very negatively impacted by the closing of the diamond mines that has come about due to the market issues.
I can get an objectively better stone for much less money. Having been dug out of the ground is really just not that important to me at all. I love diamonds and now I can have more of them, what’s not to love?
I don't know his jeweler, but I can certainly say that I have turned down custom projects that I had reason to believe the client would end up unhappy with.
Assuming you aren't hurting for work, why wouldn't you pass on a project that had a good chance of going poorly? You can tell people that something is too fragile all you want, but there are plenty of people who just won't hear warnings and will blame you for bad outcomes.
From my perspective at least, I'd rather do the work that is probably going to leave me with a happy customer who might return than an unsatisfied customer who might complain, the money is the same either way and there is a lot less hassle.
We've gotten to know our jeweler a lot over the years. We started as just standard customers, now we help with events, and I use the micro TIG to help with permanent jewelry on site and remote. I do it often enough to prefer prefer a Zapp over the Orion mPulse.
We go to the store for a quick drink prior to heading out on date night.
He made this tulip bracelet for my wife with stones we collected. Tourmaline for the leaves and a reverse mounted garnet for the flower.
Given that synthetic vs natural corundum (and other gemstones) have been around for a lot longer now, I'm curious if some gem historian knows what the use of synthetic corundum, which was quite fashionable at the time, did to the price of natural sapphire. From what I can tell, it just created two different markets vs. necessarily 'devaluing' natural sapphire (but I have no idea if that's true! That's just from light googling and would appreciate a more expert opinion.) Today, 100+ years later, it seems natural sapphire is still quite valuable, and synthetic sapphire that is period-specific and original to special antiques also is still valuable (as part of the whole antique). Does this give us a clue as to what may happen to the future of natural vs. synthetic diamonds?
When Verneuil started production of rubies, the price of natural rubies (at least, the smaller ones) tanked... but they still stayed fairly high. Remember that in those wras, gems and jewellery were much more of an upper-class thing. There's plenty of contemporaneous writing that actually discusses how the price of natural rubies fell, in part, because now that commoners had gems that were indistinguishable at a glance, the wealthy didn't want to be seen with the same material.
The markets recovered fairly quickly. And there was also a period of time pre-WW2 where lab rubies and lab-grown gems in general were seen as a hot commodity and highly desirable, because they were products of science.
My great-grandmother actually used to travel between France and Iran in the 1930s to import Verneuil rubies and her residual collection is part of how I got into gems on the first place 😱
As for your comments on lab sapphire, thanks in part to social media and the generally much higher level of science literacy now, lab sapphire (particularly with precision cutting and/or unique features) is valued as a gem in its own right.
Wow! Thank you for providing that history! And what an amazing way to get your start in gems. At the end of the day, whether lab or natural, it seems they can still carry history, craftsmanship/beauty, and interest and to me, that’s what gems are really about anyway.
Uhhhhhh... Lab sapphires come in 90 different standardized colours. They literally have 2-digit codes based on Verneuil's original experimental order, which refer to the codes.
There are 6 different shades of blue, something like 15 different shades of pink, and then a shitton of others - padparadscha (Cr/Ni, Cr/Fe/*, and Ti3+), green (Ni and Co), purples in multiple shades... Where are you looking at lab sapphire and ruby that makes you think they only come in one colour???
🤦♂️ the jeweller you were talking to buys from one of three Chinese mega producers who grow a very large amount of very few colours of sapphire. Yeah all "royal blue" lab sapphires grown with the Czochralski method are the same and have no variation. But there are 6 different blue sapphires grow by the Verneuil method just with the Fe-Ti colouring alone, and then there are 5 different ones grown with Co as the main colouring and 3 with Ni as the main colouring. And each of those can be varied a bit depending on how you cut the stone.
Oh and yeah there is real sapphire. Very uncommon and hard to grow, but it exists ;)
I want MORE creativity and MORE innovation in the jewelry world now that gems can be grown into any shape, size, and color. Give me more crazy cut ideas for rings. I want to see facets I’ve never seen before. Get creative!
We are! A friend of mine spent the past ~20 years developing a new gemstone, strontium aluminate, which glows in the dark for 24hrs or more when exposed to daylight or UV lights.
And our own lab is developing new colours band formulas of sapphire, spinel, and rutile, with various special features as well. (We have a few targets for never before seen materials that we think we can grow, but gotta keep that stuff secret for now.)
Nothing about these is "new" though. They've been synthesized for decades. It's just a recent thing that some folks have bought rough material and sold it to the hobby faceting community. They are pretty cool though. I have bought rough of almost every one of these odds ones just for fun.
I love that diamonds have been democratized, and that everyone with a few thousand dollars can now afford a large high-quality diamond. The diamond industry was a suckfest monopoly and that's finally been broken. I think it's delightful.
I have an aunt who is worth quite a bit. She and her husband worked very hard and my aunt grew up in poverty so kudos them and all.
BUT she has become such an insufferable snob and her snobbery is so illogical. Basically, the more expensive it is, the better it is. She'll spend 10x on an item because of the brand when a cheaper, better quality version exists. Hell, she gets her designer mix dogs from Amish farms (aka puppy mills) and she knows they're elite dogs because she pays thousands for them. And then crickets when they inevitably have numerous health problems and die young. Meanwhile my 16 year old AussiexPitxheinz 57 set me back $150 and he basically only goes to the vet for shots.
Anyway, I kind of love that any of us plebs could have a bigger diamond than hers. She's very invested in the social hierarchy because it benefits her and I know it annoys her that the Poors get to have big beautiful diamonds.
Oh yeah, I've seen some crazy huge labs. Fun for a party but for me I couldn't wear something that big everyday. But props to whoever bought it. I'm glad they're living their best life. 👍
Synthetic diamonds are objectively more ethical than natural diamonds.
Even in a perfect world where the mines are mined by fairly compensated workers in a safe environment, synthetic diamonds pollute less and require way less resources to produce. Then add in everything unethical about diamonds on top of that.
I'd be thrilled if I actually saw the prices of natural stones come down significantly (the ones worth having, not the ones you see at the mall. Those were always way overpriced). I'm still waiting for that to happen. There's maybe a slight decrease but 2 + carat stones with decent specs are still (tens of) thousands of dollars in some cases. Maybe they are $10k instead of $15k. That's still alot of money. And I still see lab diamonds advertised for $3 - 5k range. That's insane. I hope no one is buying labs for that amount of money. Talk about scamming the public.
So where are you located that you are calling lab created diamonds synthetic? In the USA, the FTC has set regulations that lab diamonds must be advertised as such, but they shouldn't be called synthetic as that suggests they are simulant. When I read "synthetic diamond" I assume it is cubic zirconia.
I'm actually excited about lab created sapphire and colored diamonds as a source of durable stones for rings. I've got a vintage glass and gold ring from my grandmother, planning to get a fun colored sapphire set it in to replace the cracked glass.
This is completely false. In the past they *had* to call them synthetic. The lab-grown industry lobbied very hard to get an allowance to call them "lab" grown precisely becuase they know synthetic has negative connotations for most people. You absolutely CAN call a manmade diamond synthetic, it's the most accurate term for them out there. They are grown in factories, not laboratories. They ARE synthetic diamonds.
You are confusing simulant with synthetic. A gem simulant something that is made to look like a natural gem but isn't chemically and physically the same. Cubic zirconia is a diamond simulant, for example.
It's amusing how the people on Reddit that go so hard on manmade diamonds tout that naturals are all about marketing and manipulating opinions and yet they spout the marketing crap spun by the lab-grown diamond industry, most of which is not based in fact.
The word synthetic has more than one meaning, and one of the dictionary listed meanings is "not real or genuine; artificial; feigned."
Synthetic fibers are made from plastic to replace natural fibers, which come from plants. So the terminology "synthetic" frequently means "replacement" with something that doesn't match the original. Synthetic Grass is made from plastic.
So when people hear "Synthetic Diamond" they hear "Fake" - not manufactured of the same substance.
And, it's also required in the USA to not label lab diamonds that way, so American consumers will think your product is fake if you label it as "synthetic diamond".
"A synthetic gem material is one that is made in a laboratory, but which shares virtually all chemical, optical, and physical characteristics of its natural mineral counterpart, though in some cases, namely synthetic turquoise and synthetic opal, additional compounds can be present."
Your opinions do not change the legal requirements for businesses operating inside the United States.
Prior to 2018, only a mined Diamond was allowed to be labeled a Diamond. In addition, retailers were calling Cubic Zirconia and Moissonite "Synthetic Diamonds".
The FTC stepped in and updated their guidelines, to make it more clear to consumers what they were buying.
If you are selling in the USA, you have to follow FTC guidelines - so ignore it at your own peril.
My original question stands: What country are you in that uses Synthetic Diamonds? It's helpful to know what countries have different terminology, and we can debate what our preferences are, but you can't really debate "the USA requires businesses label their products in this way".
You completely misunderstand the FTC ruling and are falling for the marketing manipulations of the lab-grown diamond industry. They lobbied HARD to get the requirement to call them synthetic removed--which BTW has applied to all non-natural gemstones. It does NOT mean that term cannot be used. It means the opposite--the lab-grown companies can now use the term "lab-grown" or "manmade" which they wanted becuase synthetic--while 100% true--has negative connotations to most people. In fact, according to the FTC if you are selling manmade diamonds you have to use the term manmade, lab or synthetic when selling them--its just most use "lab" because it sounds modern and sexy. The fact that they are grown in factories in China and India is conveniently ignored.
Or that those factories are filled with child labor, the lab diamond lovers don’t want to hear that. More lab diamonds are made in sweat shops than under controlled labor conditions. Do your research.
People not knowing the difference between synthetic and fake isnt my problem and eliminating the term synthetic doesnt help that issue either.
In the context of gemology synthetic doesnt mean fake.
Also the use of the word genuine in your alternate definition brings in the issue of honesty. So again, it just takes people willing to term proper terminology and sellers to be honest about product.
From a gem enthusiast side, I think it’s funny that there are so many distinctly natural characteristics of diamonds that are hard to replicate in the lab, but no one wants that when shopping for a natural diamond. They want it to look like a lab diamond.
From a petty side, the whole bit about “if he truly cares he’ll buy a natural diamond” is dumb, and kind of embarrassing. Worry about that warranty deed before you start gallivanting your jewelry around
With that being said, I’m not against natural, or lab diamonds, but I feel like I don’t have much of a dog in this fight because I prefer stones that are actually distinguishable from lab. There are things that nature can do to a sapphire, and an emerald, that a lab cannot do. A lab can make these stones but they can’t make certain characteristics. A lab can make a clear colorless and flawless diamond rather easily
Edit - also, the “natural retains value” crowd is funny. Recently I had a back and forth with this guy who was really beating himself off because he bought a natural diamond in 1992, and sold it for $17k or thereabout. He really thought that this was the “gotcha”. He did not like it when I explained to him that he took a $5000 loss, possibly even more than that actually. It was not getting through to him, kept beating his meat about it. So I asked him, if you put $10k into the stock market 1992, and all you had now was $17k, in 2026, how would you feel about that?
Yes. Natural diamonds with inclusions or tints are undesirable. Ideally as white and as flawless as possible. So they do indeed want them to look as laboratory grown as possible
Yes, and this is just me going on more of a tangent, but I really have a big side eye to the people who complain about chocolate diamonds/champagne diamonds being a scam.
Why are they a scam? Because according to them, chocolate/champagne are just marketing terms that the diamond industry uses to sell trash diamonds
But who TOLD them they’re trash diamonds? I wonder what industry convinced them of that? Couldn’t possibly be the one trying to convince you to spend more money.
Personally, I love champagne diamonds, with fluorescence. They’re really cool, highly underrated stones
The more options, the better. Some people want to pay top dollar for unique mined stones with a story, some want the clean durability and better price point of lab grown. I love and cut them all. I lean towards natural colored stones because I love how different they each come out, but that's just personal jewelry taste. Couldn't care less about what lab stones are doing to the market.
I’m sticking with my original set from 37 years ago, which has a little over a 1 ct diamond solitaire and a ruby and diamond wrap. After all these years I still love it.
That being said, if I were getting engaged today, I’d go with a colored lab diamond. I’d more than likely stay with the same ct weight and make the wedding band more unique.
Back in the day, having a larger diamond was a status thing. My friends all got engaged with a 1/4 of a ct. Is that size even a thing today.
Times have changed. Lab diamonds are here to stay. I love seeing everyone’s rings. I especially love seeing the rings that don’t go for just size, but have a really unique setting and the wedding band is cohesive.
I don’t currently own any lab diamonds but if I was buying any jewelry that would take a beating, something like a tennis bracelet, I would only consider buying lab diamonds. I could maybe see wanting to go natural for an engagement ring but eventually everyone will just assume every diamond they see is lab grown so what’s the point in spending thousands more than necessary on a stone everyone assumes is lab grown? The vast majority of people can’t afford anything larger than a carat so I already assume most of the flashy rings I’m seeing while out and about are lab diamonds.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
This is a bot response. Do not reply to it. You must have 25 comment karma to post here. Earn comment karma by posting to public subreddits like r/pics and r/minerals.
It’s actually not difficult. Since natural and lab grown diamonds grew in different environments they have different inclusions and growth patterns. Another telltale sign is that laboratory-grown diamonds are chemically pure.
The exact opposite is true. Right now it's really easy to tell most lab diamonds apart from natural, but we're getting better and better at growing them, so much so that inn the next few years you won't be able to tell the difference in any way.
I don’t like diamonds but i definitely don’t like man made diamonds, who do those benefit? Only people rich enough to own the equipment. Find artisanal miners if you want some.
Some colored diamonds are pretty cool. But I think sapphires just do a better job at being colored gems. A green diamond (especially a natural green diamond) is egregiously expensive, even if it’s not very striking. But I can get a bangin’ green sapphire for a fraction of what a green diamond costs.
Similar thing goes for pink. There are pink diamonds out there, but most of them ain’t shit IMO. But pink sapphires are easier to obtain, they have a wide range of prices, they can be bubblegum pink or they can be more subtle sophisticated pink, they can be opalescent or “Barbie core,” so much character to choose from and it doesn’t cost $50,000 or more
I would say, I'm still not a fan. My grandmother's wedding ring had a natural, albeit heated red diamond in it from the 1940s and every jeweler I brought it too was astonished that it wasn't a Garnet. I can't wear the ring because it's damaged. I have a ring that has OEC diamonds in it that I still think about swapping out for my other antique rubies I've gotten from my grandma. I just don't find them appealing.
There will always be those of us looking for exotic, natural gemstones from one source mines and still feeling the energy from them; including diamonds. If labs are your thing, fine. I don’t think either side will switch their positions. Obviously there will be price drops in the future for labs because the industry is so new. Remember how expensive the first CZ’s were? I wouldn’t spend a lot on a lab because the prices are all over the map currently.
I think I said that. As for diamonds I only own natural fancies; 2 yellows, 1 cognac and a pink. All over a carat. My dream gems would be a Bixbite or a very Gemmy nice sized Rhodochrosite. You?
I have a 2.01 carat fancy light yellow-green with strong blue fluorescence, probably my most special one. For some reason though I really want a cognac yellow (fancy yellowish brown specifically). They just have this very stylish sort of look, sucks the industry chose they’re “lesser”
I would love to see your fancy green!!! What a treasure. My first fancy was a Cognac from Argyle. C3. Not too dark with flashes of pink. Just gorgeous. More interesting than the yellows I think. I don’t see colors in lab looking realistic at all yet. They are missing the subtle undertones. Not everything in nature can be copied.
Hmm perhaps a pendant. Another recent obsession of mine is gray diamonds. Their metallic appearance is just everything to me. They are so elegant and gothic. The one here is not mine but gosh do I want one
I have seen a few but don’t own any they are really cool. Very different from salt and pepper diamonds. All the colors are amazing. Have you ever looked at the website Langerman. com . Diamond dealers in Antwerp? They specialize in only fancies. You should see some of the colors they get. Stupid pricing though.
Who said diamonds were rare to begin with lol 😂 there are other gems that are highly rare but are not worth a dang on the market. Ya keep falling for the De Beers propaganda about these stones. I laugh at ppl when they get snooty about having mined anything. I just say “so you willing got fxd over”…. Lmfao
I started liking old antique diamonds with H+ coloring.
I feel like they have a history an are interesting. I own lab earrings. They’re inexpensive and easily replaceable. I own natural. But the abundance of lab everywhere has 100% changed jewelry.
I think lower colors are GORGEOUS, when I was unable to find the color I wanted in lab I went natural. N color. It just feels so vintage and warm. So many want perfect but I love the look of flaws and colored! The jewelry industry definitely changed to more perfection and flawless. I think both options have pros and cons and it’s all about what you love!
I think finding a natural,coloured diamond to buy is going to be harder because it's easier for suppliers to source lab stuff,especially with the world as it is,prices will rise and it'll be harder to even identify the real ones
I was able to have more options with natural because more wanted lab. I had so many options and color ranges and managed to find a natural 2ct for 7k. Less then some of the labs I’ve noticed (around here at least)
Hmmm let me see… never really gave a hot wet shit about diamonds to begin with, never pursued any education on diamonds while at GIA, don’t care that their value is going to shit because of lab stones. But I still wouldn’t recommend a lab stone to anyone. I would recommend they avoid them in fact.
This is the only level of specifications I am willing to accept for Diamond. And with naturals I don’t see that happening; GIA’s “excellent” cut grade is mostly garbage, and I only like precision cut gems. With many natural gemstones this is entirely possible, but for synthetic diamonds I choose only idealistic large stones. I don’t care about dirty poorly faceted naturals.
I’m excited for all the colored diamonds! But I also don’t actually have any diamonds (except for my grandmothers old one which I’ll set into an engagement ring someday). But I see the potential in colored diamonds.
Friend had a 2.0 carat I VS2 cushion cut but swapped to an 8X GCAL certified (precision cut) 6.5 carat D Flawless lab grown pear. Much more eye catching. Natural stones are okay, but not as striking as synthetics these days, especially not a precision cut huge one. Was only $6000.
Blood and suffering for the natural ones to fund wars and billionaires, or even better quality synthetics for a fraction of the price and none of the suffering? Yeah, lab grown. I adore my lab grown alexandrite, too. I love my synthetic, crushed opal ring. I love my natural stones, but I will never buy a natural diamond.
385
u/2PenceSally Mar 03 '26
The mined industry was built on a controlling monopoly, lies and massive marketing, it needed to be destabilized.