posted by
martyb
on Monday November 19 2018, @12:57PM
from the all-that-glitters-is-not-natural-diamond dept.
from the all-that-glitters-is-not-natural-diamond dept.
The South China Morning Post writes that the dominant diamond player De Beers is reacting badly to the arrival of large numbers of good, tiny, lab-grown diamonds. The synthetics challenge the widely-promoted assertion that diamond prices only go up. However, labs are now able to produce chemically identical gem-quality stones, indistinguishable by the naked eye from mined diamonds, in quantities pushing 200k carats of diamonds per month. Synthetic diamonds still only account for %1 of rough diamond sales globally, but that is expected to expand to between 7.5% to 15% by 2020.
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China's Lab-Grown Diamonds Look Good
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(Score: 5, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Monday November 19 2018, @01:08PM (8 children)
DeBeers has been manipulating the diamond market with artificial scarcity for years now anyway and inflated demand with their "diamonds are forever" campaign and other things pushing diamonds as the choice for engagement rings. Of course they're reacting badly to anything that threatens their near-monopoly on "gem grade" diamonds.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 19 2018, @04:45PM (5 children)
Well, I can understand their attitude. Blood diamonds are especially valuable. Those upstart Chinese are going to offer people diamonds without a blood history. They're just valueless, as well as worthless. DeBeers washes their diamonds in oceans of blood, so that you get the very best value in diamonds.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Monday November 19 2018, @05:14PM (4 children)
Such negativity !
Not all diamonds are washed in blood.
Many are washed in sweat of poverty, and tears of working children.
Artificial diamonds ? How dare you not think of the children ?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 19 2018, @05:50PM (3 children)
Yes, well, you'll agree that sweat and tears are rather mundane. People can excrete both by the gallon. Blood, on the other hand, is limited to a few pints. For REAL value, we can take those blood diamonds, and steep them in fresh brains. Fresh human brains, spattered from the skull with either a machete, or a bullet. That is real value, there! And, no, we won't use brains from bomb blast victims, or drone victims. All of our victims are created up close and personal, and the donor's misery documented in fine detail.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 19 2018, @06:06PM (2 children)
The segmentation of the industry between diamond producers, polishers, and ring-makers, is a real problem, preventing what would be the most exclusive and special experience: Diamond rings delivered in a very cute box on the hand of the very cute child who mined it. Them darn customs in Antwerp ruining my customer's dreams !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:07AM (1 child)
If they just get rid of the one child per family doctrine in China they can use the population boom to bloody as many artificially produced diamonds as they need, helping all those poor children in africa by offering the much more prestigious asian child's bodyparts with every diamond instead of those inferior africans. And everybody knows how much white people prefer asians over africans so getting those blood soaked diamonds at a low low chinese price, lovingly placed in the dessicated hands of a chinese child and accentuated by the skull box they arrive in will truly be the most shining example to self absorbed white women of how far you will go to keep them happy, no matter who has to die in the process.
China: we serve our citizens cold, because they last better stored in the fridge.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:09PM
We need a study, because I suspect that a colorful red/green/blue rock might look bigger on an Asian child's hand, but a whitish rock might just be better magnified by a background of black severed fingers...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:24AM
You can't be right! It says right here that diamonds do good [diamondsdogood.com]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:25AM
Indeed. Nothing makes a diamond real and valuable like nigger blood.
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Monday November 19 2018, @01:30PM
They're not a girl's best friend, they're a vandal's best friend, with a diamond-tipped stylus you can graffiti practically anything, shop windows, polished granite walls, steel facings, you name it, it's yours for the scribbling on.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @03:26PM (4 children)
Why are lab-grown diamonds not considered "real gems"? They are absolutely diamonds in a chemical sense. They are more pure than natural diamonds.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday November 19 2018, @04:09PM
As far as I can tell, the reason they aren't considered "real gems" is that it's possible to create them without slave labor.
Seriously, the amount of misery that has come from people liking shiny rocks is absolutely horrifying.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MindEscapes on Monday November 19 2018, @04:30PM
Because of the one word to rule them all, "Marketing"
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:50AM (1 child)
Anyone who calls them "fake" I will not trust, in fact.
I find it an overwhelming advantage that they can be ethically sourced. My wife is adamant (pun intended) that any future diamonds from me will be the embodiment of human knowledge and skill, not dug out of a pit by mistreated workers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:54PM
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 19 2018, @04:11PM (9 children)
With this we can flood the market with gems that are discernible from slave-labor gems, and run them out of business.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 19 2018, @04:14PM (3 children)
*indiscernible
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @04:48PM (1 child)
We were whispering in the darkness. The conversation touched on wildlife, poachers, and rhino horns. I asked if she would like a real rhino horn, and she said yes. But, the discerning young lady knew immediately that this horn wasn't taken from a rhino. Women are smarter than we like to give them credit for!
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 19 2018, @06:47PM
But is it a diamond-tipped rhino horn?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday November 19 2018, @08:20PM
Well, manufactured diamonds can be distinguished from mined diamonds, as mined diamonds have more imperfections, especially when viewed with a loupe or microscope, and can fluoresce differently when exposed to UV light, and can also phosphoresce differently. You can also discern differing patterns in polarised light.
More details here: https://www.gia.edu/identifying-lab-grown-diamonds [gia.edu]
I hope diamond prices drop, as diamond has very useful physical properties. There's a nice parlour* trick where you can use a diamond window (used in expensive spectroscopy equipment [1] [e6.com],[2] [ddk.com],[3] [sciencedirect.com]) as a knife to cut through an ice cube [youtube.com] - it transmits heat so well, it uses the heat from your hand to melt the ice. I would like to be able to demonstrate that at reasonable cost.
*For parlours with easy access do diamond windows used for spectroscopy. They are Not Cheap.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday November 19 2018, @05:38PM (4 children)
I wouldn't take a wager on this. The De Beers cartel is an astoundingly powerful and ruthless organization. They can, will, and have started wars and overthrown governments to protect their interests. They are the one corporation that I genuinely fear.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday November 19 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
> They are the one corporation that I genuinely fear.
They sell diamonds.
I'm pretty sure they rank far below Monsanto, Dow & friends, Big Pharma, Big Oil, most of Wall Street ... on the list of evil corporations to be worried about.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @11:29PM
Don't forget PBS. They created Barney.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @06:27PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by arslan on Monday November 19 2018, @11:54PM
Sure they are, but so is the chinese commie party. If this Lab has the Chinese Commie party's backing, my money's on the Chinese to squash them like bugs. Maybe DeBeers can go toe-to-toe with the next big corp or even small-mid sized govies, but going against the Chinese behemoth is suicide.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday November 19 2018, @06:25PM (3 children)
Granted, I am not married and even if I was getting hitched there most likely would not be a diamond involved, as I'm not that type of person.
But I do buy a significant amount of diamond tooling, typically off eBay and from China.
As I understand the equipment is ready to make jewelry quality diamonds, however marketing is the issue. Industrial grade diamonds are smaller and just look like broken glass.
(Score: 5, Troll) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday November 19 2018, @06:46PM (2 children)
> Granted, I am not married and even if I was getting hitched there most likely would not be a diamond involved, as I'm not that type of person.
If you're a straight guy buying a wedding ring, your opinion of diamonds is not the important opinion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
> If you're a straight guy buying a wedding ring, your opinion of diamonds is not the important opinion.
If your partner doesn't accept your beliefs, you probably shouldn't get married.
A nice ruby, sapphire, or emerald cluster ring can be quite attractive, and all of these can be synthetic.
DeBeers gives evil a bad name.
Diamonds would be much more plentiful if it were not for DeBeers market control. Example: post-Soviet Russia, needed cash, and began to sell a lot of 1-2 carat stones, but DeBeers stepped-in and threatened to use their stone reserves to flood the market with that size of stone, dropping their value sharply, unless Russian producers agreed to sell only to DeBeers at DeBeers's price.
Diamond tools. Diamond chip substrates. All of it has been stifled by DeBeers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Monday November 19 2018, @07:23PM
We should work to fix that then. More research into CVD should help.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday November 19 2018, @07:04PM
Lab grown diamond is real diamond. Synthetic diamond is real dimaond. Did you mean natural instead of real? Because synthetic diamonds are every bit as real as natural ones.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Monday November 19 2018, @09:21PM (3 children)
They do wasabi, too.
If you like sushi, you'll be familiar with that green stuff served with it. But the thing is, even if called so, it's not wasabi. If you're lucky, it will have one percent of wasabi content, with the remainder being horseradish, green colour, and fillers. The pure stuff (sometimes called "hon-wasabi") is seriously expensive. Or maybe it's not so expensive, but we get told the story that it only grows in running water at the slopes of Mt. Fuji under a silver moon during the cherry blossom season while geisha play the koto. Or so, but if it was cheaper than horseradish, we'd have none of that. The stuff I got in Germany, from supermarkets to Japanese-owned specialty shops had something between 0.6 and 2% wasabi content.
Recently, I tried out a new sushi place in town (run by Chinese). Routinely I checked the little "wasabi" sachet I got. 18%. Eighteen. BAM. With my little knowledge of Kanji I deciphered the sachet to read "Tian Peng", "Heavenly Phoenix". A little internet journey brought me to the manufacturer's site. There was no importer to Germany to be found, so that stuff must've been perfectly ... inofficial. Anyway, they had branches: one for "wasabi" and one for "bio-engineering". The wasabi branch had all sorts of packages on offer, including the pure stuff. The bio-engineering branch didn't detail as much, but what I took from it was that they must've had engineered an environment where that root happily grows far away from of Mt. Fuji. So there you go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @09:39PM
There is also wasabi grown in soil, but some people claim infrerior quality to those grown in streams. Maybe they are wasabi snobs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:41AM
Recently, I tried out a new sushi place in town (run by Chinese). Routinely I checked the little "wasabi" sachet I got. 18%. Eighteen. BAM. With my little knowledge of Kanji I deciphered the sachet to read "Tian Peng", "Heavenly Phoenix". A little internet journey brought me to the manufacturer's site. There was no importer to Germany to be found, so that stuff must've been perfectly ... inofficial. Anyway, they had branches: one for "wasabi" and one for "bio-engineering". The wasabi branch had all sorts of packages on offer, including the pure stuff. The bio-engineering branch didn't detail as much, but what I took from it was that they must've had engineered an environment where that root happily grows far away from of Mt. Fuji. So there you go.
Actually a Canadian, figured out how to cutivate wasabi [bbc.com]. So the restaurant's supplier or their supplier either licensed the method from him or just copied it. You need a lot of running water.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bootsy on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:00AM
I have been to several talks by ethnobotanist James Wong http://www.jameswong.co.uk/ [jameswong.co.uk]
Wasabi grows in a particular part of Japan that is damp and wet. James tells a story of being outside of a Japanese restaurant in England and picking up a wasabi plant that had self seeded outside the restaurant when they had throw out the left over bits, including the seeds.
It turns out that the UK has an excellent climate for growing Wasabi and that it would make financial sense to do so given the current costs. He often argues that growing potatoes at home is pointless as they are so cheap to buy from shops and it supports farmers if you purchase them from a shop. Growing Wasabi, yams etc makes far more sense in the UK as these are expensive with less supply.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @11:58AM
People have invented diamond making machines a couple of times already. One lot was selling diamonds in a range of colours.
Debeers always finds them and shuts them down. One way or the other.
What they should have done is built their diamond making machine and then onsold the diamonds on the secondary markets. Don't go near the diamond markets. Establish themselves as 'second hand diamond traders'. Mix in some real diamonds. Start raking in the money.
Never let an enemy know where you live if you can avoid it.