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Having recently purchased an engagement ring, I am amazed by how inexpensive synthetic diamonds have become. Back in 2015 I paid for a natural stone. Prices the

Having recently purchased an engagement ring, I am amazed by how inexpensive synthetic diamonds have become. Back in 2015 I paid for a natural stone. Prices then were nuts. You can get so much more weight, color, and clarity now. I really hope the extraction of natural diamonds becomes a historical shame soon. I do not understand people who want a natural stone. My buddy is marrying a woman who insisted on a natural rock. It’s one of many things wrong with her, and fits the pattern I’ve seen with her to a T.

otherme123 3y ago
Ask the jeweller to put one natural rock on a table, among 1 synthetic and 8 Zircons, and let she choose the one she likes more.
- explaininjs 3y ago
  Aren’t engagement rings supposed to be a surprise?
  - skinner927 3y ago
    An engagement should never be a surprise. The ring can be a surprise, but you’d do good to ask your partners input since it’s for them. Many couples go to the jewelers together to pick out, generally, why they want. The actual purchase can be made later.
    - MrDunham 3y ago
      My girlfriend, now wife of seven years, put together a Pinterest board of ring styles that she liked. It worked fantastically well… I still got to surprise her with the actual final ring and she was thrilled that it was the style that she liked and enjoyed the surprise. Perhaps not for everyone but I certainly enjoyed having it be more thoughtful than me essentially clicking the buy button for her. She did, too.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Why do people want a diamond at all is a good question to ask (and research). Shame $5k to charity isn’t the convention.
- hyperliner 3y ago
  Not everybody has $5k to give away to charity, but they have $5k to give to De Beers.
- kikokikokiko 3y ago
  I don't know if it's just another example of my complete immunity towards advertising and marketing in all of it's forms, but one of the requirements I set early on when I started to think seriously about settling down was "she can't give any value, at all, to useless things like an idiotic ring with a dumb whisperer's rock on it". I found my girl thank God. Not being an american neither having lived in the US at any point in my life, it always amazed me that your society accepted as common knowledge that "you must spend X months of your salary on a dumb whisperer's rock to prove to your woman that you value her. The DeBeers corporation sure did a good job on you guys.
  - hfuyf65 3y ago
    While we are likely aligned with regards to advertising, I would like you to consider a counter argument. The rock is a rock, but its exaorbitant price serves as a threshold for potential mate selection. We may consider it crass, but animal kingdom is full of examples of females considering males based on specific criteria.
    - kikokikokiko 3y ago
      Yes, it's perfectly expected for females (on average) to give a lot of value to "useless" demonstrations of fitness when selecting a mate. The peacock exists. But it's also perfectly expected for a male, if he's aware of these innate traits, when selecting a female partner, if he's looking for more important things other than looks and physical attractiveness, to give more "points" to different traits. In my case, intelligence was factor number 1. If she reaaally needs that stupid ring, she's out. In the end I got myself a PhD girlfriend, that is way smarter than me, and with whom I can have conversations way into my 80s. Mission accomplished. Thank you DeBeers for creating a standardized test to put potential wives through.
markisus 3y ago
Do you think that autographed memorabilia should not be worth more than un-autographed counterparts? Or original paintings vs reproductions?
- isykt 3y ago
  Neither autographed memorabilia nor original paintings are regularly produced through the systematic exploitation and murder of entire populations, and neither autographed memorabilia nor original paintings had their value fabricated through a sales campaign which leveraged romantic conventions of western culture. It’s not really a reasonable comparison.
  - markisus 3y ago
    With respect to your first point, we should all make sure the products we buy are ethically produced. But this has no bearing on the question of whether it's rational to assign higher prices to naturally produced diamonds. There are many other things that are unethically produced, that people pay high prices for, and where those prices are viewed as sensible (eg. oil, smart phones, opioids). As for your second point, there is a large marketing component for most things that are bought and sold, including art and memorabilia. You say that for diamonds, the value is fabricated. But I believe the fabrication of value creates real consequences. It's not trivial to coordinate the action and common knowledge of an entire population. If you do it right, it creates a new Nash equilibrium. If someone then gifts you a "natural" diamond, it is irrational to sell it at the "synthetic" price. Your buyer might even be a diamond dealer who also believes the natural-synthetic thing is a marketing scam. The whole population can even know the whole situation is fabricated. But unless they can all coordinate and change the market price in unison, it doesn't make sense to deviate from the equilibrium.
    - isykt 3y ago
      > But this has no bearing on the question of whether it's rational to assign higher prices to naturally produced diamonds. Sure it does. In economics, it’s called a negative externality, and it’s a common topic when discussing pricing the output of industrial processes. >But unless they can all coordinate and change the market price in unison… They don’t need to. We have governments that do that, through mechanisms like taxes and tariffs.
max_ 3y ago
The luxurious value of a diamond comes from the fact that it is expensive. Making a cheap diamond maybe useful for industrial applications, but for luxurious purposes (engagement rings & jewellery et al) it's counter productive.
- mpsprd 3y ago
  I disagree. As someone who doesn't own jewelry, I must admit nothing blings like diamond. Go to the London tower and look at the crown jewels. It's jaw dropping. It's of course a way of displaying your wealth, but it also reflects and scatters light in an incredible way.
  - max_ 3y ago
    Do you really think the "bling value" is what makes some diamonds cost in the tens of thousands of dollars? The "bling value" does exist. But a diamond jewelry is mostly to signal status. If the signal is cheap, the value is worthless. Just buy your wife an engagement ring and tell her it's a cheap, second hand, artificial diamond and watch the light die out of her eyes.
  - ftxbro 3y ago
    > nothing blings like diamond. fair enough if part of the bling is being dazzled by the price or prestige, but optically moissanite has a more brilliant refractive index than diamond
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    moassinite
bafe 3y ago
I got a natural diamond for my fiancé but with a twist: it's an old stone that the jeweler I choose recycled from old jewelry. Same for the gold, she's used old gold
- slaw 3y ago
  Old gold as opposed to a newly made gold from a fresh supernova?
  - bafe 3y ago
    Old gold as in jewelry being molten and cast again instead of being made from recently mined gold
hardware2win 3y ago
Ppl pressuring on natural diamonds are, uh...
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> I am amazed by how inexpensive synthetic diamonds have become. Back in 2015 I paid for a natural stone. Prices then were nuts. You can get so much more weight, color, and clarity now. I used to get synthetic cut rubies and sapphires (same mineral) from a bulk supplier. 12mm sapphires were about $12 each. Rubies were a lot cheaper than that.

otherme123 3y ago

Ask the jeweller to put one natural rock on a table, among 1 synthetic and 8 Zircons, and let she choose the one she likes more.

explaininjs 3y ago
Aren’t engagement rings supposed to be a surprise?
- skinner927 3y ago
  An engagement should never be a surprise. The ring can be a surprise, but you’d do good to ask your partners input since it’s for them. Many couples go to the jewelers together to pick out, generally, why they want. The actual purchase can be made later.
  - MrDunham 3y ago
    My girlfriend, now wife of seven years, put together a Pinterest board of ring styles that she liked. It worked fantastically well… I still got to surprise her with the actual final ring and she was thrilled that it was the style that she liked and enjoyed the surprise. Perhaps not for everyone but I certainly enjoyed having it be more thoughtful than me essentially clicking the buy button for her. She did, too.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Why do people want a diamond at all is a good question to ask (and research). Shame $5k to charity isn’t the convention.

hyperliner 3y ago
Not everybody has $5k to give away to charity, but they have $5k to give to De Beers.
kikokikokiko 3y ago
I don't know if it's just another example of my complete immunity towards advertising and marketing in all of it's forms, but one of the requirements I set early on when I started to think seriously about settling down was "she can't give any value, at all, to useless things like an idiotic ring with a dumb whisperer's rock on it". I found my girl thank God. Not being an american neither having lived in the US at any point in my life, it always amazed me that your society accepted as common knowledge that "you must spend X months of your salary on a dumb whisperer's rock to prove to your woman that you value her. The DeBeers corporation sure did a good job on you guys.
- hfuyf65 3y ago
  While we are likely aligned with regards to advertising, I would like you to consider a counter argument. The rock is a rock, but its exaorbitant price serves as a threshold for potential mate selection. We may consider it crass, but animal kingdom is full of examples of females considering males based on specific criteria.
  - kikokikokiko 3y ago
    Yes, it's perfectly expected for females (on average) to give a lot of value to "useless" demonstrations of fitness when selecting a mate. The peacock exists. But it's also perfectly expected for a male, if he's aware of these innate traits, when selecting a female partner, if he's looking for more important things other than looks and physical attractiveness, to give more "points" to different traits. In my case, intelligence was factor number 1. If she reaaally needs that stupid ring, she's out. In the end I got myself a PhD girlfriend, that is way smarter than me, and with whom I can have conversations way into my 80s. Mission accomplished. Thank you DeBeers for creating a standardized test to put potential wives through.

markisus 3y ago

Do you think that autographed memorabilia should not be worth more than un-autographed counterparts? Or original paintings vs reproductions?

isykt 3y ago
Neither autographed memorabilia nor original paintings are regularly produced through the systematic exploitation and murder of entire populations, and neither autographed memorabilia nor original paintings had their value fabricated through a sales campaign which leveraged romantic conventions of western culture. It’s not really a reasonable comparison.
- markisus 3y ago
  With respect to your first point, we should all make sure the products we buy are ethically produced. But this has no bearing on the question of whether it's rational to assign higher prices to naturally produced diamonds. There are many other things that are unethically produced, that people pay high prices for, and where those prices are viewed as sensible (eg. oil, smart phones, opioids). As for your second point, there is a large marketing component for most things that are bought and sold, including art and memorabilia. You say that for diamonds, the value is fabricated. But I believe the fabrication of value creates real consequences. It's not trivial to coordinate the action and common knowledge of an entire population. If you do it right, it creates a new Nash equilibrium. If someone then gifts you a "natural" diamond, it is irrational to sell it at the "synthetic" price. Your buyer might even be a diamond dealer who also believes the natural-synthetic thing is a marketing scam. The whole population can even know the whole situation is fabricated. But unless they can all coordinate and change the market price in unison, it doesn't make sense to deviate from the equilibrium.
  - isykt 3y ago
    > But this has no bearing on the question of whether it's rational to assign higher prices to naturally produced diamonds. Sure it does. In economics, it’s called a negative externality, and it’s a common topic when discussing pricing the output of industrial processes. >But unless they can all coordinate and change the market price in unison… They don’t need to. We have governments that do that, through mechanisms like taxes and tariffs.

max_ 3y ago

The luxurious value of a diamond comes from the fact that it is expensive. Making a cheap diamond maybe useful for industrial applications, but for luxurious purposes (engagement rings & jewellery et al) it's counter productive.

mpsprd 3y ago
I disagree. As someone who doesn't own jewelry, I must admit nothing blings like diamond. Go to the London tower and look at the crown jewels. It's jaw dropping. It's of course a way of displaying your wealth, but it also reflects and scatters light in an incredible way.
- max_ 3y ago
  Do you really think the "bling value" is what makes some diamonds cost in the tens of thousands of dollars? The "bling value" does exist. But a diamond jewelry is mostly to signal status. If the signal is cheap, the value is worthless. Just buy your wife an engagement ring and tell her it's a cheap, second hand, artificial diamond and watch the light die out of her eyes.
- ftxbro 3y ago
  > nothing blings like diamond. fair enough if part of the bling is being dazzled by the price or prestige, but optically moissanite has a more brilliant refractive index than diamond
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  moassinite

bafe 3y ago

I got a natural diamond for my fiancé but with a twist: it's an old stone that the jeweler I choose recycled from old jewelry. Same for the gold, she's used old gold

slaw 3y ago
Old gold as opposed to a newly made gold from a fresh supernova?
- bafe 3y ago
  Old gold as in jewelry being molten and cast again instead of being made from recently mined gold

hardware2win 3y ago

Ppl pressuring on natural diamonds are, uh...

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> I am amazed by how inexpensive synthetic diamonds have become. Back in 2015 I paid for a natural stone. Prices then were nuts. You can get so much more weight, color, and clarity now. I used to get synthetic cut rubies and sapphires (same mineral) from a bulk supplier. 12mm sapphires were about $12 each. Rubies were a lot cheaper than that.