Why don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest?
Because it's a prestige product, Where "authenticity" counts?
(e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_diamond)
Or perhaps because millions of animals are slaughtered each day to be consumed as food?
Synthetic diamonds are actually not cheap at all, maybe third of the price of the real ones. I expected them to be dirt cheap when shopping for the wedding ring.
I am not surprised. I'd expect the "jewellery-grade" synthetic diamonds to have the same artificial inflation of price that we see in natural diamonds. I would imagine industrial diamond dust has a different cost.
When researching lab-made, I found them to be 70% - 80% of the cost of nats across the board. My jeweler told me that (at least for the brand he carried) DeBeers bought the company that had the technology and patents for creating them in the lab, and thus the prices will remain close to nats as they will not set them at a point where they erode pricing on nats. Based off my research, if the poster above you got his/hers at 30% of nat cost, I'd say that is a pretty great deal, and I'd have liked to have found it myself before I purchased mine for my wife.
I'm just happy that there is a humane alternative to blood diamonds. If there wasn't a lab-made option, I wouldn't have purchased a diamond at all.
Actually it's not a humane alternative. The profits from the lab-made diamonds flow into the holding company owning all those mines.
The prices would be a lot lower if not for the identical owners.
While I normally try not to judge corporations, DeBeers looks, to me at least, like the ultimate prototype for "evil monopolist manipulating the masses".
In my experience, the best alternative (in terms of retaining the virtues of diamond without the inflated costs and human rights abuses) to natural diamonds is ironically not artificial diamonds, but moissanite. It looks a lot like a diamond, but more fiery.
>The profits from the lab-made diamonds flow into the holding company owning all those mines.
I considered this too, but then I thought of buying a stone from another company, but realized that paying the same inflated prices for an essentially worthless (worth less anyway) rock would still contribute to keeping the margins and profits up for DeBeers and/or any company that might engage in questionable practices, then I thought about buying a non-diamond, but found that most semi-precious stones for sale were still offered by companies that also traded in diamonds.
To be honest, it was a bit exhausting (especially combined with the planning of a wedding). I just chose to draw the line at buying a stone that was created in a laboratory and not pulled from the Earth by a slave.
I would not be honest if I didn't admit that cultural expectations also came to bear on the decision not to just do something completely different.
I take your point. I feel like this is one of those areas where my purchase decisions could change drastically the more educated I become on the subject of the precious stones trade. Just in the span of buying the engagement ring to the wedding band, we decided to have zero stones of any sort on the wedding band itself.
"I would imagine industrial diamond dust has a different cost."
I have a tube of diamond lapping compound somewhere in my basement shop. Dirt cheap because its full of inclusions and not clear.
They generally don't use jewelry grade diamonds for industrial work, although to manipulate the market I suppose anything could happen.
I was motivated enough to check amazon for the stuff I have and you're probably doing something wrong or weird if you're paying more than $3/gram delivered. One problem with buying a 5 gram plastic syringe of diamond lapping paste for $5 is the plastic syringe and shipping and handling probably cost a significant fraction... I would bet on industrial 55 gallon barrel scale its under $1/gram.
Whoops, sorry. I thought the smiley made it clear I was just kidding around. Seriously, I don't blame you one iota, the De Beer's racket is an absolute crime.
