Best places to shop for lab grown diamonds? Looking for best price on a 1 carat.

[DoeEyes]

Nothing more to add. Just looking for a list of places that I can trust for a quality lab diamond at a reasonable price.

 

[OoohShiny]

I don't think we have a 'PS-approved MMD Vendor' list at this moment in time, but there are various places mentioned if you skim through the threads in this section - there are not many, so it shouldn't take too long!

 

[kindred]

Brillantearth.com is one site where people have bought lab grown diamonds. Right now lab grown diamonds aren't much cheaper than mined diamonds. That's why De Beers is making huge waves with their upcoming Lightbox lab diamonds which will only be $800 for 1 ct.

I saw your other thread and I know you were directed here, but you might be interested in this thread in the Fabulous Fashion Jewelry forum.

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/so-who’s-planning-on-buying-a-lightbox-diamond.242771/

 

[DoeEyes]

@kindred thank you! I actually saw that post already and I'm basically now trying to research what's already out available vs waiting for lightbox. I just did some pricing on brilliant earth as well as d.nea. brilliant earth 1ct D/SI2 for $2440 and d.nea 1ct F/SI1 for $3525. So comparing that to $900 from lightbox, it's worth it for me to wait. The only question remaining is whether the cut will be good enough for me. Doesn't need to be perfect but I want some sparkle. I'm thinking lightbox will be exactly what I need but trying not to have too high expectations.

 

[kindred]

I am surprised that there is a 1ct D/SI2 for only $2440.

 

[DoeEyes]

Is that a really good price even though it's lab grown?

 

[kindred]

I haven't paid a lot of attention to lab grown diamond pricing, but it seems lower than I would expect. It might not be a very clean SI2 though, which would impact pricing.

 

[VDK1]

De Beers has launched a new company called Lightbox Jewellery that will sell laboratory-grown diamond jewellery designs at lower prices like costume stones!!! They are much much cheaper than existing lab-grown diamond offerings. Lightbox’s lab-grown diamonds will retail from $200 for a 0.25 ct stone to $800 for a 1 ct stone!

Very straight forwad : " not special, not unique, not real" diamonds. Lighbox can play with chemistry, time and temperature to make a lab-grown diamond in different colors. So you can choose a jewel in blush pink or powder blue.In natural diamonds, these “fancy colors” are extraordinarily rare and extremely valuable. But we can create them any day of the week."

See it yourself https://lightboxjewelry.com

 

[MelloYello8]

While I’m looking forward to lightbox, they won’t sell stones loose and it doesn’t look like they’ll provide any specs. 1 ct will be a range that is more or less a carat and the carat is based on total weight for the piece. None of the initial offers look like they will include any one carat pieces without side stones so I’m starting to doubt any of their products at opening will have a single stone at a full carat.

D.NEA has been around for a long while but has a limited inventory. I recently made a purchase there as well as ecodiamond.com, and the latter has a 10% coupon right now. I remember looking at brilliantearth and it seemed to charge more than other stores with overlapping virtual inventories.
Others I’ve considered are:
https://www.gemifique.com/
https://www.1215diamonds.com/
https://www.25karats.com/
https://www.yadavjewelry.com/
https://www.miadonna.com/
https://renaissancediamonds.com/

 

[VDK1]

Lab grown diamonds can be made every day of the week and as many as you want like people make cubic ice in the freez! Why do you let the MMD manufactures cheat you by selling at 20 % - 30% off from the unique real diamonds from mother nature?
So far no GIA certifications provided for those stones in the market

 

[whitewave]

I’d wait for a lightbox diamond in the fall. See their IG page.

Lightbox is $800a carat.

I would personally NEVER buy a lab diamond after lightbox comes out with their product. Not only are they IMO a rip off at only 30% lower than mined diamonds, but after lightbox, they will only be worth up to $800 a carat, even if you paid $3000.

Nope. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole. To me, at this point it is lightbox or nothing (unless other vendors reduce their prices substantially to match).

 

[VDK1]

Yes, definitely!
You will see the so called "lab grown" "man made" diamonds will become much cheaper and cheaper in the future. Like the other "lab grown" rubby, lab grown saphire ...
Manufactures of lab grown diamonds just want to cheat consumers. One hand they try to attack the nature mined diamonds ( by trying to misleading to "blood diamonds" or non eco friendly bla bla bla ). At the other hand they try to sell those valueless MMD produced last friday at the 80% prices level of the real diamonds one of a kind created by nature since bilion of years ago!

 

[DoeEyes]

I'll wait for lightbox if I decide to go lab grown. Hopefully they will do a nice cut, seems like that's the only unknown. Otherwise it's a no brainier for me. I don't care if it's nature or lab made so the lightbox price can't be beat, as long as the cut is good.

 

[OoohShiny]

Yes, definitely!
You will see the so called "lab grown" "man made" diamonds will become much cheaper and cheaper in the future. Like the other "lab grown" rubby, lab grown saphire ...
Manufactures of lab grown diamonds just want to cheat consumers. One hand they try to attack the nature mined diamonds ( by trying to misleading to "blood diamonds" or non eco friendly bla bla bla ). At the other hand they try to sell those valueless MMD produced last friday at the 80% prices level of the real diamonds one of a kind created by nature since bilion of years ago!

I'm not sure that MMD manufacturers wanting to recoup money to cover their initial investment costs and make some profit, by charging a price that is acceptable to the market (whether or not it's directly related to the price of manufacture using a 'cost plus' approach, or simply set at a price that the market will bear) is anything other than standard business practice. It is not really 'cheating consumers'.

It is no different to the various fashion houses or swiss watch manufacturers charging the earth for goods made for a cost far (far!!) less than the retail sales price.

Both parties are setting their prices at a level the market will bear, and using 'aspirational' marketing to permit them to charge more than would be the case if the public knew the full end-to-end costs of manufacture. (Of course, such costs in the Mined diamond industry also aren't known by the public.)

If a new player enters the market with disruptive pricing, that resets the buying public's expectations - and it is no different to other industries. (Shaving products, Low Cost airlines, etc.)


I do wish MMDs were 'valueless', though - an item without value must surely be free? Sign me up for those free diamonds!!

 

[VDK1]

Ooohshiny,
Synthetic diamonds (or so called lab grown, man made, unreal .. diamonds) are valuless because they are made like you make cubic ices in the fridge at any time you want. MMD manufactures are cheating because they value those things to the nature diamonds. Of couse, MMD are not fee, because of the cost of cuting, cost of machines ... Anyway, you can very soon "buy 1 get 10 free."

Why diamonds are valuable? Those are the reasons why consummers willing to pay very high prices for diamonds : https://realisadiamond.com/diamond-infographic/

1. Before there was life, there were diamonds. Diamonds were formed between 1-3 billion years ago, as deep as 100 miles below the earth’s surface. Diamonds are the oldest thing most of us will ever own or even hold.
2. Diamonds are uniquely beautiful. Like snowflakes, no two diamonds are alike.
3. Diamonds are rare and getting rarer. The last significant discovery of diamonds was almost 20 years ago and only approximately 50 locations around the world were found to contain diamonds viable for commercial mining. In 1 ton of rock called kimberlite, you would be lucky to find 1 carat of diamond.
4. The Greeks and Romans believed diamonds were the tears of the gods and remnants of fallen stars. Romans also placed diamonds at the tip of Cupid’s arrow, which is one of the earliest associations to love.
5. Natural colored diamonds are the rarest. There is a 1 in 1,000 chance that a diamond will possess a natural color whether that color is pink, yellow, blue, brown, green, gray or any shade in between.
6. More than 99% of diamonds are now from conflict-free sources and are tracked under the UN mandated Kimberley Process since its inception in 2000.
7. Globally more than 10 million people are supported by the diamond industry.
8. Diamonds create employment opportunities for mine workers and help them to not only make a good salary, but also obtain healthcare, create a better home environment and provide education for their children.
9. The world’s leading mining companies take major steps to help maintain and protect the environments and wildlife that surround their mines. Mine Closure Plans are approved years before a mine opens to ensure the land and communities benefit long after the mine closes.
10. Because of their age and origin, diamonds are scientists’ closest source to the center of the earth and provide clues to what the earth was like 2 billion years ago.

 

[MollyMalone]

@VDK, this is the Laboratory-Grown/MMD forum. You'd be rightly annoyed if -- in a response to a question from you on the Rocky Talky forum for suggestions as to where to purchase a mined diamond -- someone penned an extended ode to lab-grown diamonds instead of answering your question.

And this post of yours is way off base:

Lab grown diamonds can be made every day of the week and as many as you want like people make cubic ice in the freez! Why do you let the MMD manufactures cheat you by selling at 20 % - 30% off from the unique real diamonds from mother nature?
So far no GIA certifications provided for those stones in the market

Gem-quality, lab-grown diamonds are not as easily/quickly -- or cheaply produced -- as ice cubes. If they were, a helluva of lot more people would be cranking them out.

And GIA does indeed issue lab reports for laboratory diamonds (GIA doesn't produce "certifications" for any stone, including mined diamonds). It does not yet issue, however, the same kind of particularized reports as for mined diamonds -- which is why GIA lab reports are less common for MMDs.
https://www.nationaljeweler.com/blog/4779-why-the-gia-grades-lab-grown-diamonds-like-it-does

GIA actually now has its own CVD diamond-growing lab for research purposes.

 

[VDK1]

Yes, since this is the lab grown diamond forum, it 's up to your brainier to go with 800 usd/ carat Light Box or take good offer of 3000 bucks from some other beloved manufactures. It is also up to your mind set that MMD are just costume jewelery or " valuable jem stones".

Lab grown diamonds are not new. The cost for creating them are decresing more and more, specially dirt cheap manufactures from China. You can just make a search to see it yourself like https://m.alibaba.com/product/60766...HT-CVD-Cheap.html?spm=a2706.amp_countrysearch
If GIA report for lab grown diamonds like Colour = colourless, Clarity = Slighly included, yes there are some ..

 

[MollyMalone]

@VDK1, who knows what you'd end up receiving from that Alibaba vendor. The listing is a melange of various terms such "carbon" & "laser drilled" in addition to HPHT and CVD & colors advertised as, e.g., "snow white" or "good color" E. The photos are generic ones that can be seen on the Alibaba pages of other vendors hawking Moissanites & cz's; some of those listings also have "lab-created" in their title. You can be certain, however, that vendor's 1 ct stones -- with a list price topping out at $17.79 -- will not come with a (legit) GIA lab report as advertised -- or a report from any of the other labs listed on that page. The closest GIA lab to Zhejiang Province is in Hong Kong, and it charges $78 - $105 for a synthetic diamond lab report, depending on whether the stone actually hits the 1.00 ct mark. (And you now know that GIA doesn't assign a letter color grade to lab-grown stones). There isn't an EGL lab of any denomination in Asia; HRD's lab is in Belgium.

In short, we have no reason to think that Alibaba vendor's wares are indeed comparable to the lab-grown diamonds that PSers on this particular forum have purchased, would consider purchasing.

 

[MollyMalone]

While I’m looking forward to lightbox, they won’t sell stones loose and it doesn’t look like they’ll provide any specs. 1 ct will be a range that is more or less a carat and the carat is based on total weight for the piece. None of the initial offers look like they will include any one carat pieces without side stones so I’m starting to doubt any of their products at opening will have a single stone at a full carat.

D.NEA has been around for a long while but has a limited inventory. I recently made a purchase there as well as ecodiamond.com, and the latter has a 10% coupon right now. I remember looking at brilliantearth and it seemed to charge more than other stores with overlapping virtual inventories.
Others I’ve considered are:
https://www.gemifique.com/
https://www.1215diamonds.com/
https://www.25karats.com/
https://www.yadavjewelry.com/
https://www.miadonna.com/
https://renaissancediamonds.com/

Bumping up MelloYello8's post since it's the one to date that answered @frogplus 's query. Also tagging @ChristineRose in the hope that she will offer additional feedback for frogplus.

 

[DoeEyes]

@MollyMalone thanks for bumping that for me! I will look at that list but I'm thinking I will probably wait until lightbox is launched since the price difference is so big.
@MelloYello8 there is a single pendant that has just a single stone. This pendant with 1 carat and silver setting would be $900.

 

[MelloYello8]

@MelloYello8 there is a single pendant that has just a single stone. This pendant with 1 carat and silver setting would be $900.

That would be great if that's offered. It's not clear to me if any size and color combination will be available for all jewelry options. If that's the case, I'll be stalking 2ctw diamond studs.

 

[DoeEyes]

@MelloYello8 I actually just went to the website again and found the product list. It does look like that solitaire pendant will only be offered in 1/2 carat. There's a 1 carat halo pendant but like you said, that would include the halo diamonds in the weight and I want a 1 carat center stone. I'll be really disappointed if that's the case. That would remove lightbox from the equation for me completely since half carat is probably too small and I don't want a halo.

 

[bv_jewels]

Ooohshiny,
Synthetic diamonds (or so called lab grown, man made, unreal .. diamonds) are valuless because they are made like you make cubic ices in the fridge at any time you want. MMD manufactures are cheating because they value those things to the nature diamonds. Of couse, MMD are not fee, because of the cost of cuting, cost of machines ... Anyway, you can very soon "buy 1 get 10 free."

Why diamonds are valuable? Those are the reasons why consummers willing to pay very high prices for diamonds : https://realisadiamond.com/diamond-infographic/

1. Before there was life, there were diamonds. Diamonds were formed between 1-3 billion years ago, as deep as 100 miles below the earth’s surface. Diamonds are the oldest thing most of us will ever own or even hold.
2. Diamonds are uniquely beautiful. Like snowflakes, no two diamonds are alike.
3. Diamonds are rare and getting rarer. The last significant discovery of diamonds was almost 20 years ago and only approximately 50 locations around the world were found to contain diamonds viable for commercial mining. In 1 ton of rock called kimberlite, you would be lucky to find 1 carat of diamond.
4. The Greeks and Romans believed diamonds were the tears of the gods and remnants of fallen stars. Romans also placed diamonds at the tip of Cupid’s arrow, which is one of the earliest associations to love.
5. Natural colored diamonds are the rarest. There is a 1 in 1,000 chance that a diamond will possess a natural color whether that color is pink, yellow, blue, brown, green, gray or any shade in between.
6. More than 99% of diamonds are now from conflict-free sources and are tracked under the UN mandated Kimberley Process since its inception in 2000.
7. Globally more than 10 million people are supported by the diamond industry.
8. Diamonds create employment opportunities for mine workers and help them to not only make a good salary, but also obtain healthcare, create a better home environment and provide education for their children.
9. The world’s leading mining companies take major steps to help maintain and protect the environments and wildlife that surround their mines. Mine Closure Plans are approved years before a mine opens to ensure the land and communities benefit long after the mine closes.
10. Because of their age and origin, diamonds are scientists’ closest source to the center of the earth and provide clues to what the earth was like 2 billion years ago.

Diamond is a diamond - shiny & beautiful. No one today thinks like the way you have just listed - that's like 1990.

 

[ChristineRose]

Hi all!

First of all you can get GIA certified lab diamonds, and they have recently expanded their certificate. They now contain all the info you will find on a mined diamond report.

Most lab diamonds are IGI graded, which is what the mall suppliers use. They are sort of the McDonalds of lab grading. They are NOT dishonest. Their grades are what we techies call accurate but imprecise. That is, the average grades are all comparable to a GIA grade, but there will be more stones that are more than a half a grade off. You can deal with this by choosing a good return policy and getting an independent appraiser who is familiar with synthetics. PS recommends this for major diamond purchases already.

Other stones are graded by GCAL. GCAL reports are very reliable. They guarantee that you will get the same grade on the same stone, every time. The problem with a GCAL is that because they use a lot of machine grading, they do not correspond exactly to GIA grades. So GIA might (correctly) grade stone A as G and stone B as H, but GCAL might (also correctly) grade A as H and B as G.

Diamonds are not particularly rare. They are high demand, high quantity, and because there are so few suppliers (e.g. mines) they work together not to flood the market and to keep demand high at least until we run out of diamond mines. Lab stones are actually much rarer. The machines to make those stones are the size of a small house.

Diamonds are also not particularly valuable. You have to spend a lot to get one, but that's because the supply is so tightly controlled. A reasonable price for reselling a diamond is 10% to 70% and the 70% is for an E-Bay (i.e. risky) sale of a premium diamond like a Whiteflash ACA.

DeBoers of course can afford a lot of machines, but their strategy is to shift the market so that they can continue to sell a big white stone to every bride-to-be on the planet. I'm not sure they can pull this off, but I'm sure they are better situated to judge this than I can. DeBoers stones are not graded. They are so cheap though that if you want a small stone and don't much care about quality, you can buy a Lightbox and throw the setting out and get a nice setting. However I'm not sure this is cost effective and you won't get a great stone out of it. That pendent up there is $500 for a stone of dubious quality and a cheap setting, and you can get mystery diamonds that size for $500 on IDoNowIDont with a gold setting.

And finally! There are indeed PS approved synthetic vendors. Most of the stones you'll find online come indirectly from Brilliant Earth, so if you go that route you might look for a local vendor that understands cut quality and has access to better setting. Good Old Gold has a limited selection, and d.NEA is a long time PS poster and also has a limited selection. But either of them can get you anything you want and will work with you.

ETA: Helpful Link!

https://www.goodoldgold.com/lab-grown

 

[VDK1]

@ChristineRose Please tell from whom you know "GIA MMD reports contain all the info you will find on a mined diamond report."? Official GIA states it only provide general description of color and clarity: https://www.gia.edu/analysis-grading-sample-report-synthetic-diamond.

Lab grown diamonds are just costume jewelery. 800 usd / carat is "reasonable" for the time being and must be cheaper sooner or later. Of course you can not expect "De Beer" or " Forevermark" laser inscription or quality. Just wonder Light Box MMD are not yet out to the market how can you know they are cheap quality???
Finally please Ccome to Rusia or China to see yourself that now a day the machines to make those lab grown diamonds are not as big as your house

 

[DoeEyes]

@VDK1 I'm curious why you're saying lab grown diamonds are costume jewelry? It's my understanding that they are exactly the same make up as natural diamonds. It would seem to me that as long as they are cut the same, they are exactly the same as any natural diamond other than where it came from.

 

[VDK1]

@VDK1 I'm curious why you're saying lab grown diamonds are costume jewelry? It's my understanding that they are exactly the same make up as natural diamonds. It would seem to me that as long as they are cut the same, they are exactly the same as any natural diamond other than where it came from.

Yeah, that ' s the point!
Years in the history people are willing to pay high price or extreemly hight price for the precious jem stones like diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire and jadeite... because of their physically beauty and the unique and finiteness ( rareness ) of those stones in nature !
MMD have the same physical and chemical structures of diamonds but are not unique not rare and not finite like nature diamonds. That is the point. Simple example, a piece of stone from the moon can be very expensive but if you can make a machine that produce the same physical and chemical of this stone, who will buy this? Same concept of the antique and fake antique : prices of those can not be compared

 

[OoohShiny]

Yeah, that ' s the point!
Years in the history people are willing to pay high price or extreemly hight price for the precious jem stones like diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire and jadeite... because of their physically beauty and the unique and finiteness ( rareness ) of those stones in nature !
MMD have the same physical and chemical structures of diamonds but are not unique not rare and not finite like nature diamonds. That is the point. Simple example, a piece of stone from the moon can be very expensive but if you can make a machine that produce the same physical and chemical of this stone, who will buy this? Same concept of the antique and fake antique : prices of those can not be compared

Another way to look at it is that humans, through the combined application of experience and intelligence gained through thousands of years of evolution and learning and knowledge sharing, has learnt how to create a form of carbon that takes millions of years to form in nature - we have, in effect, become masters of nature.

IMO this is something to be celebrated and be in awe of - I don't see any other species on this planet doing similar for the foreseeable future, and it perhaps might never happen again, depending on your view of the likelihood of life existing on other planets within the universe.

Only humans, with their notions of 'social status' and animalistic desire to be better than others (presumably a persistent hang-over from the thousands of years when it was necessary to show one was better than other people in order to acquire a mate and guarantee the continuation of your genes) would want to denigrate the amazing achievements we make, and instead promote the continued pillaging of things within the Earth's that have been built up over the millions of years prior to our existence, which unless we change the way we live and apply the very best of our technology to capture more energy from the sun to power our lazy-arsed needs and manipulate materials at the atomic level to create new materials that reduce our need to use those in the ground, will see the Earth a drained and empty rock, and something to be abandoned in due course so that we can go off and drain another planet of its resources. (We've all watched Wall-E, haven't we?)

What will happen if there comes a point that the need for money and food no longer exists, because one can create either at will using replicator machines, á la Star Trek? How will those of a higher social status show just how much better they are than others? Perhaps they will actually have to apply themselves and increase their levels of learning? Perhaps, free of the need to toil in order to simply survive, humans will be able to spend that time bettering themselves and mankind in general, such as by helping others and applying knowledge to solve problems? Perhaps intelligence and living life to benefit others will become more valued than the possession of 'things' that one can wave around at others to try and show how much better one is (which, of course, one can't take with us when we die anyway)?

I 'get' the argument for rarity increasing value and, in some people, the desire to own something. But perhaps us humans should get over the need to covet things and transcend to a higher existence, whereby we are less about what we own and more about what we do? Removing 'Greed' from the human make-up would do a lot to reduce the many problems we face.

 

[ChristineRose]

VDK is very prejudiced against synthetic diamonds and likes to come on these forums to say bad things about them. As I have said, mined diamonds are not rare--99% of married women own at least one--and synthetic diamonds are much rarer.

Concerning fake antiques--most of these are not good models of the real thing, nonetheless many people buy and love fake antiques and the price corresponds to the quality, like everything else. In fact people often prefer the fakes because they are in better condition and cheaper.

When fake antiques are made to look just like real antiques (i.e. dirty and damaged), they are sold fraudulently and people pay antique prices for them. In contrast synthetic diamonds ARE perfect copies of mined diamonds, and unfortunately people are starting to pass them off as mined stones.

There are people on these forums like Kenny who collect diamonds that they will never do anything with except photograph, and that's perfectly fine. I knew a guy who collected antique electric orange juice making machines.

 

[VDK1]

@ChristineRose how many carats of gem quality diamonds were already mined so far and how many carats left of rough diamonds are still left inside the earth or in De Beer ' s cellar? In which how many % are colour diamonds? They are of course finite. Why you keep saying diamonds are not rare? Of course diamonds are not as rare as rubby

How funny that MMD are rarer? They are just manufactured product, their potential supply is unlimited. Of course fortunately the market demand is not high today to produce them like ice cubics.
You cannot compare an original antique to a reproduction, you cannot compare a diamond to a synthetic. Anyway, a beautiful costume jewwlery that costs some hundred usd instead of 3k usd is good for consumer, isn't it?:roll