History Channel

[dpe49]

Did anyone else see the making of diamonds on the History Channel last night.
A perfect 1 ct diamond cost $600. A small seed diamond is placed in the center of a carbon cylinder and squeezed under a hugh press. Color seems to be an issue right now. Any thoughts on the effect on the diamond trade?

 

[valeria101]

There have been some long threads on this around here. You may find an older poll on wether Pricescope posters would buy created diamonds at 1/2 of price... it was a looong story with inconclusive end. I guess no one knows, but the current consensus is that the production of such things is too small scale to scratch the surface of the faceted diamonds trade, with no plans or prospects for the situation to change. I am sure you know about the artificial fancy colored diamonds of Takara and such. Whites do not seem to be an attractive area for them for the time being.

Making gems seems close to treasure-hunting. In truth, nothing precious is abundant. And everyone knows that keeping prices high and growing is the biggest chanllenge for anyone in this market, as it looks like now. And marketing created gems is not an easy trick to pull fast.

Oh well. This is not even a good abstract of all that has been said about by much more knowledgeable 'insiders' to the trade around here.

 

[strmrdr]

I saw the same show.
The created diamonds are from what Iv seen much more than $600 ct.
Other than that do the search val mentioned for a ton of info.

 

[verticalhorizon]

I read an article about this in Wired last year I think. I got real excited over the prospect of high quality diamonds at a fraction of the cost, but as someone mentioned, there is still a color issue to be sorted out. But they claimed that they are REAL diamonds in terms of their structure.

However, since Wired is a computer-geek magazine, they pointed out that while the companies that are manufacturing diamonds like to get publicity and attention by bringing out these gorgeous man-made rocks (and even selling a few), the technalogical aspects will undoubtibly make a far greater proportion of their money. By lowering the cost of industrial sized diamonds, they can revolutionize the microprocessor industry, increasing computer speeds by factors we haven't seen since the Pentium was first introduced.

If, by chance they happen to be able to create perfect D IF diamonds that you can buy at a fraction of the prices (without getting hit by some foreign mobster), then that's just icing on the cake.

 

[dpe49]

The $600 for 1ct was production cost not retail.

 

[valeria101]

----------------
On 4/1/2004 11:04:33 AM dpe49 wrote:

The $600 for 1ct was production cost not retail.----------------

Yeah... but even a less than perfect faceted natural of the same weight sells for quite a few times more

If 1ct was the rough weight - no problem, small, high quality diamonds are a hot commodity

altough the cost seems a tad high in this case.

 

[dpe49]

One benefit from the possible competition of cultured diamonds it that natural diamonds are usually cut for maximum weight retention. I can see the day that ideal cut will be the norm for natural diamonds. Competition from Japanese motocycle manufactures forced Harley Davidson out of the darkages. This is a good analogy. The diamond trade should remember that the Japanese now made a better motocycle.

My 2 cents.

 

[Mara]

Hehe...please run a search here on Pscope and find the 100000 other threads on this same topic. The Wired article pops up on here like once a month, inciting the same debates over and over.

Bottom line, I think they've got a ways to go before they can mass market these stones, and personally I would not be interested in them anyway.

 

[winyan]

Heh, check this out. Someone has a new scam.

As far as I know, there are no *white* synthetics, and definitely none in these sizes!

win

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...;category=10216