I abhor DeBeers, and the real potential of accidentally buying a conflict diamond that allegedly isn't. Unfortunately, my girlfriend doesn't share--ahm--the same views on the subject. I passed along the WIRED article about these new man-made "real" diamonds, and am wondering what her response will be.

If I had to put money on it, I'd say DeBeers is going to react hard to this and create quite a public relations counter-attack to what could be the solution to getting rid of their bloody cartel once and for all.

I hope that it proves a successful coup.

I'd prefer a clear diamond, but ironically enough she's been joking about getting a yellow diamond every time I remind her what two months salary actually adds up to. I guess we'll see what happens.

A blue Takara would be my first choice over a yellow one, but a yellow Takara the color of sunshine...ah, that's a thing of beauty!

I still think a few years down the road the white created diamonds will be possible..and I don't mean that junk sold on Ebay! It's still a relatively new process.

Today, ABC posted a nice article and video where they take 3 diamonds (one cultured and two natural) and ask the International Gemological Institute in New York to see if they can tell which one is cultured (if at all).

In the video they show Robert Linares from Apollo Diamond and Carter Clarke from Gemesis Corp. talking about their cultured diamonds.

In the video you also get to see the production machines.

see
http://abcnews.go.com


P.S.: my friend just told me he can't see the video without having some kind of subscription, so I apologize to those that can't see the video. Maybe ABC will air the piece on TV or something.

You can view the text of the segment that aired without having to get a subscription. Here is the URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/SciTech/GMA030909Diamond_synthetics_hunter.html

ABC posted another article about Gemesis and Gemesis's retailers today
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/SciTech/diamonds030925.html

In my opinion they are still WAY overpriced. Why would I pay $3,500/ct for a lab grown diamond. Chances are that on the resale market a few years from now, no one is going to want to pay more than $1,000 for a lab one carat. More likely than not they are going to wind up being a dime a dozen on Ebay.

In the first article that was published about them (the one where they had three yellow stones) the guy said that all three were made for less than $100. Those were three carat stones. For me it has absolutely nothing to do with quality...it has to do with the fact that for years, DeBeers has been seen as the nasty big dog on the block. Now they have competition, which is great...but if they are going to be charging $3,500 a carat for stones grown in a lab for less than $50 a carat they're not much better than DeBeers. That's not what I consider affordable. I'd rather stick to Asha.

I agree. It seems that Gemesis is trying to make a little money to pay for all there start-up costs. Their fancy diamonds are selling for about 1/5th the price of natural fancy diamonds. But once they come down to 1/5th the price of clear diamonds, I'll be buying multiple diamonds.

For me, as a computer geek, I'm mostly interested in how they can be used to replace silicon for semiconductors. Laboratories have already gotten diamond based transistors up to 81GHz in speed. That stress would liquify silicon.

Did you see the wafers in the video at all? If you can't see the video, I posted a screenshot here, http://kuren.org/ao/screenshots/81ghz_diamond_pc.jpg

I would love to have a necklace with one of those wafers. I would gain a huge amount of geek-points around the office.

No doubt! That would be different!

Kuren,

RE: I would love to have a necklace with one of those wafers.

If you do accomplish this, don't stop at one, you can sell one to me!

another article about Apollow Diamonds
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/2524368/detail.html