Hacker News Reader

Comment by Luc | Hacker News Reader

I read an article in the financial newspaper today about fake diamonds arriving in Antwerp from India mixed in with real ones in 'diamond melee' packages (lots of small diamonds).

(in Dutch): http://www.tijd.be/ondernemen/retail/Nepdiamanten_sijpelen_o...

I got terribly annoyed reading this article as it constantly conflates 'fake' and 'synthetic', as if they're synonyms. The 'fake' diamonds are actual diamonds, though not natural ones. Clearly a journalist who's echoing the industry propaganda.

Apparently there's an estimated 10,000 diamond making machines churning them out in China. Good!

View on HN

I -love- that the Canadian company started marketing 'conflict free diamonds' as a way to break the deBeers cartel.

It makes me wonder if the synthetic guys have a leg to stand on regarding the ecological footprint of pit mining versus lab grown, or if it's about the same. Maybe they could cook up their own marketing label and stop trying to hide what they're doing.

I don't think conflict free has so much to do with the ecological footprint as it does the human impact of diamond mining operations.

He was referring to the ecological footprint (or lack thereof) of synthetic diamonds, not conflict-free diamonds.

That's what Diamond Foundry, the SF startup, is doing. They have a good story: "We produce gem quality diamonds above the ground in America — in harmony with nature and humanity. A carefully chosen earth diamond is at the origin of each of our diamonds. In the perfectly nurturing environment inside our foundry, diamond crystals want to continue to grow."

The CEO was the founder of Nanosolar, which printed solar cells and went bust because, although the process worked, it wasn't cheaper. The investors in Diamond Foundry are the usual suspects - Zynga's founder, Sun Microsystem's founder, Facebook's co-founder, a former eBay CEO, etc. They even have an actor, for coolness. An endorsement by Leonardo DiCaprio: “I’m proud to invest in Diamond Foundry Inc.– reducing the human and environmental toll of the diamond industry by sustainably cultivating diamonds without the destructive use of mining.” It's a classic startup story.

They claim to be "0.001% Rare"; this reflects their market share, like a microbrewery. Their big problem seems to be distribution. Only five small jewelers handle their product. De Beers punishes jewelers who do things they don't like by excluding them from "sights" where jewelers can buy diamonds at wholesale prices. This makes it hard for competitors to get access to retail outlets.

Aaaand that's the irony of it. I'd literally start a jeweler just to carry 100% American Made Conflict Free diamonds, and hang the biggest goddamned American flag out in front of my shop I can find...

... just to piss in the cornflakes of the DeBeers cartel.

This is not a war they can win.

Pearls went with "cultured" as their marketing term.

I thought cultured pearls were farmed pearls?

You're correct. Cultured (usually fresh water) pearls are farmed ones like Akoya pearls. The expensive ones are just referred to as natural (saltwater) pearls.

Yeah, that's what I was going for as one is naturally caught and the other is farmed. Not much difference given diamonds created in the lab are more pure than those mined.

'Conflict' diamonds can be viewed as another way for DeBeers and others to control the trade, by limiting the supply of diamonds into the market.

Global Witness, the organisation who pushed for the 'blood diamonds' campaign, disavowed it in 2011, because the scheme did not actually provide effective guarantees that the diamonds sold were not blood diamonds.

Others have pointed out the strange absence of any 'blood emeralds' scheme, even though they are often sourced from the same corrupt organisations and countries. But the fact that natural emeralds are much rarer than diamonds means that no-one needs to artifically limit their supply...

> fake diamonds

What a funny concept. Is the index of refraction different from diamond? Is the placement of the carbon atoms not on a diamond lattice? Or is the lattice constant somehow smaller or larger?

The value of a diamond is in its ability to display the wealth of the wearer. If a diamond no longer indicates status, it is "fake". That's the truth they're all beating around the bush of. It's pathetic, but there it is.

They're not fake by that metric either though. No one can tell the difference between a synthetic and a high quality natural diamond - certainly not with the naked eye. So you're free to pretend your diamond came out of the dirt if you so desire.

Eh, splitting hairs, but it's 'fake' only in the sense of art forgery -- one of the paintings is in fact painted by the big-name artist, while the other one, no less marvellous in its execution and visually indistinguishable, isn't. Since only the two painters know for sure, the rest of the world relies on other people's word.

I'm reminded of the Orson Welles "documentary" F is for Fake. I might have to rewatch it tonight.

And not always even that; artists have been fooled by forgeries of their own works before.

You missed my point. If a "genuine" character of a diamond is its ability to display wealth, then a synthetic diamond is "fake" by that measure, or "ersatz" or whatever you prefer. The point is that actually expressing that would make diamonds tacky and pathetic, so it's all done with implications, lobbying, and advertising.

Diamonds are a representation of money. No one can tell the difference between a legitimate $100 bill and one printed using identical equipment and processes by some organization other than the Federal Reserve. Still, a sufficiently large counterfeiting operation would diminish the value of all USD.

I expect De Beers sees it very much like this.

Diamond valuation, like that of art, is not an objective metric, and reason will only get you so far.

Or rather, the synthetic ones are only 'fake' insofar as they are passed off as natural (perhaps to gain a higher price). Put a different label on the box (for instance, the label 'Diamonds'), and they're 'real' again.

DeBeers managed to convince the US Federal Trade Commission to require synthetic diamond manufacturers to label their products as synthetic. But China doesn't require that. China trade practice barely distinguishes between diamonds and cubic zirconia. If you want to order diamonds from China, you have to specify HPHT (high-pressure high temperature), or CVT (carbon vapor deposition) or you'll probably get cubic zirconia.[1]

Nobody can detect better HPHT or CVT diamonds without lab equipment, anyway. Even under a microscope they look very similar. If you hit them with UV light and take a picture milliseconds after the light goes off, the fluorescence patterns are different. There's overpriced test equipment based on this fact. (Now there's a potential phone accessory - a UV flash that plugs into the phone for diamond grading, with associated app. Tiny market, though.)

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-quality-white-hp...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com