Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bartweiss | Hacker News Reader

From the right sellers, actual lab diamonds are also vastly cheaper than this. I'm not sure if there are consumer sources yet, but the issue certainly isn't on the supply end.

It looks rather like the startup is trying to undercut mined diamond cartel prices, but keep a hefty cut of that markup while the artificial market is still low on competition.

View on HN

Any ideas for a source for lab diamonds at wholesale price? I see lots of jewelry makers undercutting the mined prices but are still pricey.

Ironically, De Beers. They've promised a line of lab-grown diamonds this year at $800 for 1 carat, which is the lowest price I've seen. The line is starting with pink, blue, and white.

Colorless is still a pain, though - apparently 1 carat gem-quality colorless is still about $4,300 at market rates.

Lab diamond are really not that cheaper at gem quality level. While industrial HPHT diamond are dime a dozen, gem quality is difficult to achieve even at lab environment.

Fair point. I had remembered $800 for 1 carat synthetics, which is apparently true for colored diamonds (including pink, which is popular). But colorless looks like its still >$4,000 synthetic, which is hardly cheap.

I.e. the mattress in a box business model.

Precisely.

And I should mention, I don't actually blame anyone for this - capturing some profit before the market reacts is exactly what promotes competition, and as a startup they're taking a nontrivial risk that would be much larger if they simultaneously tried to run at cost. Still, I won't be interested until prices drop a lot further.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com