I bought a good quality moissanite stone for an engagement ring for 2% of the price of an equivalent diamond and not a single person who has seen it has ever thought it was anything but a diamond. My wife gets compliments on it all the time. "What a beautiful diamond!" Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond. The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so. Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point. I effectively saved $20,000 USD going this route and no one is the wiser, execpt my wife of course :)
My wife is a very pragmatic, smart and pragmatic person. But even then she couldn't be convinced not to get a diamond. She was happy skipping the honeymoon and reducing wedding expenses, but the diamond was a no go.
It's not the marketing. It's the fact that it's what biologists call expensive signaling. You are spending money, not on a trip that you both enjoy, but on a ring that really only she enjoys. This is an expensive (therefore hard to fake) signal that you care about how she feels.
Now, imagine that the diamond is cheaper. It is no longer an expensive signal. Therefore, although the diamond is the same, it no longer serves the same purpose. So, the cheaper diamonds get, the less demand there is from prospective brides, even if only marginally. This fuels further declines, although that is probably already happening due to better industrial diamonds.
This takes time, of course. But that also means it has a lot of momentum. As the price decline continues, and the word of that spreads, it will accelerate.
I think explaining it as just signalling is taking a too narrow view of it.
Having a diamond wedding ring is like having a turkey for thanksgiving. That's just the way it's done. It's a part of the culture, maybe you could even say there are religious elements to it.
To elaborate: The "tradition" of diamond engagement rings only dates back to the 1930s, invented almost whole cloth by the DeBeers cartel to sell diamonds. For that reason, I think saying it's a "part of the culture" overstates things. This is not a long tradition that connects us to our ancestors.
the average person has the birthday song sung at them every year, and sings it to friends family and co-workers multiple time per year, ideally you only give/receive a diamond ring once a lifetime.
Sure. But you see people giving diamonds all the time. It's a meme, a discussion topic, reinforced each time you hear the ladies on the train discuss their friend's new "gigantic finger rock".
Just cuz you yourself are making the purchase once doesn't mean it is in a thing much of the time.
Slightly off topic, but what are some traditions that connect us to our ancestors in modern western society? I honestly can’t think of any as a Kiwi living in Australia with a Scottish ancestry and that makes me a bit sad now that I think about it
Leatherworkers still use certain tools, today, that are precisely identical to those used 50,000 years ago. They were perfect for the job then, and still are.
Not working animal skins? You could if you wanted to.
1. Smashing a schooner glass at the pub and collectively yelling "Taxi" as a visceral response (this must have taken generations to embed).
2. Keeping mental tabs on which mate always ducks out before they buy the round and making up for it at a BBQ by grabbing a beer out of their Esky. Possibly leading to a fist fight at around 11:30PM and then making up at around 12:01AM.
3. "Sorry mate" as the default response when you're unable to grab the door for a stranger because you're a few CMs too far away.
Well, there's the long-standing tradition of Anglos exploring and settling the ends of the earth... as a Scot/Kiwi/Australian, in regard to this particular tradition, perhaps you can't see the forest for the trees! ;)
I kinda want to go spear hunting but it is illegal where I live. The only animal I can legally spear is a fish in my State an I would rather fish with a flyrod than spear.
> I'm certain gender reveal parties and baby showers are not in any culture's ancient traditions.
Well, you’re half right. Baby showers in various forms definitely are in many cultures ancient traditions. Gender reveal parties (at least pre-natal ones; there's some post-natal traditions that have some similarity), quite obviously, not.
Christianity is a big one, although that might not apply to you.
A lot of Western culture that goes back hundreds of years has its roots in either religion or the Enlightenment. Holidays, the scientific method, the individualist concept of humanism, capitalism.
Last names. The seven-day week. Learning European history in elementary school. The food you eat every day. Just a bunch of random stuff, really. Think of every way your culture differs from China or Cameroon.
"culture" doesnt mean prehistoric, since it could be seen as the collective activities of a particular time (ex 20th century pop culture. or another example is "canadian culture", which includes things like multiculturalism and universal healthcare. these things are much more recent than 1930!)
My wife is a practical, pragmatic person. But she wanted a diamond ring. She felt sheepish about wanting one.
The expense wasn't the appeal, and she's never been interested in signaling consumer goods otherwise like clothes, purses, fashion, jewelry, cars etc. If I had gotten a rarer, more expensive stone that was not a diamond, she would not have liked it as much. The cultural element of the diamond ring was a big part of the appeal.
Another one in a similar situation. My wife is also very practical and socially conscious. We looked into moissanite really seriously and almost bought a custom ring with it made by a local artist/metalsmith we were working with, and my wife was like "I don't know why but I just don't want this." She knew she wouldn't be happy and was trying to be honest. So we looked into other precious gems, other nontraditional minerals (because of hardness) and she kept coming back to diamonds. The synthetic market at the time wasn't very good, and secondhand was too risky in terms of provenance for her, so we ended up with a Canadian diamond.
I'd love to see the market change, to support more diversity in what's normative. But it is too late for us. My wife loves her ring but it was kind of a surprising reaction for her to deal with. She's said that if it were any other jewelry she'd be fine with something other than diamond. She also in retrospect wishes she had been accepting of moissanite. But it was what it was.
I don't know if it's so much about the money as it is something that she just... wanted. I'm Indian so its custom to gift the bride a lot of gold. She eschewed that happily in favor of a diamond ring that cost a fraction of the gold she was offered otherwise.
But she loves her ring and has never spent a day without it. She will happily wear faux silver earrings but the ring is non negotiable.
Your wife might be special, but there are differences in the signalling of a diamond and gold despite their superficial similarities.
Gold is famous for holding its resale value; so a gift of gold can in theory be unwound to recover the money spent. It is a signal of wealth.
Diamonds cannot be resold, the money may as well have been burned. It is a signal of wealth and commitment. There is also the added bonus that a diamond is not going to be stolen.
>I don't know if it's so much about the money as it is something that she just... wanted.
"Thou Art Godshatter".[1] Long-term fitness-increasing Machiavellian plots are encoded as simple human desires. Indeed, social plays like this one work much better if the host thinks it's something they "just want" rather than some grim manipulative scheme to prove your loyalty.
You don't sound like a very romantic person. There are other things in the world more expensive than diamonds, but she didn't ask him to buy her a skyscraper or Renaissance painting. Different gifts have different meanings, and it's no less logical than different words having different meanings. People associate specific meanings with specific types of stones, flowers, beverages, you name it. You can't substitute "I greatly enjoy the time we spend together" for "I love you."
I must admit to some confusion. I am closely rereading my original comment, and I am failing to find where I suggested that buying a skyscraper is the same as buying a ring.
You're deluding yourself. She could not have at the same time "just wanted" a diamond ring and also "just wanted" you to overpay it 100x times (she cannot notice the difference, so a diamond and a non-diamond ring are functionally equivalent in her eyes, except that you're paying less for one of them)...
It's also worth noting that it's possible to "just want" something for reasons that one isn't consciously aware of (e.g., feeling physically attracted to markers of health and fertility).
This reminds me of the popular idea of "love languages". I was always baffled by the idea that some people considered "gifts" to be the most important way to express love. But diamond rings seem to fit this paradigm perfectly.
No, it's different. For instance, gift-giving is a really big deal in Asian cultures. It's not about throwing lots of money around, it's just showing that you're thinking of someone, so gifts can be very small and inexpensive. So gift-giving is certainly a valid love language, just like physical touch, words of affection, etc. Some people just really like to give their loved one small gifts, and some people really like getting them. They can be small clothing items, candies/food, whatever.
Diamonds aren't "small gifts"; they're absurdly expensive ornaments. Their primary purpose is so American women can show off to other women how much money their husbands have. It's a bit like having a really expensive luxury car: it's a signal to others to show you're rich, not a way for someone to show affection to another.
Edit: About Asian cultures, I'll also add, it's just just lovers. Coworkers will frequently get each other small gifts, or gifts for everyone on the team. This is usually small food items, not anything at all expensive. They might do this if they travel somewhere. I had an Asian (i.e., he had just moved from SE Asia for this job) coworker once give everyone on our team some nice variety of tea, for instance.
When my manager tried to pay for my lunch, I declined and paid myself (I am from Russia, we had no such tradition at that time). The feelings I had were a mix of: a) is he trying to make me a teacher’s pet? I am not a teacher’s pet; b) is he trying to show that he has some power over me except paying my salary? At lunch break? He has no power over me except paying my salary, I can well afford to buy my own lunch.
An American visiting from other company was completely dumbfounded: Why have you paid yourself?? He is your boss, it’s his responsibility to pay when he invites you to lunch!!
...And I was completely dumbfounded observing his reaction: have Americans no pride?
yes and not actually they are both good for the same reason, IE they don't hold value. This sort of gift is social signalling that you are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of wealth for them. Neither chocolate, flowers or diamonds have good resale value so you are sacrificing for the partners happiness.
The function of gift-giving was an early topic of social anthropology, a classic treatment being Mauss' _Essai sur la Don_ [1]. It contains the (to me) stunning Inuit proverb "Gifts make slaves like whips make dogs" - gift-giving binds the recipient to the giver, it leaves them obligated. Which is not the rosy picture we have of it, but worth thinking about in this context (or any other).
Apparently it ain't the monetary value, per the other comments, which leads me to believe that what makes a diamond ring romantic is specifically the human suffering.
Suddenly Padmé agreeing to marry a guy who slaughtered an entire village of Sand People and monologued to her about it makes a lot more sense.
Welcome to the irrationality (or pseudo rationality) of the human race. My hope is these materials flood the market like this article alludes to so that the market is destroyed and we can move on to something else. Another "fitness indicator" that im happy to see go is the preference for a sports car among young men.
As one of those guys formerly, I can only agree. Does very little for you in terms of satisfaction. Or proving fitness for that matter. Ended up selling my fancy Italian car to a guy who actually understood cars.
It's the marketing.
When I married, I suggest that we should spent the same amount of money to buy something that's looks like a diamond but it's not a diamond.
No go. The price would be the same. So the expensive signal was there. Nope. She wanted a diamond. If it's not a diamond, it's not real.
My wife is as well. When we were married we were too poor to buy a diamond, but she always held out the desire for one. Coincidentally, about the time the movie "Blood Diamond" came out (2006) was about the time we were able to afford a decent diamond for her. The movie had a huge impact on her and she spent weeks slipping in between diamond shopping and learning about blood diamonds.
While she knew that diamonds are more or less worthless logically, the marketing and social drivers kept it in her head that she needed one - the emotional need was very very high. But the more she read about the human cost the more in conflict the social worth of the things became.
Ultimately she decided that the moral cost aligned with her logical mind and that's what finally overrode her emotional desire to get one. She still wanted a sparkly thing and after spending some time looking in to lab grown diamonds, she coudn't get over the basic worthlessness of having an expensive sparkly thing and ended up just getting a modest lab grown moissanite ring -- on sale and with a discount coupon.
No matter how much we pat ourselves on the back for how rational and smart beings we humans are, the reality is that emotions are running the show much more than logic. Evidence is everywhere - elections, fashion, life, shopping and partner choices and so on. For some people its almost purely emotions, and their lives usually look accordingly. Peer pressure, status symbols etc - all just variations of same emotional loops.
Not only are emotions running the show, the emotions are being run by very rational marketers and politicians. Although this may have been less true in past centuries, today being run by emotions means being run by other people.
Nothing compared to when you get a house as a couple. Rational pricing and cost-benefit analyses go out the door when the emotional buttons hit on some overpriced place.
Used to be. I expect the price of McMansions built in the last 20 years to plummet as people realize they cost more to heat, clean, and maintain, without providing commensurate value.
A big house can have value, but not the way they are typically built in the US. A valuable one has a big-enough living section with a separate workshop, gallery, or apartments. American zoning laws tend to forbid it, so the workshop is often labeled a "garage". Your garage can be as big as you like, but you may be obliged to conceal how you use it.
Strange but true, Americans have been taught it's normal. Like diamonds.
It doesn't outwardly seem pragmatic if she's happy to forego expense which provide a service or experience, but not a piece of stone that weighs less than a gram and serves no function other than to display wealth. You'd be better spending that money on a fancy sports car - at least you'd get some fun out of it and a fair resale value.
It’s the bitcoin of yestercentury. It doesn’t display wealth - it proves effort has been spent for something that’s mostly (or entirely) useless. Quite, but not exactly sunk cost.
People are willing to give something up for proof of effort; a personal union, or something else of value.
Whenever someone tells me bitcoin is a scam and has no intrinsic value, I ask them about diamonds, expensive art, etc. Most people cannot reconcile bitcoin and diamonds (as jewelery) in the same value frame.
Diamonds do have some functional uses of course, as does gold. But their price is wholly determined by the belief (whether justified or not) that they cannot easily be manufactured on demand. Just like bitcoin.
>It’s the bitcoin of yestercentury. It doesn’t display wealth - it proves effort has been spent for something that’s mostly (or entirely) useless. Quite, but not exactly sunk cost.
I really like that, bitcoin as the diamond of yesteryear. Effectively finite, has to be mined, only has value/importance because a group of people assign it one, has limited practical use (diamonds as abrasives mostly, bitcoin as a cookie crumb record of transactions) is seen as foolish/wasteful by others, you can't use either for practical trade as the vast majority of individuals/companies don't accept either for trade and both could easily be rendered worthless by a technological advancement or social change.
Mojssanite (sp?) and zirconium stones have those properties as well, and cost much less. Some other gem stones are very hard to distinguish from diamonds without specific tools.
Does your sister have a preference for diamonds over finely cut zirconium (or even glass)? It’s likely not as simple as that, even if you and her try to rationalize it that way.
I nor her have any specific preference for diamonds. I only explained why she, and many people, like them: it’s as dumbly simply as “sparkle, sparkle”.
Except bitcoin can't be manufactured on demand. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible analogy. There's a reason why people compare bitcoin to gold, because it makes for a better analogy, despite the fact that gold is actually ubiquitous throughout the solar system, and bitcoin is actually finite. For the record, I own zero bitcoin.
Analogy illustrates a point, it’s not meant to claim that two things are totally equivalent. It’s very hard to make an analogy on HN because someone will make a complaint about it like this one, and the overall effect just lowers the quality of discourse.
I don’t understand where you believe I am wrong; I said the gold, diamond and bitcoin all have the property that they cannot be manufactured on demand.
Corn can be, and regularly is; iron is abundant. Both are priced by their functionality (with a price floor set by the cost of manufacturing/extracting/growing if we ignore subsidies for a moment). If they become too expensive, they will be replaced by other cheap metals or crop in most uses.
Gold/bitcoins/diamonds just become more desirable when their price goes up.
Diamonds only prove that in a very narrow sense, namely in that some gemstone expert (that you need to trust) can subject the diamond to a battery of sophisticated tests in order to testify to its genuine, non-counterfeit nature.
Bitcoin's Proof of Work is trivially verifiable in comparison.
I know you’re not being precise, but the term “backed” is not valid. For a currency to be “backed” or more accurately commodity backed currency, you must be able to exchange that currency for that other thing. I.e. money for gold. You can’t get the electricity back in exchange for your bitcoin. :)
Can you pay your electric bills in bitcoin? Even though dollars are not 'backed' by gold, you can still exchange dollars for gold. Just not from the government at a government-fixed price.
If you buy something that's directly useful then you (in the general case) risk being exploited. By buying something that can't be used or resold, you give the signal but in a "safe" way.
Symbolism is a thing. There's no actual need or pragmatic need for a engagement or wedding ring - or wedding for that matter.
These things are symbols that ascribe value to a person and a relationship. Getting it made out of plastic rather than gold goes not carry the same symbolism.
That’s not true. The far greater purpose is for the man to signal commitment to his bride. By spending a lot of money, especially if it’s not easy for you to afford it, you signal to her that you are seriously committed to her. You signal that you trust her with something very expensive that would not be easy for you to replace.
You can’t bypass that sort of thing. If the price of diamonds collapsed completely then we’d need to find something else to replace them.
I categorically disagree with this, but let's run with the logic. If we are talking about financial commitment and signaling to a partner, why not gift a house, a car, a long term bond, cash, expensive clothing, a watch, literally any other piece of jewelry, etc? Why does it have to be a diamond which is literally the worst possible use of the money short of burning it? Why does it have to be publicly displayed on a ring if the intention is personal signaling? Why does it have to be the guy that does it; shouldn't the wife also signal equal levels of commitment or is she incapable of that?
Also, we can bypass this kind of thing and did up until the last century. Further, certain couples bypass this type of thing all the time routinely. You don't see gay male couples giving each other diamond engagement rings and yet their marriages aren't exploding in spectacular fashion.
It doesn't even make sense from a financial penalty standpoint. Anyone who is on an upward trajectory would be able to bounce back from losing a month or two of salary relatively quickly in which case it's not really forcing long term commitment.
There is no real point to this ritual other than showing off. The guy gets to show off how much cash he has and the woman gets to show off to everyone else that she has a guy with a lot of financial resources. It is completely arbitrary and we have arbitrarily converged on a diamond as a mechanism to do this. Sure giving rings makes people feel good; receiving and gifting any present makes people feel good; but it's absolutely not a necessary requirement for a healthy relationship.
>It is completely arbitrary and we have arbitrarily converged on a diamond as a mechanism to do this.
This isn't quite true.
1) Who's "we"? Outside the US, no one really cares that much about diamonds. Outside the US, western Europe, and Japan, no one does. It's largely an American phenomenon.
2) People didn't just "arbitrarily coverge" on diamonds; this was engineered by DeBeers almost a century ago, in what's probably the most successful marketing campaign in human history.
>If we are talking about financial commitment and signaling to a partner, why not gift a house, a car, a long term bond, cash, expensive clothing, a watch, literally any other piece of jewelry, etc?
This is literally what's done in other cultures, and has been for ages. Though usually, it's the bride's family who has to pony up all this largesse, in what's called a "dowry".
>Why does it have to be the guy that does it; shouldn't the wife also signal equal levels of commitment or is she incapable of that?
This is a very good question, because again, in other cultures, it has traditionally been the bride (or rather, her family) who had to provide a dowry to get a decent man to marry her. This of course has, in more recent times, driven families to abort their unborn female children in favor of male children.
> usually, it's the bride's family who has to pony up all this largesse, in what's called a "dowry".
Pedant here. Hello everybody!
There is a difference between dowry and bride price. Traditionally the dowry in culture with custom of primogeniture was the portion of inheritance the bride brought with her. It's a bribe to the groom's family not to contest the rest of the inheritance when his father-in-law dies, not to put a fine point on it.
Following Anglo-Saxon customs (which was heavily influenced by the Vikings) brides were given morgangifu, literally morning gift, from her husband the morning after the wedding. This is hers to take with her and her children, after a divorce or death of the husband. See also morganastic marriage, where a woman and her children get nothing except the morning gift, that is, she and the kids don't get the traditional inheritance (crown, title, land, such). It's a payoff to the bride's family to not contest what's regarded as the groom's family's property, not to put a fine point on it.
The bride price is the cost paid by the groom to the bride's family, this practice was more common in Asia and the tribal Middle East. Women were regarded as property, her leaving the family home and joining the family of her husband is regarded as a loss to her clan. In ancient Chinese text, lesser wives not just concubines were bought, literally.
The GP seems to be referring to the (today illegal) practice from South Asia wherein the bride's family is required to provide a payment to the groom's family as part of a marriage contract, a practice which was is itself a reflection of the traditional state of disempowerment of women.
The British colonists, upon observing the similarities of this custom to their own, applied the English term "dowry" to it. The practice, while largely extinct in mainstream British society, has held on in parts in South Asia (though many modern South Asians consider it abhorrent), and therefore its modern colloquial use is more connected to the South Asian custom.
There is a separate practice of the bride's parents gifting her with items of jewelry which are intended to be her sole property - a sort of insurance policy against an unreliable husband - and not that of the groom or his family. Whether that was honored or not obviously depended a lot on the situation. This practice has actually continued relatively unabated, and it is partially responsible for the high demand for gold in South Asia during wedding seasons.
We have or had in Europe something else under the meqning of "dowry". The groom asking in mariage a bride had to prove that he had the means to provide and usually had to have a household (or at least land, in case of peasantry) ready for the future family. The inner items of a house however, had to be provided by bride's family, usually with the pitched idea that the (textile) items done manually were a demonstration of bride's skills and a proof of her ability to contribute to her future family.
> You signal that you trust her with something very expensive that would not be easy for you to replace.[...] You can’t bypass that sort of thing.
Is committing to spending your life with someone not trusting them with something that wouldn't be easy for you to replace? What's more irreplaceable than the years of your own life? Not every couple gets a diamond engagement ring or precious metal wedding rings (the prevalence is trending downward) and I've heard no studies that establish correlation between successful marriages and diamond engagement rings. Your line of thought is very lucrative for corporations like deBeers, however.
Is committing to spending your life with someone not trusting them with something that wouldn't be easy for you to replace
And how does she know you’re committed if you’re not willing to risk anything up front? You can say “well she knows me! We’ve been dating for years!” but then you balk at trusting her with something valuable? Maybe she doesn’t really know you. Maybe things are great now, when nobody has committed anything of value, but will it work when things get tough?
Of course a diamond’s no guarantee of that. It’s only a starting point.
What's more irreplaceable than the years of your own life
We’re talking about the beginning of a married relationship: the engagement. When people talk about engagement rings, they don’t look at dollar figures, they look at number of weeks salary. That is the point! You’re putting time into the relationship up front. Think of it like putting a down payment on a house.
Your line of thought is very lucrative for corporations like deBeers, however
There are plenty of other diamond sources besides deBeers. Lots of people are buying diamonds mined in the Canadian arctic, for example. They have the added benefit that you know they aren’t conflict diamonds.
People do this research when buying diamonds these days! When your fiancée is showing the ring to her friends, if she can tell them a story about all of this research you put into it, then it means even more to her.
That's some properly fucked up logic of yours, to be polite. Literally every sentence is garbage from my perspective, pointing to crappy mindset/lifestyle of desire of approval by others.
This is NOT how happy long lasting marriages are done these days. I would argue that even any days. But reality is, most people are not really happy in their lives, somehow 'lost' drifting around, and combined with sheepish mentality they can accrue this mindset of 'if he spent enough money on some piece of rock then and only then he must really love me, otherwise not', because others are saying so. Desperately immature.
If others are saying so, it must be right, no? Well, in this case, no. Some people take lifetime to understand this simple truth, some are fast learners (ideally from other's mistakes), and of course some never learn.
Exactly. Once the woman is pregnant, she’s all-in unless she has access to an abortion (and she’s okay with having one).
Plenty of times the guy has been all-in right up until the moment he becomes a father, then he bails. If he has no financial stake in the relationship either then there’s nothing holding him to the marriage except his word and his feelings, both of which can be broken.
Single motherhoods is ridiculously common these days. I think a big part of the reason why is that tradition and commitment are dying out, and marriages based on romance are dying along with them.
You cultural background probably very different from mine (I’m coming from an ex socialist country).
I’m pretty sure there are much better ways to put time into a relationship upfront, since probably nobody said on their deathbed I wish you worked more to get me a bigger diamond for our engagement. Spending time to actually know each other instead of working for piece of carbon which is very useful for some industries.
Also this weeks of salary is also something I cannot wrap my head around, I was engaged a few times, breaking off the engagement had nothing to do with the value of the engagement ring.
What a ridiculous thing to say. Given that diamond engagement rings are most valued in the US, the US's extremely low divorce rate proves how well this system works. Oh wait...
> The far greater purpose is for the man to signal commitment to his bride [..]
> You can’t bypass that sort of thing.
Q: Any actual evidence that cash is any kind of reliable signal for commitment to a relationship? There would appear to be plenty of celebrity divorce counter-examples.
[In the spirit of full disclosure: my wife didn't want - or get - an engagement ring]
Really it was more "able to provide for" as opposed to "would wind up worse off if married". The commitment was far more financial in the past than relationship sense. In some cases jewelery was divorce/unexpected widowing reserves that she could be sure were there and hers.
The social context mutated yet the artifact remained - mostly out of the resistance to thinking known as tradition and the desire to sell overpriced baubles.
A diamond is primarily an engagement stone, not a wedding stone. The wedding nets you community property, worth even more than a diamond.
Think of it as earnest money, or buying an option. It's too expensive to buy a diamond and promise marriage just to string your girlfriend along if you aren't intending to follow through in the next year.
> The far greater purpose is for the man to signal commitment to his bride. By spending a lot of money, especially if it’s not easy for you to afford it, you signal to her that you are seriously committed to her. You signal that you trust her with something very expensive that would not be easy for you to replace.
I agree with this, and it even makes rational sense. I just wish we could "spend a lot of money" on something else like gold, or a house downpayment. At least those are assets - you aren't simply throwing your money away. Even a charitable trust would be a more impactful way of demonstrating commitment through sacrifice - spending money on diamonds is like throwing it away.
The problem with a bunch of gold or a house is that she can’t carry them around with her throughout her day. With a diamond ring, she can.
Why is that important? Maybe it’s less important today, but if you turn on her and she has to strike out on her own, then her engagement ring becomes a bit of wealth she has access to in an emergency. In that regard it may seem rather silly (why not a bank account?) but in the past, women didn’t have bank accounts or other easy ways to access wealth.
Mind you, in the past there were no diamond rings. Diamond rings are an invention of DeBeers in 30s, because nobody was buying diamonds they keep digging out of earth.
chongli's posts really just seem like they are encoding their own superstitions about relationships in a backsplanation for why things are the way they are. It really sounds like someone coping with buyer's remorse for having wasted so much money on a ring.
I've seen people do the same thing with their wedding that left them $30k in debt.
I totally buy their reasoning for why they did it, but they lose me when they prescribe it to everyone else.
I don't agree with anything you said. That said, it is a pity to see so many people downvote you because they don't agree with you. You've respectfully stated your opinion and we shouldn't down vote comments which we disagree with.
I used to feel that same way as you, but I've changed my opinion over time. It's just one of those community norms that (for me, anyway) makes HN an interesting place.
Thanks for those links! I do know how it is used on HN (and other places on the Internet). However, I don't really think that is how it should be used and I haven't CMV. I don't think down voting disagreements adds any value to the discussion. I'd rather prefer upvoting agreements and leave the down vote button alone.
are you aware there are societies, western, that don't have anything close to the diamond craze that US ladies seem to display? i'd rather set a stack of dollar bills on fire than buy a diamond, same price, same utility, less kids with hands chopped off for not meeting quotas.
This diamond craze is mostly a US phenomenon. Japan is a distant #2, some parts of western Europe perhaps an even more distant #3, and the rest of the world doesn't even register.
I guess this is another one of those weird things where China starting trying to be more like America. The other one is cars (and for some really strange reason, Buicks in particular are very popular there).
That's not normal, and pointing out that "just the way it is" is terrible reasoning doesn't make you an aspie. Maybe if more people had these conversations we'd have fewer terrible industries.
I had that conversation with a doctor. She wanted a diamond. She knew ALL the issues with diamonds. I said, "and knowing all that, kids arms hacked off, you still want a diamond?"
"Yes!!" And she was giddy at the prospect.
I felt confirmation in that moment for having broken up her years before that.
Another few years after that conversation she got her diamond -- after gaining 100lbs and getting a boob job.
I told the spouse that I am not buying a diamond, ever, nearly 20 years ago, and I haven't. I like synthetic corundums: sapphires and rubies. I understand the synthesis process, which does not involve hired enforcer thugs and criminal exploitation of poor laborers. They are hard enough to resist scratches from most things, and they fracture conchoidally, instead of along 4 perfect planes of cleavage. I'm also good with nephrite and jadeite, which can take a pounding, due to their fibrous crystals and interlocking crystals, respectively.
The spouse is not okay with this, and makes only token efforts to hide disdain, but I am stubborn enough to die before giving a single penny to some parasitic international diamond cartel, just for a little bit more refractive index, hardness, and thermal conductivity.
We're still not a diamond-free household, though. Some have been inherited from more foolish ancestors.
We have also "mined" natural corundums at a touristy dirt-washing operation in western North Carolina. This, of course, led immediately to talk about digging up yellow/brown rough diamonds in Crater of Diamonds (Arkansas) State Park, which immediately informed me that the venomous DeBeers brain-hooks were still set. It just makes me hate the cartel more.
I think what irritates me most is that their marketing is so effective. You can show an entire feature film, starring A-list actors, about people getting brutally murdered over the diamond trade, and people will unabashedly say they still want diamond jewelry after watching. Hell, you can watch Marathon Man, and hear, "I'm afraid of dentists now, but I would also like to keep all the diamonds I can eat." They have somehow made diamonds bypass all reason, and link directly to the emotional center of the psyche, with nothing more than decades of persistent advertising.
All gemstone diamonds, lab-grown or not, contribute to the collective cultural mind-warp that DeBeers has created.
Diamonds do not make you look great. Or, at minimum, they do not make you look better than cheaper, non-cartelized clear gemstones, such as moissanite, cubic zirconia, clear sapphire, clear beryl (goshenite), clear topaz, or even clear quartz.
Think about why you would rather have a diamond than any other mineral. Think about why a synthetic carbon allotrope sells at such a large premium over its actual cost of synthesis. They're still riding along on the coattails of DeBeers' 9 decades of unrelenting marketing.
If I were getting a pure carbon allotrope jewelry centerpiece, I would very much prefer a single graphene molecule, 235 km long, rolled up into a spiral 1 cm thick--preferably oriented to be most conductive along the axis. Now that would be something worth wearing!
It's the social factor. It takes a special kind of person to not only be happy with the cheaper thing but also to not let people know that it's cheaper. If I bought my wife a cheaper ring, I'd be telling everybody the deal I got. However, that is the opposite of the purpose here...
As much as I want to applaud the wit here, the truth is that it really doesn’t - that phenomenon is quintessentially human.
We (as a species) will go cognitive miles to avoid actually facing embarrassment or admitting to being fooled. Your thing might not be overpaying for a diamond and it’s unlikely you can see your own instance(s) but I’m sure you have seen it in others on the regular.
Honestly I think the diamond-ring culture is deeply unhealthy - it creates an artificial large resentment event right at the beginning of a commitment, that may destabilize the whole relationship.
I've seen threads on r/relationship_advice and r/TwoXChromosomes where women are desperately distraught over issues having to do with the ring their fiancé/husband bought them, it really does seem like unnecessary hardship.
Though, as a man, figuring out your partner's expectations of rings and weddings (and family and children and ...) is part of the dating process. You really shouldn't be blindsided at the engagement phase.
I'm reminded of a friend from high school who is got divorced after finding out his wife of two years didn't want and never wanted children. His defense was "it just never came up!"
To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either. It's a matter of the specific personality profile that makes a person attracted to one or both or neither of those two modes of consumption.
> To be fair there is no objective value in travelling either.
Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things. From a researcher who wrote (the) book on happiness:
> "Shifting from buying stuff to buying experiences, and from spending on yourself to spending on others, can have a dramatic impact on happiness," writes Dunn and her co-author Michael Norton.
If, per Aristotle, happiness is the supreme good, it would objectively be better to spend your limited resources on things that are more likely to give it to you.
> Except that the literature has shown that people generally find greater happiness using their money to buy experiences rather than things.
Yes, but a) travelling is not the only way to buy experiences by any means, b) Actually doing/ creating things or experiences is infinitely more rewarding than consumption[1]. Programming, making music, painting, woodworking, cooking, gardening, whatever tickles your fancy. All those studies still only are about buying.
Thank you. Traveling is generally pretty boring to me (especially after the first couple times visitng somewhere.) Making things with friends though, amazing time.
Except that nowhere in my post do I explicitly say travels. Travelling is not the only way to create experiences. (I personally have no interest in it.)
"We found no significant evidence supporting the greater return received when buying experiences."
That was a couple years ago, there might be a meta analysis or actual replication attempts by now, but I'm not going to dive for them, just pointing out this bad discussion tactic of "studies show [what I want to argue for]" without considering the ongoing replication crisis.
Speaking personally, the most bang-for-buck is probably video games. I don't know if I would classify those as experiences or things. Perhaps it depends on the game's replayabilty.
> You can't just come in here with "the literature has shown" in $current_year.
Read the book. Every chapter covers an idea on how to best use one's monetary resources to increase happiness, and there are dozens of endnotes to studies for each chapter.
This is literally the book author's field of study. If you have a problem with the claims, talk to her: I'm just the messenger and will bow to the experts.
Let's be honest though, travelling is becoming less fun in the era of mass travel. I'm not saying everyone doesn't have the right to travel or something like that, but I think only a fool would argue it's a better experience visiting x tourist hotspot when that involves having to fight it out with thousands of other people doing the same thing.
We have an entire planet here; you don't have to go only to tourist hotspots. Of course, I'll admit there's many very boring places that probably aren't worth your time and money, like Oklahoma, and some very dangerous places that you should avoid, like El Salvador or Syria, but there's lots of very nice places in civilized countries where you can go, which aren't chock-full of tourists. As a bonus, they're pretty cheap to stay at, since there's not so much demand for lodging there. Even if you confine yourself to western Europe, there's lots of places to go without running into throngs of tourists.
True - I love the boring US states! I have fond memories of a coast to coast US trip in 1992, early summer, stopping at small towns in mid America. Everything seemed so peaceful, sleepy, and warm, and the people so friendly. Watched a meteor shower one night, went to an open air cinema another. Lovely.
>Everything seemed so peaceful, sleepy, and warm, and the people so friendly.
I'm guessing you aren't black...
Those "peaceful" towns are now either full of old people because the young ones have moved away, or a bunch of opioid and meth addicts. America's small towns are falling apart. Things were really different in 1992; that's over a quarter-century ago now.
There's far more to traveling than hitting up tourist hot spots and fighting your way through people to see something, though unfortunately that's what most people, especially on HN, seem to synonymize with "travel" which explains why it's so common here to poo-poo "travel" as something lame and boring.
Then again, most Americans get, what, two weeks off in the year? It makes sense to me how travel then becomes an all-inclusive resort trip instead of the more enriching slow-boil flavor of travel that provokes the best experiences and potential change in your life and perspective. Pretty hard to get that in two weeks.
> Let's be honest though, travelling is becoming less fun in the era of mass travel.
Traveling is not the only way to create experiences. I (the person you replied to) have no interest in it. I'd rather spend time/money on a local motorcycle racetrack staring at the upcoming corner and figuring out the best line.
World's full of 2nd-tier places to visit that are damn near as good as 1st-tier, but have 1-5% the visitors, putting them way the lead, experience-wise, except for taking instantly-recognizable "I been thar!" photos.
World population should level off before those 2nd-tier ones start to get swamped, too. So that's nice.
Believe it or not, they have got worse based on my experiences in the 80s versus now. Think about it - whole regions of the world were effectively shut out of tourism either by economics or politics back then e.g. China, India, Soviet Union.
One way I've seen engagement rings used is as an unspoken pre-prenup. He cheats, she bails and sells the ring. I say "unspoken" but I've heard men and women speak rather frankly about the exchange
The ring doesn't have enough resale value for that (and the breakup would spoil the sentimental value of keeping the gem). The incentive isn't compensation for her, it's sunk cost for him.
My wife is pretty rational but was emotional on this point. I made my position and moral issues with diamonds clear from the second date. she went with the value argument until I hit her with appraisals of her grandmother's ring and industry trends. Wife bought a really pretty sapphire ring from Etsy in the days when it was hand made for around $650. She's very happy with it. It's actually unique.
My partner is very smart and pragmatic, and opted for a non-diamond engagement gem. A few years later, an upgrade to a diamond was demanded, on threat of divorce. Peer pressure is amazing on this topic.
(It's fun to have this conversation with gender-neutral pronouns.)
Meanwhile, my wife and I have not even worn rings for years, and no plan on the table to get new ones. Initially it was caused because we went through a very rough patch and we both were giving up on the marriage. But that turned around, and now years later the work we've done in our marriage stands on its own, and the rings are only a reminder of the shredded remains of the old marriage. So we don't wear them.
This is it. My family as it currently stands has two “ring” related stories:
Story 1. Both my and my wife’s wedding rings were stolen. The wedding bands were my parents’ and had been in the family for the better part of a hundred years. Though they were extremely simple, plain gold rings with very little value (prob got $50 at a pawn shop if that). We replaced them with similar rings just because we wanted them.
Story 2. My wife had a ring that had belonged to her grandmother. It was very ornate and had many kinds of jewel including diamonds and Ruby’s. It was very old school in design but was quite pretty. It was also stolen. I found a similar one for about $14,000 online and offered to buy it for my wife who was devastated at the loss but she refused because it “wasn’t the same” which I of course understood.
So there’s more than just the dollar value of the thing is what I’m saying.
I don't know if was the marketing, just wanted the commitment in dollars before telling everyone she's engaged or the status symbol to show off to other people but it had to be a significant diamond. One of the things that surprised me was man made diamonds at the size and quality she wanted weren't actually cheaper.
It is probably more cultural pressure rather than marketing. Especially if your mother, aunts, sisters, cousins, are all getting diamonds. It takes a special level of courage to go against the grain. The desire to "fit in" is strong.
It’s just silly how women get away with this. In a equal world. Imagine if a man said I like the cultural aspect of you staying home and cooking/cleaning while I work and it’s non negotiable.
I've recommended a test called "canoe test" for figuring out compatibility with your future partner. If you can't figure out how to canoe together over the long enough period and make it a more pleasurable experience than if you would be canoeing alone, probably things would get messy in other strata of life. I think I would add the "moissanite test" as well into my harness.
Sorry but it doesn't sound like someone pragmatic or smart, diamond is just a rock that's worth x amount of $ nothing more.
Someone pragmatic would be happy with "any" kind of ring, when I see those big diamonds it reminds me of those dumb people showing off their ring to friends in TV shows.
I'm not sure for other countries but diamond is a very US thing.
Mine wanted a Diamond so we compromised and bought it at a pawn shop for a far lower price. Second hand diamonds are cheap because there are so many they aren't worth anything. The whole retail diamond market is all just scam.
I bought a 1.75 carat Charles & Colvard loose gem for $400 and had it set by a local jeweler for $50. Cheapest identically spec'd diamond I could find at the time was $22,000. They seem to sell this brand of stones everywhere now. I would highly recommend you check it out in person next to an actual diamond and you will immediately see what I mean. I ordered several from C&C, whom at the time had a very generous return policy, and kept the nicest one. I would recommend you check out a few different places tho because there are definitely people out there trying to pawn off lower quality slightly green/gray stones on unsuspecting buyers.
It's interesting that until recently, C&C held multi national patents on moissanite (silicon carbide) for jewelery. It seems like the patent specifically covers lab grown gems.
These patents only expired in the last few years, and as recently as 2018 in Mexico.
When I bought one, Charles & Colvard was a good source. Helzberg Diamonds is also a good place to look, and they can set one you bought online for a reasonable price.
I got a 3 carat moissanite pendant necklace from Helzberg for ~$1500. The same thing in diamond would have been well into 5 digits. My wife loves it and gets a lot of compliments on it.
FWIW, I got my wife's engagement ring at www.moissaniteco.com about five years ago. She's been thrilled with the quality and we got nothing but befuddled wows at the 1.5 carat stone.
For our international readers, this is very uncommon behavior among Americans (taking out mortgages for a diamond ring) and it seems unlikely since it would require one of the two members of the marriage to own a house as a single person, which is also uncommon among Americans.
Spending too much on a diamond ring is common though
It's very common for people to purchase engagement rings on loan. I had a friend who sold jewelry back in the 00s and he said it was pretty rare for someone to pay cash for engagement rings. Most people got 12-36 months loans.
It's possible this changed between 09-13 because of the recession, but I'd bet it's very common now that the economy is doing really well.
This might not be a mortgage, in the sense of being a lifetime payment. But it's a (semi-)secured loan.
Not just American, it's pervasive in Europe as well. France is a little unusual in that engagement rings are commonly made from non-diamond gem stones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
Weddings are becoming insane in the UK. I went to a friend's wedding a while back where they had a carved piece of glass showing the seating plan for the dinner. Cost hundreds. They divorced a couple of years later.
The cynic in me would like to see a graph of cost of wedding as a percent of total annual income compared to divorce rates. I have a theory those two things are correlated.
Doesn't really matter how you spend the money. It is a signalling thing. The money must be burnt. With limited resources it ensures you can't repeat engagement with multiple women...
This is BS. You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior. It also implies that females have no agency and just run on instinct like frogs. The real reason they want diamonds is culture.
> You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior
If you can use math to explain physics, physics to explain chemistry, chemistry to explain biology, biology to explain psychology, psychology to explain sociology, and sociology (plus history) to explain culture, then it would be fair to say you could use math to explain culture.
Of course, there's a lot of big gaps here, but the point is: trying to tie culture to biology is not without merit.
IMO, males and females both run on instinct through chaos crafted channels of superstition we call "culture". Like water running down a mountain in streams, it's not the channels which explain the waters movement downward (that's gravity), they just define the means through which it happens.
It's like trying to use molecular physics to explain the immune system.
It's not just impractical; it's impossible to know enough of the variables to derive one from the other.
In practice "evolutionary" explanations are constantly used to make something intuitively plausible for which there is no evidence sound scientific and convincing.
A more concrete reason it's not true in this case: diamonds as engagement gifts from men to women are a recent cultural phenomenon. For most of human history this was not the case, and there were/are large cultures where the tradition is a dowry instead (more or less the reverse) or nothing at all.
It's not science. Human brains are very recent in evolutionary terms. What a frog or a peacock does is a result of many orders of magnitude more time under natural selection than the age of modern humans. People guess that this or that behavior is because of natural/sexual selection and pass it off as science with no proof just because the word evolution was mentioned. It takes a very long time for something to become an instinct. Given how much human brains are capable of, I just think the most Occam's razor answer is culture and mimicry rather than somehow some {{uniquely human behavior}} having been important enough to survival to become an instinct across the board.
No, not even close. In fact, I suspect that outside the people that programmers on HN and other upper-income cohorts hang out with, it's extremely rare.
FWIW, my wife has a $600 artificial diamond ring that she picked out at Walmart.com. It's one of her most prized possessions (not because of the cost, but because of what it symbolizes) and she frequently points out to people how inexpensive it was.
I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry. For that kind of money she'd rather have a new car.
> I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry.
Great attitude and totally on-point, responsible finances are one strong pillar under a relationship, if you blow through your cash on baubles you will eventually end up stressed.
Absolutely not. I bought a moissanite ring because my fiancé would never accept a diamond, but I wanted to give something that would be just as flashy.
Tell that to my girlfriend. The first thing her and her friends do when someone they know gets engaged is zoom in on the pics to see the diamond and talk about.
A decade ago, I bought a $4K diamond as an engagement ring for my now-wife (I didn't know about moissanite then), and my colleagues gave me so much shit since I was spending significantly less than 3X monthly salary. Thankfully, my wife agreed with me. We remain happily married :)
> The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so.
It is extremely easy to distinguish a moissanite from a diamond using a reliable, low-tech test: the moissanite can't scratch a diamond, but a diamond will scratch the moissanite.
The problem, if you're a jeweler talking to a customer, is that this will damage the moissanite.
Moissanite is a 9.5/10 on the hardness scale, with diamond being a 10. Outside of industrial applications this is a totally insignificant difference. This reads like the other criticisms of moissanite I've read where people claim that it is "too shiny" making it look too much like a diamond you couldn't possibly afford and therefore giving away it's identity.
I'm not saying that moissanite's slightly lower hardness will cause problems in use as jewelry. I'm saying that, contra the parent comment's implication, it's very easy to tell the difference.
But you can only scratch it with something as hard as diamonds.Who is really considering that when buying jewelry? Resistent to blemish from everything but diamond...oh nooo...
>Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point.
Indeed, my fiance was completely happy with sterling silver and a white sapphire. It's a hand-carved design (lost wax) and it cost me less than our recent trip to the zoo and in her own words "I don't have to worry about being nervous about losing some dumb expensive ring, this one is perfect".
Sure, over time the sapphire will scratch a lot easier and get cloudy but we're talking about a few dollar stone. It can easily be replaced.
Chemical exposure in normal household settings (chlorine bleach, lemon juice, ammonia), diamond on sapphire, sapphire on sapphire etc. Just chlorine exposure over time (swimming, doing household cleaning) can actually weaken sapphire to the point of disintegrating.
Remember, precious and semi-precious stones are just fancy chemical compounds.
I have a tungsten carbide wedding ring, which also rates 9 on the Mohs scale. It's totally scratched up around the outside, and shiny around the inside, after ten years. And I'm careful to take the ring off before I use abrasive materials such as sandpaper and diamond sharpening tools.
I got my wife a colored sapphire (champaine). She loves it but the moissanite stone was a no go for her as her perception of it was that it was a fake diamond. The cost for the sapphire vs. the moissanite stone were the same so I just wanted to mention this alternative.
We did a sapphire also, though just plain blue. We both enjoy the contrast between the colored main stone and the smaller set diamonds. (The ring is not halo set, but has bands that roughly surround the main stone.)
Other than moissanite there are also lab diamonds. I found this on lab vs earth diamonds https://blog.onetruerock.com/blog/LabvsEarth (scroll down for the crazy graph for the price difference). Overall they seem to share lots of analytics on the diamond market.
After a discussion with my fiancee I did end up finding a earth/natural diamond(I know). I did end up using the same site to help me find a good deal and seemed to save a chunk of change.
My wife also has a moissanite engagement ring that we love. It was more like 1/5 the cost of a diamond ring, although maybe I'm figuring "equivalent diamond" differently than you (doing the math on your comment indicates about $400, which is around what we paid, but I'm seeing similar diamond settings for about $2-3K on Brilliant Earth, though with slightly smaller & fewer stones).
Our main motivation was actually social justice over price, though - my wife is big into a number of social justice causes, and couldn't justify killing villagers in the Congo so she could have a diamond engagement ring. We looked into lab-grown diamonds as well, but just found that we liked the look of moissanite more. You can totally tell the difference if you have a trained eye, but to mine moissanite is better in basically every respect you would care about: it sparkles more, has more defined facets, and tends to be clearer with a brighter light.
"Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond"
Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond. Any jeweler worth their salt should be able to discern between them with only a visual inspection.
https://i.imgur.com/Cm6gwyL.jpg - I design and make jewelry, from scratch, as a hobby. I can just look at a stone and tell you if CZ/Goshenite/Moissanite/Diamond/Glass. The differences in the stones when cut is quite apparent.
We did blind tests when we were shopping for rings. It was stupidly easy to tell - moissanite sparkles more. Didn't go the way the jeweler wanted, though - he only sold diamonds, but had a moissanite ring he was cleaning for a customer for comparison, and we liked the moissanite better.
>Moissanite has a higher refractive index and higher 'fire' than a diamond.
This makes the cachet that diamonds possess even more ridiculous. They're literally orders of magnitude more expensive, for something that's objectively worse in terms of the properties that actually matter for a gemstone.
To save other people a clic: "Birefringence is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birefringence
Is this maybe an American thing? I live in Germany and I know nobody of my age who got a diamond for their engagement or wedding ring, including friends from other countries.
We felt that we could tell the difference in reflection between moissanite and diamond. However we did go with a lab grown diamond which is 30%-60% of the price and ethically produced.
Did you blind yourself or did you know going in which was which? Did you separate so that each of your opinions would not influence the other?
Of course maybe there is a noticable difference but often people see/taste/hear/smell/feel something that's not there if they already know which is A and which is B.
The tells are obvious and easy to spot once you know what you're looking for. The moissanite has more fire than the diamond of the same shape and cut, and the angle of the point is shallower. The angle is particularly the easiest way to tell if the setting allows you to see it. I guess in the grandparent's post the point was hidden from the jeweler.
I don't think any of this stuff really matters, btw, just get what looks good to you.
The angle in the facets of the point has to be right to keep the light bouncing back out through the face and not right out the bottom, and it's determined by the physical properties of the material. For silicon carbide the index of refraction is higher, so the light will be bent more sharply when it enters, resulting in greater separation of white light into color components ("fire") and necessitating shallower angles in the point to maximize internal reflection
I've done a single-blind test and could tell, but to be completely honest I don't think they're similar enough that you need to set up an experiment. Go to a jewelry store near you; you'll be able to tell the difference quickly if you try.
I've not found a good source for Moissanite in the UK, as in, one that doesn't seem overpriced - it's almost like there's a conspiracy to prevent any good deals on engagement/wedding rings.
Moissanite is actually much rarer than diamond in nature (the only sources are meteorites and rarely diamond mines); it should be much more expensive if we couldn't cheaply synthesize it.
Almost every car, fridge, and radio from the 1950s has long been destroyed, but virtually every diamond bought in the 1950s has the exact same utility today. Those diamonds are about to flood the market, in significantly more quantities than lab diamonds ever will.
There is a joke in the diamond industry that the biggest diamond mine in the world is in Florida and Arizona, but the mine is the pawn shops, not the Earth.
There's almost no resale market for diamonds, currently. A newspaper famously tries to sell a diamond every few years and publishes the result. They've never sold one.
So the insurance value for diamonds is their replacement cost, not their 'value'. Since if you can't sell it, it's got a hard time establishing a number for value.
I see used jewelry for sale at small shops, festivals, pawn shops, and flea markets. It's really likely that any small town with a used bookshop also has a used jewelry store. The ones I've been to sell a variety of other pieces as well.
I think the OP is getting at the fact that people don't buy used jewelry from randos off of Craigslist. That doesn't mean there's no market for used jewelry, just that people are much more comfortable buying from a store or vendor, probably due to perceived reputability and maybe the fact that they may not immediately realize that it's used. This is especially true with pawn shops, where they may sell wholesale jewelry along side their walk-in acquisition pieces.
Related: on Quora someone claimed that pawn shops value diamond rings without regard for the diamonds, and only for their gold, and they basically just toss the diamonds into a coffee cup. I pointed out that this means you should be able to get cheap diamonds there:
This is sadly not true in North America. If a jewellery store wants to stay GIA certified and get all the paperwork about being conflict-free, they need to buy their diamonds at a much higher price.
I'd be curious to know why jewelers wouldn't buy these diamonds and reset them. Is there some chain of custody that they want to maintain or something?
It goes against the entire idea of monetary sacrifice as a signaling mechanism for the buyer. Cheap diamonds are an antithesis to the signaling.
When my partner and I were married over 10 years ago, I bought her a ring and diamond for ~$7k. We were younger, and not so wise. With time comes wisdom. It now sits in a fire safe to be made into a pendant for our daughter; my partner now wears a $20 platinum band from Amazon, and I (occasionally) wear the $10 tungsten ring we bought when we were married (which is bookmarked for easy replacement if damaged or lost). Life is short, don't expend effort on something that doesn't matter. Take a trip together you'll both remember for a lifetime instead.
Some do. I have a friend who is a jeweler. Almost all of the gems she buys, diamond or other, are either lab-made or recycled gems. But she is an exception to the rule. She buys from a supplier that specializes in this sort of thing for small artistic custom jewelers.
No, they're not. Jewelers prefer to buy new diamonds from the cutters/polishers in India because the price is good and they can set up long-term supply contracts so that they can plan ahead knowing their supply is constant. It'd be like saying "why doesn't Southwest buy their kerosene from the local farm supply stores?"
There was heavy marketing that buying a "used" ring was bad luck, tacky, or somehow tainted. You'll find that most people that must have a diamond also must have one that is "new". The exception is if it's a family ring.
More than one of my acquaintances has reused her grandmother's ring. I expect this practice to increase as dead grandma is more frequently a post-war boomer.
I'd be interested in also reading about an experiment in buying a diamond. How much of a discount could you get on a certified, ~1ct Tiffany ring?
Part of me would be very interested in hearing about the result, along with variations on it (For instance, I know I've made this very restrictive, specifying the brand, which greatly limits the options).
Another part of me think this would just provide more proof of something we all know: that the market for diamonds, the entire thing, is so utterly bizarre, and yet it has such a grip on the US and a few other places, it's so odd. The results of the experiment I just described, well, it would probably just confirm "yep, this makes no sense".
One big challenge, I'd guess, is ensuring that you bought what you believe you bought (is it really a ~1ct Tiffany diamond)... but then again, that also just underscores the absurdity of what you've done, that it is extremely difficult to tell if you actually got what you intended to buy, when there's as much as a 100x difference in price. So again, back to "yep, makes no sense"
But the stones in those "used" rings can be extracted and sold on some market. Debeers doesn't control that supply, which means the market becomes subject to normal microeconomic theory again.
I inherited some very nice jewelry, including diamonds, from my grandmother. The "estimate" of the total worth was $20,000. However, when I tried to sell it, it turned out that I would only be able to realize a fraction of that estimate, from maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the "value." All jewelry is like that.
Jewelry prices, for reasons I don't entirely understand, are sort of like car values...once you drive it off the lot, so to speak, the price plummets.
So when I got married I did not ask for a diamond, as I knew it was basically worthless -- except to the jeweler.
Estimate value is replacement value from a store. (Mostly for insurance). People think it's "new" and "never worn". And stores have very high margins.
But, if you buy wholesale/used the buy/sell will be closer together. The issue is people think "used" stones are tainted for some reason. Divorced? Bad luck!
It's like a gold band. It might cost $600 in the store. But, really the cost is the weight of the gold (~$50). But, you can buy/sell it at $50 all day.
Yeah, the cost of the gold may be $50. But the cost to make it more than just the gold. It's also the skilled time of the guy making it, and the cost of other materials used (wax, plaster, etc. for the mold), and amortization of the tools.
I mean, if you just have a plain, unadorned ring, those costs are pretty low. But if it's got interesting designs on it, or is multiple materials, that's going to cause it to be more expensive.
Looking at Zales' website, they've got a 4mm 14K plain men's wedding band for $225. That's probably around 5 grams in weight, with an actual gold content probably around 3 grams. a gram of gold is ~$50 right now, so they're only getting $75 at most in profit from that ring.
There are places around the world (India) Where you can pay for jewelry at the weight in gold. There is little markup for labor/design. The pieces are just as "beautiful" as anything you would get from Zales.
Thats true for a lot of luxury goods. Try selling an expensive watch for the same price you paid for and you’ll be in for a big surprise. Some collectible items go up in price but in general thats not the trend.
Gold jewelry only maintains value from the metal itself. Since what a jeweler will pay for it is based on the melt value of the gold, minus a certain percent to account for purity, you will never get back what you paid for generic gold jewelry, unless the price of gold rises significantly.
Diamond is a material. If materials become cheaper that's not a problem, that's usually great, especially if those materials have desirable properties. Can't wait for diamond to be as cheap as sugar (not that it will ever be), I have zero use for it as decoration but plenty of use for it as material for its properties: hardness, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, transparency. Not many materials come close to mixing these properties in the way that diamond does. There are plenty of materials that reflect light in pretty ways.
Diamond material is already "cheap" if you just intend to use it on a drill or lens and not a prestige object. You can get a 99.9% perfect pure synthetic diamond plate bigger than your palm for like 500k, 90% of which being the new tooling for a reactor big enough to form such an object. In contrast a high quality 15 carat gem cut can easily go above $2M.
That's the price for a diamond pushing the limits of industrial engineering. You can also get a polycrystal plate of diamond with garbage optics for less than $200 if you just need it for thermal purposes
That's more like it :) Now imagine what would happen if that price went to $20 or even $2; even better if it was mono crystalline. That would be a game changer.
The "problem" is obviously from the point of view of the industry; consumers are probably happy about it!
I believe that the article refer to the jewellery (diamond) industry; people, like you, interested in its physical properties already use synthetic diamonds or imperfect mined diamonds that would not be usable for jewels.
Really it highlights general financial illiteracy towards the difference between speculation and investment. People often give stock traders grief for doing worse than random picks over long term but the average person does /way/ worse given things like Beanie Babies and other "collectables". A very good rule of thumb is that if they say it is collectable when it is sold there is no bonus value.
An actual investment gives some sort of returns for holding it or can be used to generate more returns. A $60 box of spark plugs for a mechanic is an investment as they can make say $600 over a few customers. Filling your closet with spark plugs while they eventually become obsolete is not an investment.
Ignoring everything else about the article, the graph of price over time is total crap. If you want to show a change in the real price of something,
1. show the full price range in the Y axis. I'll have none of this clipping off the bottom half of the scale nonsene, please.
2. use a logarithmic scale so a unit of length always equals a percentage change.
3. adjust the price data for inflation. I don't want to compare apples to oranges, bananas, nectarines, and grapes! Give me a single value to consider. Ad 2002 dollar is a different beast from a 2018 dollar.
Millennial here. When I got married we skipped rings because ring culture is bullshit.
(It was her idea before anyone asks. I suggested we get non-diamond or lab grown, and was pleasantly surprised when I learned she also thought rings are dumb)
Both me and my fiance (now wife) are millennials as well. I hate the ring culture and all the wedding rituals (spending so much money to please others) surrounding it. In fact, I don't even believe in marriage in traditional sense (like going to courtroom to sign on a government issued certificate, which only applies to legal realms)
My fiance, whom I believe is fairly reasonable and frugal in all aspects considered, also learned (thanks to the movie, Blood Diamond) that diamonds are not worth the price and unethical. But she still wanted me to spend some amount on rings. So I had to buy decently priced wedding bands (cost about $1700 each). Otherwise, I am sure my fiance wouldn't be too happy (thinking that I married her for cheap). I really was surprised when I first heard my fiance complaining about me not planning to buy rings for our wedding. The marketing and brainwashing of women about rings and wedding culture really work.
Diamonds being unethical is vastly overstated. "Blood Diamonds" aren't a thing anymore, and end-to-end certification of the diamond supply chain is commonplace.
Such is the way culture works. How many rom-com movies end with an emotional scene where the man gets on one knee as his soon-to-be-fiancé is immediately brought to tears?
I'm on the young end of X. My first spouse and I got cheap sterling silver rings from the mall.
My current spouse and I just skipped it all entirely. It all feels like ownership.
I've also never had a proper wedding - both times I got married at a courthouse. With this one, I had a small wedding/going away party (I moved overseas upon marriage). I definitely do not think I've missed anything.
De Beers fights lab-grown diamonds with technology as China’s synthetic gems threaten viability of their market
>Companies producing such stones have sprung up all over China, churning out an estimated 160,000 to 200,000 carats of gem-quality diamonds every month. That’s enough to propel the country to the world’s top spot in terms of synthetic production, industry insiders believe.
Synthetic diamonds are not a Chinese invention but an American one. So if you want to point fingers, point them at GE, Norton & Carborundum[1].
As for who manufactures them there's a list[2], and most of these companies are not Chinese.
But maybe the more important point is; Why is it a problem that the De Beers diamond mining company is having some competition. De Beers has a _very_ questionable business history[3], and personally I think the world would be better without their exploitation.
The early American synthetic diamond producers, such as GE, mainly focused on producing industrial diamonds for grinding and other applications not requiring gem quality. They were never interested in taking on the DeBeers monopoly with gemstones.
AFAIK, some of the earliest gem-quality synthetic diamonds were Russian. The Chinese are important because they can evade DeBeers and its influence over the diamond cutting and distribution establishment.
I'm all in favor of synthetic gemstones. Carbon is carbon, mined or not.
De Beers also fights lab-grown diamonds by making and selling their own. [0] Their factory is in Oregon, first build is about 200 growth chambers (microwave plasma CVD).
I feel like this problem isn't specific to diamonds. The article mentions that big brand names (Tiffany etc.) are relatively unaffected and that is a pattern seen in many industries.
Skewed wealth distribution is creating demand for 'premium' products where prices far outstrip the practical value of such items. Everything else becomes commoditized as much as possible.
I'm a millennial too and these threads always annoy me because I'm on the "losing" side of the discourse. I thought rings were important and I got my wife a very nice custom engagement ring from an artist on the internet with a real excellent cut 1.5 carat G color ring which cost me less than 10k for the stone. The design of the ring is completely custom and the wedding bands are also custom each with stones of a different color. One more masculine and one feminine.
To me, at my professional salary level, $15-18k for the set was worth it for what they meant to us together. It's ok if the diamond has horrible resale or in 10 years that stone will be worth 5k. We can always upgrade and move that stone to earrings or whatever.. Although any near term purchases of jewelry will definitely be "mossy" as they are called by some in the trade.
In 2005 I bought a car for around $5K and it's still working well. I am still having trouble understanding the rationale of spending 10K on a small piece of body decoration that only a small number of people will even notice. I understand this has to be very culture-specific.
I'm with you. I hate debt and don't mess with it. My cars were all purchased in cash and I live well within my means. But I like to keep in mind not everyone is in my position in life.
IF the couple has paid their student debt, and IF they own their cars and house outright, and IF they have 50 to 100x the price of the purchase in the bank as savings, I say enjoy your money. As long as you aren't putting yourself in a position to become a slave to your debts over silly shinny objects, great for you.
Otherwise, I don't think such extravagant spending outside of this scenario would not pass muster of any rational, analytic reasoning, say, a la 'Judge Judy' or 'Suze Orman' (as she appears on TV when not talking about issues where she has a conflict of interest, just her regular advice)
Strange that the article does not mention lab grown diamonds. I would have assumed that the increases in production of lab grown diamonds combined with increasing consumer acceptance of lab grown diamonds would be a large contributor to price declines.
Is there reason to believe this is not the case?
As an aside, has anyone ever purchased a lab grown diamond? What was your experience? Where did you purchase it?
They sell extremely cheap lab growns with a lot of funny marketing around how "artificial" diamonds are for "light" occasions.
That's because Lightbox is run by De Beers and it's a PR campaign to flood the market with cheap lab grown diamonds with accompanying marketing to push the message that "real" diamonds are more valuable.
Funny thing is, I don't think millenials care about whether the diamond is lab grown. To them it's just a cheaper diamond that is literally the same as one from the ground and doesn't have any conflict diamond associations. De Beers think they're doing something clever but really are just shooting themselves in the foot by not understanding the younger market and giving us access to cheaper diamonds.
I'm a big fan of lab grown. Science is science, I don't need a poor teenager clawing a rock out of the dirt to make it real.
I recently bought some 0.1 carat lab grown CVD diamonds online. I am trying to figure out a method of escrow to buy a 2 carat CVD lab grown diamond from the same people for an engagement ring. To us it is actually more interesting that the diamond is lab grown copy of a natural diamon and it is proof of human ingenuity and work to me.
Not diamond but bought a 3 karat moissanite pendant necklace for my wife a few years back. Being synthetic it had a perfect crystal structure leading to a glow/reflectiveness hard to get in diamond without breaking the bank. It still looks good and wife loves to wear it.
SiC (moissanite) is also birefringent which makes it look a lot more sparkly (each incident ray of non-polarized light is split in 2, so if illuminated by a single bright light source you get twice as many sparkles).
Diamond doesn't even qualify as a rare substance on earth. Honestly, I don't know how the diamond racket has kept it together this long in the information age, but their racket can't collapse soon enough.
If I'm to have an engagement ring for (presumably) years and years, I'd much rather have something that I'd want to wear and fits my own personal interests/taste.
I'd take a stone that's a beautiful color over a diamond any day.
There's nothing more depressing than seeing how little diamonds are worth second-hand when you are trying to get rid of a reminder of a failed relationship...
First off, I'm sorry thrower123, hopefully this might help anyone else from avoiding the same situation...
LPT (maybe) anyone: If you married someone who insists on a new diamond ring (first of all, I'm sorry), just buy secondhand, buy a jeweler's box off eBay, and if she's going to want to see the receipt, use all the money you saved to buy a thermal printer (though I wonder if there's a service that will print thermal paper and mail it to you...)
You can say you sold your gold/guns/whatever, hide it somewhere, and if you get divorced (you did marry someone who wanted this absurdity after all), those assets are now out of the picture because you sold them.
I actually read the famous "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?"[0] by The Atlantic over 30 years ago and since then, there have been multiple predictions of diamond prices collapsing. (Various reasons given such as Russia, China diamonds flooding market, synthetic diamonds, used diamonds, etc).
And yet based on some quick googling, diamond prices exceed US inflation when comparing year 2000 to 2016. The reported diamond price of $30925 exceeds inflation calculation of $21045.[1][2]
There seems to be a fundamental flaw of in the mental model of everyone predicting that diamond prices will crash. It would be interesting to hear a theory on why it never happened. I don't think the answer is as simple as "DeBeers marketing and supply restrictions" because there are a many diamond supply chains they don't control.
> There seems to be a fundamental flaw of in the mental model of everyone predicting that diamond prices will crash. It would be interesting to hear a theory on why it never happened.
I would guess the flaw is the same as in the theory that bitcoin will crash to zero.
If you ask me to formulate the flaw based on my way too cynical worldview, it would be something like "massively underestimating the amount of people who have zero clue about what they actually are buying"
Maybe a rather irrational and uninformed market together with the retail sellers keeping the prices up? As a regular person you have to trust the seller, so you're not going to buy a cheap diamond on Ebay or something like that. So there might be enough power to set the price with the established jewelers .
It also seems to be a market that is mostly based on marketing, so it is maybe more similar to something like designer items where the name on it provides the perceived value, and not the material.
Excellent premise. I would add that most such predictions fail to account for dollar value in parity with other currencies, securities, and assets.
Even an apparent drop in physical value mainstays like gold and diamonds may be coexistent with a corresponding drop in Dollar Value, negating some or all of the loss in value, so long as the investor keeps his/her investment valued in dollars (as is the case for most US investors).
i don't know diamonds as gems in particular but I can guess that branding might make a difference. I can buy a plastic key chain for $1-$5 at some store. I can go to the Prada store and they sell plastic key chains for $600. I'm not going to argue whether or not the design is better, only that that someone is willing to pay $600, I'm guessing to show off they spent $600. And of course that's not even close to the expensive items in the store.
The function of the diamond engagement ring no longer exists: it was essentially a down payment: if the engagement were broken off, the former fiancée could sell the diamond instead of bringing a breach of promise suit. Those suits have faded away; all that remains is the vestigial diamond.
Weddings are full of such rituals; European weddings typically had seed cakes (fertility, get it?) dating at least from Roman times. Victoria had a big white cake and a big white dress and that set the fashion not just for Europe and North America but many parts of the world too.
My mother has a diamond ring -- my parents were married in the era of breach of promise suits -- but more interestingly I have seen the gold she was wearing in her wedding (in a wedding sari not white dress): it is so pure (soft) it could only be worn that one time and was given as wedding gifts also as a hedge against financial misfortune.
I remember as a kid jewelry was bought and sold entirely by weight -- the workmanship was free! (Obviously nobody in my family was buying gems or I would have learned how they interacted with this system.) I have no idea if this is still the case as I am not a good boyfriend/husband in this regard.
I am reading these comment about their Wife being either smart, socially conscious or whatever it is, but still being sold into buying Diamonds due to Marketing, High Price Signal or Culture.
This completely misses the point, Diamond is Beautiful. We human, especially female likes beautiful things. It is no coincidence that humans around the globe, hundreds of different cultures over different continents all settles on similar gems stones. For whatever physiological reason we humans like Shiny Object.
And moissanite stone, as far as I have seen are no diamonds, may be to those who are less demanding, the colour and shines are slightly different. And to those who demands quality, once you have seen a beautiful diamond, you can not unseen it. There is a reason why Tiffany and Cartier still command a premium.
Start making diamond knives, buttons, zippers, put diamonds on Air Jordans, sell an iPhone with a diamond Apple logo so people can see it while you obnoxiously take selfies and give it a “posted from Apple DiPhone” tag for social media, pay male celebrities to be seen with diamond earrings and nose rings, sell diamond-studded Bibles signed by Kanye West, and open a line of diamond essential oils (which will be easy because they have no smell so just sell expensive mineral oil). This is easy. People spend money on themselves so make it all about the buyer being the recipient rather than the buyer using it as a gift and use all of the shallow marketing tricks that have been proven to be effective.
Diamonds are generally boring unless you're into fluorescent minerals. Then, depending upon their inclusions, diamonds can take on an insane array of colors under a UV light. That white diamond suddenly turning cherry red can be quite the pleaser. But most people don't know that about a diamond, and insist on flawless stones instead, which tend to have practically no character.
Surprised by the mention of the morality of ‘Blood Diamonds’... this is classic western privilege, where the moral significance of an issue is proportional to the light of our attention. Do we really presume that the life of a wretched child in the Congo is going to improve because we buy an emerald instead?
Not that it makes blood diamonds ok, but I would be curious to know how many people sneering at people buying real diamonds made their comment using hardware produced in a sweatshop, that was produced using minerals acquired using practices that are just as bad as those to acquire diamonds?
Obviously the diamond trade is terrible and is built on the backs of suffering, but a lot of the people I know IRL who literally used the movie blood diamond (or material talking about the benefits of artificial diamonds) to convince their fiance to go for an artificial diamond. But when trying to discuss the ethics of electronic production they literally just do not give a shit. Maybe it's just a classic case of people can only care about so many things, and these people just made the diamond trade their thing to care about, but to me, it came off like they only acted like they gave a shit about the diamond trade to save a few thousand on a ring without pissing off their fiance.
Did I really just read an article on pricing diamonds in 2019 that neglected to mention how diamonds are manufactured these days? It's impossible the writer doesn't know. So what is going on?
The growth in demand isn't keeping up with population growth because young people are not getting married, don't have enough money, read on the internet who mines the diamonds. Screw diamonds and the idiots who are upset they are getting cheaper.
And in some cases are willing to spend more on lab grown.
People will call it "virtue signaling" or whatever, but ultimately a lot of diamond mines around the world are run on blood (war, slavery, abuse, dangerous work conditions, etc) and they want no part of that, and are happy to let others know they made that choices.
So the diamond industry is getting squeezed from three sides. Customers too poor, inexpensive lab grown out of China, and a customer base who would rather not be associated with this: https://time.com/blood-diamonds/
It's OK - if your partner really wants one and somehow you can afford, go for it. If not, than don't. No point of complaining or badmouthing (or promoting) diamonds.
EDIT: wow, quiet a few downvotes (was expecting). Anyways, allow me to clarify --
I could go ahead and demonize chocolate (cocoa) or coffee (coffee farming is no field of dreams for workers) but more realistic approach is to see:
(1) The companies such as DeBeers have stopped trading (or at least try their best) blood diamonds
(2) Governments have banned blood diamonds -- at least countries like Canada has.
(3) Diamonds may be symbol of decadence and Masonite maybe the logical answer but you can argue same thing about wanting to drive an expensive sports car where a humble cheap sedan would do the job.
(4) People are complex - there are ladies who don't like or are against diamonds or they realize it is not worth the cost, etc. Then there are ladies who want diamond, PERIOD. Who am I to rule against them knowing there are people who want horseback riding or equally wasteful activity such as wearing designer shoes or buying the latest iPhone.
Point is, not everything is so black and white, right and wrong. There needs to be a fine balance and we should not follow a herd mentality in either extreme (criticizing or encouraging).
> Diamonds may be symbol of decadence and Masonite maybe the logical answer but you can argue same thing about wanting to drive an expensive sports car where a humble cheap sedan would do the job.
This comparison would be accurate if a Toyota and a Ferrari were virtually identical, with the easiest way to tell them apart being that the Toyota was perfect and the Ferrari had imperfections in the interior because the leather was hand stitched. And if the hand stitching was historically done by slaves.
