The DeBeers marketing is still effective and most (US at least) women still want them for their romantic authenticity. I suspect this will be unpopular, but I know many of my married buddies would likely not be if they had insisted and held firm that a lab grown diamond is just as good. Doctors, lawyers, tech guys.
Thank you. I literally told my husband I didn't even want a diamond, I just want something that communicates the "I'm married" social signal to minimise annoyances from men, fits my aesthetic tastes, and is soft enough that there's low risk of a degloving accident without being so soft that I can't do any work with my hands. I'm not immune to the psychology and marketing - I'd still feel weird if he had wanted to get me like, costume jewellery for a wedding ring, but I'm perfectly happy with moissanite.
Is anything metal soft enough to avoid degloving? Skin's pretty soft, and I too am quite concerned about such injuries.
Coincidentally, I bought a bunch of moissanite on aliexpress just yesterday. I went looking for artificial diamonds, but they were still more expensive than the frivolity-money I planned on blowing. (and were hard to find in that SEO hellscape) Plus clear silicon-carbide has better optical properties than diamond anyway, so moissanite looks nicer.
Gold, basically, but if it's not high enough carat the risk goes up a lot. At the same time, too high carat gold is going to get damaged very easily. It's a balancing act, you can only lower the risk.
I use 18k, with the normal ring design that has a thinner side towards the palm, counting on that thin part of the ring to break before a full degloving. I did ask about whether it was possible to get a 14k ring that came in two halves with 22k linkages between the halves (the idea being that it would split very easily in an emergency but most of the ring would be scratch resistant), but after looking at me like I had two heads one jeweller said it wasn't possible and the other jeweller quoted me some obscene price which, fair enough. Regardless, still remove the ring before you work with any tools that are a risk though, like a belt sander etc. If you use a workshop regularly, I would just build a designated container at a convenient height for your wedding ring, so you always know where it will be if it's not on your hand.
This describes next to no women I've ever known. If a man wants to pass off his genes, then waiting for a "smart" woman is a gamble. Even if he finds one, the parents in law will cast shame for him not getting her a real diamond. That's how deep the marketing goes.
I would not marry anyone who given the option of buying thing A @ X units of currency/kg and a chemically identical version of thing A @ 3X units of currency/kg would pick the option which is 3 times more expensive for the sole reason of "status".
As someone who passed up getting married several times, not specifically because of disagreements about diamonds but with women who would certainly have responded to such a disagreement as a huge red flag if not a deal breaker, stories like this remind me why it was worth wading through 20 years of heartbreak and occasional loneliness until I stumbled into someone who - in addition to checking all the usual boxes and then some - could not care less about "authentic" chunks of rock. at. all.
Ironically her degree and academic research career are both very much concerned with authenticating the provenence of ancient stuff dug out of the ground. Just not lizard-brain shiny rocks.
Seeking high social status in a male partner is a good reproductive strategy for human females. That’s why so many women like Veblen goods and why ugly billionaires have gorgeous wives.
Pretending that normal human behaviour is a “red flag” is a path towards conflict and unhappiness.
Sure, you can find outliers that don’t care about such things, but not everyone can marry only a minority of women.
>Seeking high social status in a male partner is a good reproductive strategy for human females.
So is taking them for a ride, getting half of their assets and house, and having relationships and babies with other man.
So?
>Sure, you can find outliers that don’t care about such things, but not everyone can marry only a minority of women.
No, but a huge majority can be divorsed at 40, paying alimony, losing half their assets, and wondering why they listened to stupid advice based on "normal human behaviour" and "good reproductive strategies".
Funny also how this "normal human behaviour" and "good reproductive strategies" it's just manifested in the form of a demand for an expensive rock in the US, almost as it's a BS cultural thing and not some evolutionary standard.
No woman in this parts of Europe (and many others I know of) would care for such BS, unless she's the type that goes for older rich guys with expensive cars and yaughts too.
If personality and ethics matters at all in this "love of your life" thing (and nor just bodily features), then it should be a huge red flag that she isn't in love, and shouldn't be the love of your life.
Some people have been trying to make inclusions the new fetch which is stupid since if are so much better. Diamond does have superiority something like moassinite but the cost differential is way more than 3x for minor differences in wearability.
I exclusively hear this from US folks. Would love to see a breakdown of where DeBeers makes its money. Frankly I can't imagine anyone I know caring about this.
> “People don’t buy Swiss watches to tell the time,” he said. “Apple probably sells more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry but does that matter if they’ve grown during that period?”
Exactly. That diamonds are expensive is almost the entire point. If it becomes possible to buy artificial diamond rings for like $50, the tradition will disappear entirely. People will find some other signaling act.
There's bias even in that wording though. They're not "artificial" diamonds. They're real diamonds, grown in a lab instead of in the ground.
Agreed with your broader point though. IIRC there's an economics term for this—goods that don't follow the standard supply/demand price curve, but where increasing price actually increases demand over some range. Ah, "Veblen" goods, apparently.
Potentially a fair point vis a vis the environment, but it’s not really true of people as far as DeBeers is concerned. I know people that work for them in Botswana and I hear nothing but good things about them as an employer. On the environment, Kimberlites are pretty small and the environmental impact of primary diamond mining isn’t really that great in the grand scheme of things. Take this with a pinch of salt from a guy on the internet sharing some anecdata etc etc.
----
“The underlying concern is that we are walking towards a bloodbath in lab-grown diamonds,” said Richard Chetwode, managing director of RCC Diamond Consultants.
----
Good riddance. There's no longer even any practical use for an expensive engagement ring anyway since breach of promise suits no longer exist. Not a good investment for a young couple setting out.
I bought a pair of 7mm diamonds that are said to be made with chemical vapor deposition. They're very nice and very cheap, at least relative to the mined diamonds. If anything, they're too perfect. The natural ones are imperfect in the way that real wood siding is less perfect than vinyl siding on a house.
If you marry the wrong husband, it's helpful to have a items you can sell in order to rebuild. The costs of lab grown diamond vs. natural is like a 60% difference. I understand wanting a real diamond for such an odd contract as marriage.
No doubt, and to tech folk like you and me, it's a tiny amount of money but in the nightmare situation of trying to rebuild after an abusive marriage, the price of natural vs. lab grown makes a difference.
A diamond manufactured becomes a product like any other, an iPhone, a TV, whatever.
There is something more profound with holding a stone that was forged deep in the Earth and somehow mined from there, too, even if chemically it's the exact same thing.
