hello all. i recently got engaged but had to return my ring. now i'm looking into getting a new ring and i'm considering a lab created diamond.

if anyone else has advite on lab created diamonds please let me know, i'm not sure which way to go now because i have over $5k from the old ring..not sure if i should use it for a new ring of a vacation/wedding $
thank you all for your help

[Erik]

Lab created diamonds are indistinguishable from natural ones, except they have less flaws. If you don't care and you think others will not know or care, go for a manmade. Much more rock for the buck.

[Erik]

Here's a link:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

[adnCat]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but that article doesn't account for the R&D costs that have gone into the process of creating man made diamonds. It may cost $5 of material to create a diamond, but overhead and the initial research and development, plus a desire to avoid collapsing the diamond market, will keep the price of true synthetic diamonds fairly high for years to come, I believe.

Gemesis currently only sells fancy colored diamonds, and they are not any cheaper than natural near colorless stones. Takara also sells fancy colored diamonds, also pricey.

Apollo doesn't have their colorless stone available to the public yet, but I had a chance to purchase them through invitation only about 9 months ago. They were more expensive than their same quality counterparts at blue nile.

Diamond nexus labs claims to have man made diamonds, but dig deep on their website for the chemical composition of the stones they sell, and you will find it is actually CZ. Russian brilliants also call pretend to be diamonds, but they are CZ.

The following vendors sell high quality stones and are honest and upfront about their gemstone composition. Van Graff = CZ. Asha = CZ. Interlap = CZ.

If you see "man made" or "synthetic diamonds" selling at a few hundred per carat, you are not buying diamonds. (Meaning, 100% carbon) You are probably buying CZ with a diamond coating or just plain CZ. When you buy quality CZ, it is nearly identical to a diamond in looks and optical properties. A little less refraction, a little more disperision, a little softer stone (softer than a sapphire, but harder than an aquamarine, I think). A high quality CZ that is cut and polished to diamond standards can really look nice. If I can figure out how later, I will post pics of some high quality CZ right next to my natural-mined (GIA certified) engagement ring. In my opinion, totally indistinguishable.

[Erik]

You could be right, I just remembered reading the Wired-item, but I checked the internet back then, and there were sites selling manmade diamonds at discount rates. Fancy colours is acutally considered, uhm, fancy, especially yellow. That's why the manmade are mostly yellow, not because they can't make clear ones.

[adnCat]

Actually, the colorless stones are harder to make. Believe me, I've done extensive research on this. I'm willing to bet that those "man-made" diamond deals you saw were not truly diamonds. Simulants are fine, I think they are a great substitute, but I hate for people to be misled.

The HPHT technique that Gemesis uses allows them to create colored stones much faster than colorless stones. Making colorless stones means lower production of inventory that will sell for less per carat than the fancy colored counterparts. So why would they bother? Even Apollo, the company aiming to focus on colorless and near colorless stones, has light yellow and light "chocolate" gemstones in their "inventors edition" stones (the ones that were available for sale through invitation a while back), which are created through a process called CVD (chemical vapor deposition). From the inventory they showed me, few were in the colorless and near colorless range of D-J rated stones. Plus, Apollo only has smaller size stones right now. I don't think they made much more than 1/2 carat single stones. However, I still think that Apollo is the company to watch for colorless/near colorless stones, which they say will hit the market this year. Note that they've been saying "soon" for a while now and keep extending their official web store opening date... (when the Wired article that everyone has read hit newstands in fall of 2003, Apollo was thinking that in January of 2004 they would be selling.)

Takara also uses the HPHT technique. Here is some text directly from Takara's website concerning colorless (or "white" diamonds):

Currently, white Takaras are not available for sale.
However, there have been some significant technological breakthroughs this year, which may make Takara™ white cultured diamonds a reality in the not-to-distant future.
If we had to hazard a guess on pricing, we would guesstimate that white cultured diamonds will run about 30-50% the cost of the same size mined white diamond (e.g. perhaps $3800/ct). In other words, some significant savings over mined diamonds, but not at the impossibly low pricing you may sometimes see mentioned in various news articles.

Even if it did cost $5 a carat to make them, you can bet they will not sell them for very cheap. The gemstone industry has learned great lessons from the introduction of synthetic sapphires to the mix. When these synthetic stones were introduced, they ended up pricing them a little too low, and the value of the natural stones fell in reaction to the availability of higher quality man-made stones. The diamond industry does not want the same thing to happen to them. That last bit about the sapphires was an Apollo employee's explanation to me about why their inventors edition stones cost as much as or more than similar quality stones from blue nile.

[Erik]

OK, OK, Uncle! I only read the Wired-stuff and passed it on.

Guest, I think you have been given excellent advice.