How would you like DIAMOND microchips and the End of De Beers control?

[Blue_Chill]

For a very long time now the myth that Diamonds are rare has been pushed on the public to keep prices high. Diamonds are of course NOT as rare as they would have us believe but their supply has been limited by De Beers which is basically a diamond monopoly.

Well it seems that two American based companies have cracked a long sought after prize. They have figured out a way to make them, in a lab. This opens the door to lower prices and even provide diamonds as a material to replace silicon in the manufacturing of microchips.


<snip>De Beers Diamond Trading Company. The London-based cartel has monopolized the diamond business for 115 years, forcing out rivals by ruthlessly controlling supply. But the sudden appearance of multicarat, gem-quality synthetics has sent De Beers scrambling. Several years ago, it set up what it calls the Gem Defensive Programme - a none too subtle campaign to warn jewelers and the public about the arrival of manufactured diamonds. At no charge, the company is supplying gem labs with sophisticated machines designed to help distinguish man-made from mined stones.<snip>




<Snip>By January, Apollo plans to start selling them on the jewelry market. But that's just the first step. Robert and Bryant Linares expect to use revenue from the gem trade to fund their company's semiconductor ambitions. Not surprisingly, the diamond industry is hostile to the idea, as the younger Linares discovered four years ago when he attended an industry conference in Prague. He was hoping to find out whether any other researchers - possibly De Beers scientists themselves - had discovered the sweet spot. During a break in the conference, a man approached Linares and told him to be careful. "He said that my father's research was a good way to get a bullet in the head," Linares recalls<snip>


Source: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

The two companies that make the lab diamonds

http://gemesis.com/
http://www.apollodiamond.com

[Blue_Chill]

1. Kick damnit!

BTW - this could end the ruthless Diamond market that harm so many in Africa and other parts of the world.

[JI7]

2. diamonds and terrorism

i hear there is also a connection between diamonds and terrorism. overall , they seem way overpriced. i use to want these diamond earrings, and only the real thing, but did a little reading up on the whole diamond industry, and will not pay such a high price for them anymore. there are others that look just as good as the real thing but cost way less that i can buy.

[Blue_Chill]

3. These diamonds

Are just as beautiful as the real deal, most of much higher quality then what you find in stores. And they require no mining thus no exploited Africans. They are also made in America!

[Fescue4u]

4. Sounds fantastic

The De beers cartel is pretty damn ruthless and deserves to be made obsolete.

This is an outlaw company that cannot even operate in United States because it has several indictments pending.

[Blue_Chill]

8. Yup De Beers is already forcing these companies to

call them something other then 'diamonds' and working on ways to detect them. But they know their time is up, these guys can crank stones that no matter what you call them really are diamonds. They think they will even make enough so that it becomes cheap enough to use in manufacturing.

This is huge for those of us who love to see big ruthless corps get screwed.

[absolutezero]

12. not call them diamonds?

a diamond is a crystal structure only found in carbon (the element all life on earth is based on), not a patentable object

:mad:

[Blue_Chill]

14. Gemesis is calling them cultured diamonds

but still advertising the fact that they are in fact diamonds, and of a incredibly high quality.

[MoonAndSun]

5. I like anything that will put deBeers out of business.

n/t

[Kool Kitty]

16. Hear, hear.

I'll second that.

[slackmaster]

23. Me too

I'm in favor of synthetic diamonds all the way. Screw DeBeers.

[bpilgrim]

6. wow

that is a helluva story... i want IN!

i would love to help him distribute them ;->

peace

[Must_B_Free]

7. Here is an even better article on DeBeers than the wired one

http://edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/prologue.htm

[Blue_Chill]

9. Yup you are right

nice find.

[wellstone_democrat]

10. There has been many a heart broken by resale value

the idea that an "investment" was made in jewlery and many a woman fallen on hard times through divorce or widowhood---or in the case of an old neighbor of my mother's, her elderly husbands illness---found that DeBeers control has another unpleasant aspect: the resale price of diamonds is notoriously poor. years ago, around 1981, Harper's did an article on this as well. Once, just to test the claim, I had my old engagement ring valued and found that the stone was slightly larger and better grade than I thought but...worth not 1500 as paid ten years before (and a steal at that price) but 200 and that included the gold content.

I'd love to see this monopoly crushed---it will free Africans from this horrific trade and put a realistic price on what isn't so "rare" at all.

[Fescue4u]

11. most telling part of article

"The tussle goes to the heart of the marketing problem for Gemesis or any maker of synthetic gems: How will consumers feel about them? The mystique of natural diamonds is anything but rational. Part of the allure is their high cost and supposed rarity. Yet diamonds are plentiful - De Beers maintains vast stockpiles and tightly controls supply."


Very few people realize how artificial the scarcity of diamonds really is.

[Blue_Chill]

13. Wired did a great job

with this one. Then again they always have interesting stories.

[catzies]

26. The "mystique of natural diamonds" is aided by DeBeers' marketing

I'm sure everyone can recite "a diamond is forever" from memory and the pervasiveness and persistence of memory behind that is the marketing and propaganda machine instituted and perpetrated by the DeBeers cartel.

[Skittles]

15. I have never understood the lure of diamonds

and would NEVER wear a diamond. People are so f***ing conditioned to think there are things they MUST have and for women, diamonds seem to be one of them.

[ima_sinnic]

18. I SO agree!

To own and wear something that was gained at the cost of so much suffering--I would just feel guilty as hell and get no pleasure whatsoever from it. Diamond miners have been slaves ferchrissake and I'm sure their situation has barely improved.

[Skittles]

20. AND

I have yet to know even a DEMOCRAT who understands this. Thanks IMA!!! :D

[Atlant]

17. Kick ('cause they locked the other thread)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=201488#201799

[radwriter0555]

19. Aww, poor debeers won't be able to enslave and exploit indigenous peoples

anymore for pennies a day for their massive profiteering! POOOOOOR DEBEERS!

[StandWatie]

21. just quit buying any of it..

seems simple enough :shrug:

[Blue_Chill]

27. Why would you do that?

You can buy these guilt free. In fact buying the lab created ones will actually help bring De Beers down.

[StandWatie]

28. it keeps demand up..

and the snobs are always going to want the real deal..

[zoidberg]

22. Milton Friedman called DeBeers...

The only international monopoly ever to exist without protection from government. I'm about as laissez faire as they come on this board, but I would love for those bastards to go under.

[Fescue4u]

43. Hell debeers protects some governments

Debeers essentially props up the government of certain nations.

I found it incredible that the one of the mines mention in the 2nd article, which is located in S. Africa is offlimits to even the government and military.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

24. they aren't rare...but that's the lie that DeBeers and the Oppenhiemers...

want you to believe...they are buisnessmen...the fact is though that there are enough diamonds on this earth to sole the bottom of every man, women and childs shoes on earth 10,000 times over! and replace every wood floor with diamond imbedded terrazel(ms) in every house in america...we are the suckers!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

25. damned right!

the diamond industry is an amazing scam, but the bottom is about to fall out since they can make diamonds in the lab now :)

[blindpig]

29. got some news for you

the diamond market is already in the dumpster. wholesale prices for all but ct+ finest kind round suck. I can't give the crap away. Chain retailers really hose their customers, the financing is abusive even from my pov.
The whole "diamond mystic" is bogus. I know, run a mom&pop pawnshop.
Used jewelry only. It's a living. Recycling & Usury R Us

[Blue_Chill]

30. Good or bad

De Beers runs it. I want that to end. This tech will spread and more nations seekig cheap high end diamonds for industry use discover the secrets of making them. Japan for example has invested a hell of a lot in figuring this out.

De Beers is screwd and I love it.

[Superfly]

31. The only problem is they're

yellow!!!

I think de Beers found some yellow diamonds and thought that they wouldn't sell all that well...so the called them "champagne" colored.

You may hate de Beers, but you have to give them props for a tremendous ad campaign! Prior to them coming on the scene, the sapphire was considered the engagement stone.

B

[Blue_Chill]

32. Not a problem

They can make several colors including pink (think J-lo's stone) and colorless.

[Superfly]

34. But that IS a problem!

Who wants a colored diamond? I mean, if you want a:

Yellow stone: buy a topaz
Blue stone: aquamarine or sapphire
Red stone: ruby, garnet

[Blue_Chill]

36. No problem

They can make colorless.

[Superfly]

38. OK, that's better than some

14 year old slave "making" diamonds. There I have to agree with you, and is the reason I refuse to buy conflict diamonds and diamonds obtained through slave/child labor.

B

[Brian Sweat]

40. Someone still has to shape and polish the synthetic diamonds.

Eventually, these machines will be setup in third world countries and people will be paid $5 a day to shape and polish them.

[Superfly]

42. I thought faceting occured

at centers where gemologists work. Do companies employ local laborers to facet their stones?

[Brian Sweat]

39. Did you read the article?

Diamonds of certain colors are far more valuable than white diamonds. The shade of yellow in the article was extremely valuable. Most yellow diamonds are worthless, but this was a very rare shade.

[Brian Sweat]

33. No, the machines can make colorless (white) diamonds.

I saw a show on the Russians who developed this technology several years ago. When they first started out, the diamonds they made were yellow, but the quickly figured out how to remove impurities. At the time, the only way to distinguish between mined diamonds and synthetic diamonds was that the synthetic diamonds fluoresced under UV light. They have probably solved this problem by now.

[Superfly]

35. Hmmm

just wondering here....

How can lab-grade carbon have impurities? I mean, if we can manufacture bucky balls with a pure carbon composition, I'm sure some labs can purify carbon to the level where there are no impurities.

I wonder if the coloring is due to some other factor such as radiation (damages SiO2, giving "smoky" quartz) or shortened time to crystallization. Do diamonds exhibit twinning?

[Brian Sweat]

37. I don't know.

I just remember that the first diamonds they made were yellow and they had to modify the process in order to get them to be colorless. I am not sure that they used pure carbon to start with.

[knight_of_the_star]

41. Maybe I'll buy a few

Use them to make a ring for someone.