If you have kept track of diamonds and the industry for the past few decades, you surely know about GIA and DeBeers. Diamonds were rare they told us, the stones symbolize purity, truth, true love, sincerity and invincibility. Diamonds were expensive because they were symbols of wealth and prosperity, if you could not afford to own this glittering stone - you had to make do with the more ordinary things in life. The strong marketing force behind synthetic diamonds, has tempted GIA and DeBeers to change their song. So what exactly are synthetic diamonds, we asked Diaex to help with the explanation. Natural diamonds are indeed rare, even the youngest diamonds are a few billion years old. Interestingly, it is the ingenuity of humans that is required to bring out the glitter and sparkle in the precious stone. Rough uncut and unpolished diamonds, appear quite dull and lifeless. It is the super accurate cutting and polishing process applied to diamonds that, brings out the spectacular fire in the stone. So what are synthetic diamonds, we talked to Olga Rosina one of the diamond experts involved in the design of the DiaEx diamond blockchain.
Olga explains, '... diamonds take billions of years to form in their natural environment, synthetic diamonds are made in sophisticated production units where, the entire process is squeezed down to a tiny time span. There is technology involved and as of today, the entire process is known to a very few people and the equipment required is quite expensive ...'. She went on to explain that at the core of a synthetic diamond, is a tiny flake of natural diamond. The synthetic material then collects on that flake and becomes larger.
There is a twisted marketing strategy being adopted by synthetic diamond sellers, the theme is that, since the chemical composition and properties of a synthetic diamond, mimic that of its natural counterpart - the factory made diamond is not 'synthetic' but real! This is a complete distortion of facts. Synthetic diamond sellers are fully aware that, these stones have a low value - this explains why they are priced about 80% less, as compared to natural diamonds.
So should you buy synthetic diamonds? It really is not a tough decision to make, go ahead if you are interested but make sure that, you do not end up paying too much or get misguided into believing that, you are getting real diamonds at a low cost. For those of you who wish to buy a natural diamond but are put off by the stiff price, look for options, compromise a bit on size and 4C features etc if that would get the stone within your budget. Most importantly, choose the right seller, the diamond supply chain is dotted with middlemen and brokers, these entities tend to inflate the price of diamonds without providing any added value.