This & That, Ceci et Cela

I recently came across an interesting article by Jay Epstein exploring the good ol’ marketing precept that the value of a diamond never diminishes, until you try to sell it… Why you’re forever being told that “diamonds are forever”, so don’t sell/exchange, just buy more. Good thing I happen to find conventional/white diamonds boring; I mean how exciting can what looks like a little piece of cut glass get? I’d rather have the more interesting coloured stones, preferably uncut/unusually shaped. I’ve also long thought that the “engagement rings should cost 2-3 months salary” & other marketing bilge spewed by De Beers is a lot of clodtrap. It just reinforces the fact that marketing is such a powerful tool. Janine Roberts has apparently also written a book and made a movie on the bloody history of diamonds and De Beers, her efforts to produce her work, and De Beers’ counter-efforts to halt any investigations, including orchestrating physical assaults on her.

Now there are synthetically created diamonds from firms like Gemesis and Apollo Diamond. Most recently, Washington, D.C. Researchers at the Carnegie Institution‘s Geophysical Laboratory have learned to produce 10-carat, half-inch thick single-crystal diamonds at rapid growth rates. So why spend more if these ones are shown to be of identical quality, etc as the mined ones? I imagine De Beers can’t be too happy about this. Apparently, their response was to set up a new scientific division called the “Gem Defensive Programme” with the primary goal to find ways to tell apart their natural diamonds from these new synthetic gems.

Wrong move given that many consumers (especially today’s generation) probably wouldn’t care knowing that their stone was made, not found. I mean, I don’t see anyone looking down on cultured pearls versus found pearls. Plus, cultured/manufactured diamonds have the added benefit of being guaranteed to be conflict-free, for those who care.  Afterall, do you discriminate against cultured/farmed pearls versus found pearls?  Greenhouse orchid vs wild-grown orchid?  Unless of course, you’re one of those who need that formed-underground-aeons-ago and mined-by-exploited-3rdworld-workers cachet…

I’m all for a shift in focus from cost of the rock to what you can do to/with the rock. There would be tremendous benefit in having the value focus shift from mostly material cost to skill of material manipulation by the product designer. When the rock isn’t so ridiculously priced to begin with, designers are freer to focus on new ways to alter or utilize it, e.g. the ability to craft creations like the watch below by Tag Hauer would be more accessible to artisans. The blinging potential of cultured diamonds as a better alternative to overpriced and conflicted naturals is limitless.

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