Lab diamonds

QuantumTurk

Heya. Before anyone jumps on the diamonds suck bandwagon, believe me I know and agree. (I rather hate the whole engagement ring..."thing" as a custom, wedding bands are nice though!) After some long talks with my partner its what they want though, and they at least don't care if it is natural or not.

Has anyone gotten a diamond they were happy with, lab made (not diamond simulant) and at some sort of reasonable price? We are looking for something a .5 carat or less (She says that is the largest she would ever want, which hey, suits me!)

Also, if anyone has experience with any suppliers of synthetic emeralds/rubies, that would be nice to know too!

There just seem to be a fair number of options, and it's really hard to get a feel for if anyone is reliable/unreliable/if the prices are jacked or accurate.

Phasen

I ordered from bluenile.com which is conflict free diamond retailer. I didnt look too much into lab diamonds though... damn diamonds are a scam.

Anyway good luck.

MegaMan001

I'll try not to belabor this, but it's nearly impossible to get a 'good deal' on a diamond because you can't really do any research on it, right? You can't compare specifications objectively, because you're not a gemologist with a loupe and training to evaluate diamonds. That's even before you get into the whole 'inflated cost due to marketing and tradition'.

I've had a few friends who've had good luck with Moissanite stones (which are more or less synthetically created diamond substitutes). They're not diamonds, but the appearance and associated qualities are very 'diamond like'. They also are a lot cheaper.

It's great that you spoke to your partner regarding what he/she wanted, because that's going to provide the best information for a suitable ring. You said they didn't care if it was a natural diamond, but rather diamond like? So, basically a clear shiny gem - I'd take a look at Moissanite.

Gdiguy

My wedding ring is from http://d.neadiamonds.com/ ; came out really well (they had the most options for blue diamonds of the lab diamond retailers that seemed more reputable), and we had no issues with them (other than it taking a couple weeks for them to find enough darkish blue ones to match what we wanted)

The price isn't really that much below 'normal' diamonds, but I think it's a combination of 'still expensive enough to make' and 'they can charge that much so why would they go less'... my impression also was that while colored diamonds are more rare in nature, they're actually somewhat easier to make (and vice versa), so the colored ones seemed to be a bit cheaper lab-created... but it's not going to be an 80% savings or anything like that unless you really go to diamond substitutes.

schuss

Check out pricescope.com for questions on the real stuff, there are plenty of conflict-free options such as Canadian diamonds. For less than .5, the prices are pretty reasonable.
I personally used whiteflash.com when I bought mine for my wife, but there are plenty of great diamond suppliers that will work with you based on your requirements. For specifically conflict free, brilliantearth.com is another great source.

Hypatia

My husband and I got Moissanite in our wedding bands and are pretty happy with them. To get them, we worked with a metalsmith who made our bands and she pretty much gave them to us at cost because we were paying her for the design/making of the bands themselves.

MegaMan001

Hypatia wrote: »

My husband and I got Moissanite in our wedding bands and are pretty happy with them. To get them, we worked with a metalsmith who made our bands and she pretty much gave them to us at cost because we were paying her for the design/making of the bands themselves.

Not to hijack the thread, but how was your experience with the clarity and colorlessness of the moissanites?

Six

MegaMan001 wrote: »

Hypatia wrote: »

My husband and I got Moissanite in our wedding bands and are pretty happy with them. To get them, we worked with a metalsmith who made our bands and she pretty much gave them to us at cost because we were paying her for the design/making of the bands themselves.

Not to hijack the thread, but how was your experience with the clarity and colorlessness of the moissanites?

My wife's engagement ring and wedding band are moissanite. She constsantly gets compliments on them from people who assume they're just amazing looking (and large) diamonds. She's happy to tell people they're moissanite since she's a geologist and loves that they're lab created and conflict-free, but doesn't bother talking about unless people ask.

All in all we ended up extremely happy to go that route.

Jebus314

As far as I know there are only a few companies that actually make synthetic diamonds, but it's impossible to get reliable intel. The companies that I hear about most often are gemesis,
AOTC/d.nea, and chatham. Wikipedia lists 14 total, but those three are the ones I usually see mentioned (with a shout out to apollo diamonds who used to make fancy synthetic diamonds but now only make industrial diamonds).

My wife and I got a ring from miadonna. Originally they just sold mined diamonds and a "diamond hybrid" that was polycrystalline diamond on top of some sort non-diamond core (probably CZ). They had some in person shows when we were living in the Portland area and being completely uneducated in how diamonds should look, the hybrids looked just as good as the diamonds they had on display, and supposedly the durability is similar to actual diamonds. I would probably say that a nicely cut/polished CZ or Masonite would look just as good as a real diamond to me as well though, so there's that.

At any rate, miadonna partnered with gemesis and now they sell mined diamonds, synthetic diamonds, and their "diamond" hybrid. I can attest that they are a real company, they have a great selection of wedding bands (and they'll do custom designs as well, for a price), and they have really good customer service. They will probably not be the cheapest place to get mined or synthetic diamonds, but they are easy to work with and seem to make a real effort to be conflict free and offer diamond alternatives.

ceres

This thread is about synthetic diamonds.

Just, you know, for those of you who needed a reminder.