De Beers to Sell Diamonds Made in a Lab

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg


By Thomas Biesheuvel
May 29, 2018, 2:42 AM CDT Updated on May 29, 2018, 7:04 AM CDT
New strategy will undercut prices of lab-grown diamonds
Company had long vowed never to sell man-made diamond jewelry


De Beers, which almost single-handedly created the allure of diamonds as rare, expensive and the symbol of eternal love, now wants to sell you some party jewelry that is anything but.

The company announced today that it will start selling man-made diamond jewelry at a fraction of the price of mined gems, marking a historic shift for the world’s biggest diamond miner, which vowed for years that it wouldn’t sell stones created in laboratories. The strategy is designed to undercut rival lab-diamond makers, who having been trying to make inroads into the $80 billion gem industry.

Synthetically produced diamonds at a De Beers lab.Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
De Beers will target younger spenders with its new diamond brand and try to capture customers that have been resistant to splurging on expensive jewelry. The company is betting that it can split the market -- with mined gems in luxury settings and engagement rings at the top, and lab-made fashion jewelry aimed at millennials at the bottom.

‘Not Special’
“Lab grown are not special, they’re not real, they’re not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again,” Bruce Cleaver, chief executive officer of De Beers, said in an interview Tuesday.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/de-beers-is-said-to-make-u-turn-by-selling-man-made-diamonds

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Blood Diamonds: The Conflict in Sierra Leone

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Eliminating Blood Diamonds:



As a result of these grave tragedies, the world is now starting to take small steps in an effort to eliminate conflict diamonds. The UN has placed a embargos on conflict diamonds, while providing peacekeepers, economic aid, and other sources of assistance. There has also been the introduction of the Kimberley process. The Kimberley Process is a certification system for monitoring a diamonds origin from the mine, up until it reaches the hands of the distributors. With this process all diamonds collected from a mine are sealed in containers, and given warrantees. As they move from location to location, they are given further identifications to verify their origin. The United States is currently working on legislation for the Clean Diamond Act. This act would ban any diamonds that come from an unknown origin. Both the Clean Diamond Act and the Kimberly process are an attempt to create a diamond paper trail and to eliminate conflict diamonds from the diamond markets. While these resolutions are both a good start it is clear that it will take more for this conflict to be resolved.

The main problem with conflict diamonds is the structure of the diamond industry. Since, De Beers controls the majority of the market, they lack real incentive to address the problem of conflict diamonds due to the fact that conflict diamonds are such a small portion of the worldwide diamond sales. However, if the diamond industry were a truly completive market then conflict diamonds would have a greatly adverse affect on the whole market and would be quickly addressed and dealt with by the member of the diamond industry. Such a fact raises the question, why is there still a monopoly in the diamond market today? De Beers in still operating off the contracts that were made at the end of the nineteenth century with governments that for the most part do not still exist in those countries. Many of the contracts were made when these African countries were still colonies of European nations. Today, most of these countries have gained their independence but still honor these ancient contracts. This is where the newly formed African Union should step in on behalf of these African nations and challenge the current legality of these contracts in world court. All African nations would benefit from the release of these contracts and being allowed to have control over their own mines. If they were given this control they could use the increased revenues from the mines to reinvest into the growth and development of that particular country and its economy.

As demonstrated above with the atrocities that have occurred in Sierra Leone, it is apparent that some action immediately needs to be taken to eliminate these sources of death and destruction. Whether the solution is, the current action that is taking place or a more dramatic solution, action needs to be taken now because enough lives have been ruined and lost over a valueless piece of carbon.

More:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/Conflict%20in%20Sierra%20Leone.htm

[hlthe2b]

1. Glad to see this take incentive away from "blood diamonds" but...

I think this is going to (finally) give the industry the hit they deserve.

I have my Father's (and great Uncle's) nearly 100 year old diamond and a small one of my own mined in Northern Colorado during a short period when a few fine diamonds (and quite a few industrial diamonds) could be mined. Other than those, I'll stick with colored gemstones.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Never say "never."

But I never thought this day would come.

[hunter]

3. I will celebrate the death of De Beer's business model.

I gave my wife a 19th century family heirloom with an "antique" cut. A new diamond was never in the cards. We spent that money on our honeymoon.

I think the "blood diamond" thing is as much a response to synthetic and non-De Beers diamonds as it is to actual blood diamonds.