Given how crooked the market is for "natural" diamonds is, based on artificial scarcity and enough evil to keep the DeBeers family out of several Western countries for fear of arrest, this is great news. Screw them and their criminal cartel, screw them and their market-manipulating bullshit.

What cracks me up is the latest trend of 'chocolate' and 'champagne' diamonds, which until recently were considered too flawed/ugly for anything other than industrial use. But name them after shit girls like and suddenly you can charge an outrageous markup.

Would sir care for some Patagonian Toothfish? No? What if I called it "Chilean Sea Bass" and charged you five times as much for it?

I recommend it with Portobello mushrooms, and a corn-sugar and pichuberry sauce.

Ohhhh. Crunchy on the outside. Crunchy in the middle, too.

I have just 2 carats of stone on my left hand, and they cost under 200 dollars. The stones (chrysoberyl) are conflict free, hard enough for every day life, have good clarity, and aren't diamonds. The only reason they are that size was to work with my ring design.

Couldn't be happier...especially since the guy that I married is infinitely cooler than the ring.

Nice.

We flagged the whole ring thing and got a small bronze statue cast. It's made up of two parts that can stand alone and we put them together in the ceremony, rather than exchange rings. It sits on the coffee table in our house.

What an awesome idea!

See I bought a diamond engagement ring for my wife being well aware of the horrendous behaviour of DeBeers et al. I felt, and feel, pretty stupid for buying in to the whole 'diamonds are de rigeur' thing, but knowing the prevalence of the idea I didn't feel that it was appropriate to do anything else. I wish I'd had the gumption and creativity to think of something with a unique flavour like you and your husband.

OTOH, I'd feel pretty absurd going down on one knee with a bronze cast. It was pretty silly even with the ring.

We didn't do engagement rings at all. A while ago (well before we decided to get married) we had a lawyer draft a power of attorney that means my husband has the authority to have me committed against my will if it becomes necessary. And we sort of felt, once you've established that level of trust and responsibility, there wasn't much to be gained by 'till death' or any of that. Then we bought a house together and we have wills and the financial stuff is sorted. And we figured we'd get round to it eventually. Nobody got down on one knee. It was obvious to both of us from the first meeting that we would be together for the rest of our lives.

But then my brother's cancer returned and it was pretty obvious he wasn't going to make it this time. So people wanted to come and see him, but he didn't really feel like being an invalid and suffering through a string of 'pre-funeral' visits. So me and Stephan (the husband) decided to get married - half because everyone needed a party and half because it became apparent that life could end at any time and of all thing things we were getting around to we'd rather have never got to replacing the bathroom tile than never got married.

Years ago, I saw an episode of Nova that was about man made diamonds. At the time, good artificial diamonds were only distinguishable from natural diamonds due to the fact that man made diamonds fluoresce under a black light.

I'm glad that younger shoppers don't feel that only a natural diamond is acceptable.

I saw that too, and my reaction was "why would anyone want a diamond that doesn't glow in black light? That's a selling point!"

I'm waiting for the man-made diamonds that'll replace the ones bought for wedding rings. I think this has already been patented, but if not, free idea:

Create the diamond in such a way that an image is encoded in its structure. The bottom of the diamond (the part closest to the finger) is set so there's an opening in the bottom of the setting. When placed in a specially-designed cradle, a light is shone through the gem, projecting the image on a nearby surface, like a picture of the wedded couple, a family crest, etc.

...the silhouette of a bat...

Besides, in most measurable respects Moissanite (aka silicon carbide) is superior to diamond. it's only slightly short on hardness and being truly colorless (not that most diamonds are colorless either).

Its also significantly cheaper and more brilliant!

Fuck the diamond industry.

Oops.

Hah, yeah, that really is one of the best articles ever written about the diamond industry.

I had posted the link to the Epstein article...which was already up here.