Diamonds and the market sustainability of "perfect" GW items

Hi all, I was watching Law & Order last night, and they had an episode about blood diamonds. During the show, they were saying that diamonds aren't rare at all, but since a few monopolies control the world's diamond supply, they're made to be perceived as a rare commodity. It is also because of this misconception, once diamonds are bought, they almost never make it back into the market.

So this got me thinking. Does this apply to "perfect" GW items as well, which are kind of diamonds in a sense, in that they're "perfect" and "rare"? So maybe "perfect" items aren't rare at all, and it's just that once someone buys a "perfect" item, they almost never sell it again. And in this case, the "monopolies" would be the bot sellers and also the chest runners, or whoever has a large supply of such "perfect" items. And this has contributed to the price of such "perfect" items remaining high.

Anyhow, what do you guys think?

P.S. As always, these opinions are my own, and my own only, and as such, do not represent those of Guru in any way, shape, or form.

Don't think it is comparable. You can't just go in a mine and 'farm' diamonds, can you? In GW anyone can go anywhere with no butting or restrictions (except the deep and urgoz). If you can't go somewhere then either you're not good enough or play the storyline ^^.

Actually, you can, well, not you or me, but companies. In L&O they said that In Africa, whoever controls the mines gets to farm them, kinda like the elite missions

I will speak from experience.. coming first hand from a rich guild. We manipulated the price of ecto. Often by several plat. Same with gems, and monsterous parts.

Sorry to admit it, but we spread rumours about monsterous parts only after we had bought dozens upon dozens of stacks of for example, eyeballs.. at about 90g per unit. (22,500 per stack), and then once the word was spread that parts might be used in chapter 2.. the prices per unit increased to a peak of 4.2p per eye. (granting us a profit of 1,027,500) Mind you, this is just one stack of eyes. We each had several =D

Rare skins have been hoarded as well, after all, it makes more sense to slowly slag one 15^50 dwarven axe off into the market at a time, knowing full well you have a couple more stuck behind in your storage, but no one else does. This adds to the panic of 'having to have it", thus raising the price. This used to be the case, as this was before the drop increase. Now it is almost pointless to try and keep something for value, because it depreciates daily and people are starting to catch on. Well, except for a few, who seem stuck in chapter 1.

But, for the most part, people are suddenly dumping their rares into the market, knowing that this is happening, so this attributes to the steady recent decline in 'rare' skins, and I mean what used to be truly rare. (with exception to tribal axes and the old sickles)

But yes, to sum it up. It can be compared, not so far as the reality of diamonds and the truth behind 'blood diamonds' but so far as commodity, market demand, fair market value and trading, yes.

Crystalines Are Rare And Most People Keep Them or Sell Them To People Who Keep Them So yes Probally Yes

Whenever thinking about the GW economy, I always think about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Thanks for being honest about the actions of you and your guild, takes guts to admit stuff like that

After seeing your post, I'm beginning to think there is some validity to my OP

You also have to take into account how many are being removed from the market by people like me who sell rare skins to the merchant.

Milas~

Guilds have been fixing prices for a long time. On the other side of things, high-end traders manipulate prices regularly. This is not necessarily done intenionally, rather, as soon as a couple well known traders start looking for the same item, the average player thinks the item is the next "big thing", thus driving prices up.

Actually, I doubt that there is one big supply, people are just playing more, hence more drops and more rare items. There is some truth probably to some price manipulation, but its not that bad. Imagine if, for instance dragon masks became tradable. Everyone who had one could sell to one group of people. They would pay more than the average player for that particular time.

But, this would soon change. After a while, maybe a month or so, demand will go up. Players would be forced to buy from that group, because they own all of them. And Voiala, any price they want they can choose to sell for. Some games have this problem, and it is very bad for the economy. I guess Guild Wars has deflation, while other games have inflation. The reason is any item or object in this game can be obtained for free, so the prices will never go "that" high.

What you say about diamonds is completely true. DeBeers controls most of the diamond market worldwide. Check out some info about it here (especially about how they got into trouble with the US antitrust laws):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeBeers

However, I don't think you can compare the GW economy to the diamond market. Although diamonds are not rare, they are (like everything else physical) finite. Items in GW are never finite (ok, almost never - the HoD sword, and a few other discontinued items are exceptions). The game will ALWAYS make another. Sure it could be extremely rare, but it will eventually make another.

HTH

-Coy

wow didn't know that was true... about the diamonds. Thing is though, to get a super rare mod you should take in comparaison all the 100's of keys before you get a decent one, let alone the best of the best most valuable stuff.

You can see a good example with Kanaxai's items. Before Alliances were ferrying people for free or tips, his items were pretty pricey, upwards 250k+ for the sword. In a sense the Alliance that was holding access to The Deep was controlling the market with the number of Kanaxais or Diamonds that were on the market. Once ferrying became more rampant and more people had access, prices dropped like a rock, because the market was flooded with Kanaxai's items.

If there were items that can be controlled by a select group, then I would imagine it would be possible to control the number of items on the market. But, with everyone having access to most places, your options are limited.

I'm just still a little surprised that a single guild or a few people can have that big of an effect on the overall game economy. In the real world, that would be called price fixing, but you know, this is only a game

One big difference, though, is that ANet acts as the "omnipetent" watchdog over all the prices; whereas in the real world, there is no such thing as a watchdog being omnipetent. I'm not saying that ANet should enforce real-world laws in-game, I'm just saying that they have the power to do so if they chose to.

Dude, that takes dedication.

And that, everyone, is why you should buy AMD CPUs.

i believe currently debeers controls only about 50% of the diamond market. one of their competitors is canadian mined diamonds. in its heyday, debeers would buy up any diamond rough mined by other companies to keep them from flooding the market. these days debeers competitors have an interest in keeping prices high so they can maximize their own profit as well.

taking the monstrous eyes example, to function like debeers the guild would have to go around buying monstrous eyes, emptying trader inventory, and from any eye farmers. then they could allow a controlled trickle of eyes to the market at a price they set, say 7k and create an artificially low supply. The problem is that it is hard to create a demand for monstrous eyes in the game. Except when hype builds up around the forthcoming chapter of the game, it'd be pretty difficult to convince a player that they NEED a monstrous eyes, or even several.

In order to keep the players wiling to pay for the eyes, the guild would have to constantly create artificial demand as debeers does with its constant compaigns.

the difference w/ diamonds though is that diamonds have virtually no resale value. At whatever price you buy a diamond for, you are not going to get the same value back if you turn around and resell it. With the exception of truly (eg. colored) rare diamonds of exceptionally quality, most mass market diamonds you will be lucky if you get 50% by reselling to a vendor. The vendors won't even be interested in buying your diamond back at wholesale price.. usually they offer about 30% below wholesale. You could attempt to sell your diamond to a fellow consumer, but with the perception of yours being "used" and with no "return policy" and the possibility of you being a scammer on such a high ticket item, you will have to cut your losses on the sale. Your best bet in that case would be to sell one to a family member but only if they are looking for the same size, shape and quality diamond you wish to part with.

In GW, there are no such things as "used" items outside of "customized" and it's difficult to create long term artificial demand if you are not Anet.

So I'd say while the 2 would seem similar on the outside, they're not truly the same thing. GW inflation on non-rare items seems to have to do more w/ intense periods of demand/mania and speculation - rather like thestock market bubbles and the tulip mania

They are similar in that they still act in a supply/demand form - very little else. But, with that type of system there is quite a bit of sameness.

In the Diamond case there is really only a single supplier of decent quality natural diamonds - DeBeers. That's it - no one else. They have little control over demand but near total control over supply (unless you want low quality, industrial grade, or man made stuff). They can play with the supply curve all they want - they are the only game in town. I would believe the 50% quote in all natural diamonds, but not high end jewelry.

In a normal economy supply isn't that controllable - this is especially true in GW. Even though you have some guilds that have a large portion of supply, it is difficult for that to cause the price to increase by supply side economics. And even what is controllable tends to actually not be the optimum value (even if price is increased). The best they can do is what is said above - start rumors to greatly increases demand (or take advantage of a temporary increase in demand) then meet the supply. That is demand side price controll - opposite of the diamonds.

But then, we aren't really in a normal supply either - GW is a nearly unlimited supply only affected by time. Except in a few cases all have access (Elite missions are much more similar to diamonds if the controlling alliance is internally united to supply control and doesn't allow outsiders). This makes it MUCH more a damand based market. In dimonds we will eventually run out and supply will become fixed. It may be another 3000 years of mining, but it will happen (even if we move to other planets it is still fixed - it will just take longer).

An interesting thing in the diamond trade is that perfect man made diamonds are now possible. Artificial diamonds can not be told from a natural diamond - even by the most accurate means and the most talented people. A lot like being able to dupe a "rare" in an online game. DeBeers now laser etches all thier natural diamonds to ensure them to be "real". The man made perfect diamonds are not popular - in fact they are hard to find. So rarity is actually what is wanted - even though it is artifical. So, it actually comes closer to what is described by shadowfel than I would like. Though that is different from what was asked. Personally, given the working conditions in diamond mines and the death rate, I would choose the artificial one. Not to mention that I could get a giant perfetly clear diamond at a fraction of a price (looks being why I like them).

I contend that rare items arent a rare as we have been led to believe, and an in game auction house would reveal that. Lets not forget that Superior Mesmer runes sold for 5k before the in game trader due to their (falsely) perceived rarity. Adding an in game trader has significantly dropped the price of everything that has been touched, and I don't suppose rare skinned items would be very much different once we add an auction house.

In economic terms, there really isn't a supply and demand problem, its a consumer information disparity issue. In the real world, consumers can at least have a decent idea of the supply of the item being purchased, whereas in GW there is no real way to know how many perfect Dwarven Axes are out there for sale at any given time. Adding an auction house would at the very least, give buyers a way to gauge relative rarity, which has been shown before in GW to lead to a price drop.

One item that springs to mind are perfect zodiac weapons. People who currently sell 15^50 zodiac axes and swords for 100k and 5+ ecto are going to be out of luck when their perceived rarity is gone. Zodiac skins are significantly more common than a rare Tyrian skin or even a rare Canthan skin. If most buyers knew how common they were, the real value of a perfect zodiac sword would not be nearly what it currently is.

There is a fundamental flaw in the comparison between rare items in GW and diamonds, and it is that all diamonds in the world are sold through ONE company, DeBeers.

They have a global monopoly on the trade in diamonds, and while it is true that diamonds are common but it doesn't matter, as the only actor in the market is DeBeers and they are restricting supply, thereby keeping prices high. Anyone who tries to compete with DeBeers faces the consequences, and they are harsher than most would believe.

There doesn't exist any monopolies in GW, not even of Deep and Urgoz items. That a person doesn't sell all items at once isn't monopoly or manipulating the market, it is being smart.
That one clan or alliance uses its financial muscle to manipulate prices isn't monopoly either - it's speculation, and it is manipulating the market, but no more or less immoral than the trade in commodities.

No clan or alliance holds a monopoly, no clan or alliance has any means of smacking down competition, and rare items are actually rare - and so the comparison to diamonds is void.

Took some free time, but beat having to spam sell in LA 1.

Plus, it gave us a multitude of jokes to rattle off in guild chat for like a week and a half. "Things are certainly LOOKING up!!" and.. "The EYES have it!"

Great post strcpy. I agree with you, I would also rather buy an artificial diamond for the same reasons you list above. But try asking your wife/girlfriend/fiancee/whatever if she would rather have a natural diamond or a man-made one even if she could not tell the difference.

I have asked this question to many women, and the overwhelming answer is natural. It seems DeBeers' marketing campaign of "two-month salary" has a lot to do this. To most women, a diamond represents commitment and a man willing to spend two-months salary on the physical embodiment of commitment is more attractive than the fiscally/socially conservative man.

This is obviously a huge generalization taken from a relatively small sample size. Not all women think like this but in my experience, most do.

-Coy

This couldnt be more accurate. I wish everyone thought like you/me.
To me, things should be more moderate. Everyone shouldnt have a perfect crystalline sword, but then again, everyone should have access to gain one at a fairly reasonable price. Not everyone has 500 ecto, or 2mil. plat. Things like this is what drives the botters, leechers, gwgold sellers, etc... If you want to stop things like that, eliminate their "buisness."

actually, i think the number may be closer to Debeers controlling 60% of the diamond rough, facing competition from Russia and Canada. Even with Debeers slowly losing market share, diamond rough is still not too cheap to mine and so it seems prices will not come down w/o pressure from other forces such as man-made diamonds. Also I think Debeers has a much wider and more established distribution system w/ their siteholders who buy the diamon rough.

Although Debeers sets the price of diamond rough, it is Martin Rapaport who puts out a yearly guide for prices of cut diamonds and thus influences the final prices paid by the end consumer.

Unfortunately, companies have not yet been able to produce quality colorless diamonds to sell for less than natural diamonds. Soon hopefully, but so far are only initially predicting a 10-20% savings over natural. And at that price, sometimes it makes more sense to pay the extra 25% for a natural diamond

Much of Debeers power I believe comes from its aggressive advertising and influence on the psyche women all over the world =)

It's definitely an interesting parallel to the wacked out world of GW though

I think you're bluffing, mainly because anyone in such a position as you wouldn't leak information like you did.

Interesting topic.

In regards to price fixing on monster parts, like Eyes, Fangs, Claws:

Since I can go farm creatures I know drop such an item, no one has a "monopoly" over it. Sure, they can inflate prices, but the higher the prices, the more the demand, the more incentive for Joe Blow to farm monster parts, thus (eventually) dropping the price. Even a large Guild can't outbuy 3,000,000 people!

Now, when it comes to Perfect weapons, it's a different story. I can't just "farm" perfect weapons... and if I do get one, I don't have to sell it. Plus, since Mechants don't deal in weapon drops, the only way a "company" could monopolize the Perfect market is to spam a lot of "WTB xxxx". Even then, there's no guarantee they could buy all of them for less than what they could sell them for... assuming the people who sell such weapons know what they are worth.

Now, an Auction House could actually make it possible for Guilds to horde perfect weapons... a very scary proposition! Then you could have legitimate concern for a DeBeer's Guild (esp. with Alliances... the OPEC of Guild Wars!?)

You can corner the market on low end items....such as eyes, fangs and claws.... Even items such as black dye and ecto's... You just got to have the bank roll to do it.... It's just Shadowfell said.. All you need is the money and time.....

Anyone remember what Enron did... Told there investors and employees to buy buy buy and they went bye bye bye with all the loot...

Two million copies of GW have been sold to date...I fail to believe that any one person, or even any one guild has managed to convince enough ppl that a certain item or items were suddenly of value on a large enough scale to have any effect whatsoever on the overall market. Simple supply and demand is the only reasonable answer and with that many ppl playing, there will always be a demand.

[QUOTE=Coy Vance]Great post strcpy. I agree with you, I would also rather buy an artificial diamond for the same reasons you list above. But try asking your wife/girlfriend/fiancee/whatever if she would rather have a natural diamond or a man-made one even if she could not tell the difference.

I worked in the Jewelry business in a previous career. Diamonds cant be lab created. The time, heat, and pressure needed to make a diamond cant be duplicated in a lab at this time (at least on any large of enough scale for a retail market). What we call Diamond Alternatives looks like a diamond to the untrained eye, but when gemologists due chemical testing, it will be clearly not a diamond. Interestingly enough the other precious gems can be Lab Created (Rubies,Sapphires,Emeralds,Tanzinite) and are chemical the same as the one you find in nature. The only real way a gemologist can distinguish a Lab Created from a natural in this case is by looking for the "Feathers" or natural flaws in the gem. Traditionally a lack of natural flaws have increased the value, now not finding flaws signals a Lab Created.

Whats interesting about Grading a diamond and setting a price is that its quite subject. Color grading goes from A on down with A being the most valuable into yellow colors (Yellow colors formed by the up take of nitrogen during formation, blues formed from oxygen like the Blue Hope Diamond). Where this gets interesting is I can show you a B graded diamond and tell you its an A, and you wouldnt know the difference. Most diamond shoppers are educated by Retailers while looking for a diamond. Now you can get a GIA certified diamond but those are done by Gemologists interns and is not anymore accurate than your pro-gemologist at the store. So be wary.

Now for godsakes dont by a knock off Diamond and try to pass it off as a real diamond, cause she'll take it to a store and the gemologist will tell her the truth... Then its over for you, Mister.

Actually that's a bit of misinformation. Color grading of diamonds begins from D and goes down from there. D is as colorless as you can go, with G starting to be just noticably a tinge yellow depending on the diamond's cut and your sensitivity to color.

GIA certificates for diamonds are not the same as GIA Graduate Gemologists (GIA GG) which I believe is what you are referring to. The GIA institution which is currently the leader in the diamond grading industry issue certificates on diamonds sent in for about $200 a piece. The GIA follows very strict grading standards and thus GIA diamonds cost a bit more than EGL or IGI cert diamonds which are usually a bit looser in grading (ie. a IGI D color diamond may be graded a E or F by the GIA).

The GIA gemologists who I believe you are referring are gemologists who have graduated with a certification from the GIA program. They may not have had the experience nor seen the wide range of diamonds that a gemologist working for the GIA has seen. Therefore they may be no better than a storefront gemologist. However, neither gemologist can issue a GIA diamond certificate, only the GIA institute can do that. GIA Graduate Gemologists can issue their own certificates if they like, but they're usually not worth the paper they were printed on.

The other problem with jewelry store gemologists issuing a certificate on a diamond they are selling is that they are not in a unbaised position, unlike the GIA institution. It is to their advantage to say that a diamond the store is selling is better than it actually is.

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic rant, but I hate it when I see diamond misinformation passed around.

now back to your regularly scheduled GW ranting ...

And why is this?


After a year of playing the market in GW, one of 4 things have happened.


1. Quit the game and stopped trading.

2. Got all the stuff you needed and stopped trading.

3. Got tired of trading all the time, and ... stopped trading.

4. Obviously adddicted to trading, and do nothing else but trading.. gg, you.



I still play gw, I have all the stuff I need, I am definitely tired of trading, as everyone who knows me, knows.. and well, that means, 4 doesn't apply. What is the harm in letting the cat out of the bag.. I already got rich off of it, and so did everyone else that was associated with it.

No ifs, ands, or bluffs. It's fact, 'eye eye'


As for the "cornering" We never "cornered" we simply bought very low, spread word, people bought and the price kept spiking and spiking until we thought it was the best time to sell. And that was while the panic was high to get them. People seriously thought monster parts could be the new ecto and shards. You could go out and mass farm fangs all you want. We had already sold ours all out for a hefty profit. It was a gamble, we could have lost some cash, if you figured out what we had each spent on the several stacks of whichever part and other material, but in the end, we made out.

As for ecto, the manipulation on prices, when it comes to ecto, doesn't take as much as you would think.


For example...


You are going to buy a axe, for 2.5 million gold.

100k cash, the rest ecto.. say ecto is currently at trader for 6.5k, thats 5.5k private, thats roughly, 437 ecto on top of it.

Now, if I told you that you could buy the same axe for 100k+ 320 ecto? That is about 117 ecto difference, and just by spending 100-200k at the trader? It is that easy to jack the trader price up to 8.5k (Private 7.5, which was used for the formula). People do it all the time just by buying a few ectos that they need right that very moment for trades and armor. The ecto always slides back down. Always. However, I wouldn't advise trying this within a 3-4 week after period of a new chapter rolling out since, ecto is going to sit rather high while people are obtaining fow armors for new characters, classes. Anyhow, back to the point, even buying ecto at a slightly inflated trader price, you still save hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of plat, I believe about 500k. And yes, the price will fall right back down, practically the second you finish the trade. Why? Because there are always people out there who dump at the trader and that they did, the second the prices spiked up. Of course, you have to remember. If you're going to sell high end, always sell when ecto is low, and buy when it's really high because this IS a two way street. So on and so forth. It's all very rudementary for the fast buck.

Now, in the same regard, only not neccesarily with a trade involved. Guilds bank roll piles of ecto in the same manner.. They already have tons that they want to slowly sell out, but they want to do it at a certain price. In come the trade campers, People who sit and literally, manipulate prices, whether it be runes, gems, or ecto. Price hits a certain low, they buy until it spikes up again so that the ecto can filter out at 7k, instead of 5k. Which would YOU rather sell your ecto at? I would pick the 7 over the 5 anyday.

I"m a girl, I'm interested in Diamonds And this topic is especially interesting because of that.

The idea of created and natural stones is an interesting concept. I think people like me, who've grown up to appreciate pure cotton/wool/silk fabrics over the 'chemical' (man-made) fabrics which tend to burn.. wait.. melt at great rate and in general don't 'breath', will always view a created stone as inferior to the natural one because of that.

That said, if someone can assure me that a stone which is created has the EXACT identical properties to the natural one, then I'm happy with the created copy of it.

And while I like diamonds as such, I'm happier if the money gets spend on something useful.. like car insurance.. rather than a ring which doesn't suit me.

I blame the egyptians in a way for diamond prices. It was their concept of the 'ring' finger being the one leading to the heart, and thus the eventual idea of a ring signifying love for another person.

"The idea of created and natural stones is an interesting concept. I think people like me, who've grown up to appreciate pure cotton/wool/silk fabrics over the 'chemical' (man-made) fabrics which tend to burn.. wait.. melt at great rate and in general don't 'breath', will always view a created stone as inferior to the natural one because of that."

While I agree on the natural aspect, polyester is a much better material to make clothing from as far as breathability and durability when compared to cotton. Too bad you need oil to make it, and as you said, it burns faster. That part intrigues me, I never thought about flammability when it comes to clothing choices. But i'm not a smoker, and that's the only thing I can think of as a reason why someone would think that way.

Unless you like to run into burning buildings and try to save people hehe.

Spiritwood Planks

I have always thought that high prices and the general gw economy has always been determined by just two factors, greed and stupidity. Greed makes you sell high, and stupidity makes you buy high, which makes the greedy sell high and the stupid continue to buy high... need i continue?

Too true. Personally I'm 31 and have never been married. Seeing that I'm used to doing whatever I want whenever I want I now have a hard time wrapping my mind around anything other than dating and things like that irritate me. Though I do know a few females that do not like DeBeers diamonds for that reason.

My understanding was that they pretty much totally control the higher end jewelry grade market. As far as I know "Diamond rough" includes much lower quality diamonds that one can get cheaply - in which places like Russia and Canada rule. But then, I'm no expert on it either - I got this from a show on one of the cable channels (History, discover, etc - I don't remember). Of course, they have some very high grade diamonds also - just the vast majority of that market is at DeBeers.

How long ago? There are processes that make them where not even things like electron microscopes or mass spectrometry can not tell the difference. They are capable of producing them in significant quantities but the market is not there to justify the manufacturing costs (who wants something from a lab - right?). There are even enhancement processes that can not be detected (flaws, color, brightness, all the metrics for diamonds). At the very least there are some mass produced artificial diamonds that need some form of mass spectrometry or an electron microscope - neither of which you could tell outside of a controlled lab.

Though I don't think it is really DeBeers great marketing that causes this. Like it or not most people want natural products in expensive/rare things. DeBeers only capitalizes on this (both in marketing and that they are known to never use these technologies) - even without their adds does anyone really think that lab produced half priced "diamonds" would sell? Really, DeBeers does remarkably little advertising - a controlled market and mothers do more than DeBeers could ever do with marketing.

Oh man, is that ever the truth.

I call BS on this. I have a close relative who is a chemist and he has unequivocally informed me that yes, diamonds can be man-made to be indistinguishable from natural diamonds, even at the chemical level. I'm sorry but I take his word above yours.

Maybe there have been some advances that you were unware of since you worked in the industry?

Again this is incorrect. Modern day grading starts at D and goes down from there. You simply cannot buy a A-C grade diamond.

Amen to that. I'd also lump in your lady's girlfriends into that group. Nothing like peer pressure.

Also, while DeBeers doesn't do much marketing anymore, they have in the past (or others have on their behalf). Why do you think the "two-month salary" thing is so ingrained in our society if you almost never see modern advertisements with that slogan?

-Coy

Yeah, the idea that Debeers is still the only player in the diamond supply market is a bit out of date these days as the industry has been changing rapidly since then. I speaking only about high end jewelry grade diamonds though, as I don't know how much they deal in industrial grade diamonds. Canadian diamonds actually sell at a bit of a premium since they advertise not being "blood diamonds" although with I believe it was the Kimberly Accords that blood diamonds aren't very much an issue anymore.. however no one ever knows where some may have sneaked their way into the pipeline.

Debeers is no longer the monopoly it once was and face increasing competition from other suppliers.

But their marketing machine is truly alive and well. Women may not even realize how ingrained Debeers marketing has become. For example, the "2 month salary rule" (pretax btw), "a diamond is forever" are well known to most people these days as DeBeers marketing schemes. But did you also know that DeBeers created the "eternity ring" scheme (a ring set with smaller diamonds all around it) to make diamonds under 1/2 carat marketable? And the "right hand ring" - in order to get another diamond ring on a girl's finger after she already has an engagement ring! And now their latest scheme, cheesy as it seems, are those "say forever i do" commercials - renew your love, get her ANOTHER diamond ring! =)

Things like the "2 month rule" are already ingrained into the American public.. it's passed around as some sort of "guideline" when most people are completely unaware of where it comes from. As well as the diamond engagement ring which was only popularized in the last 100 years or so in America.. where in Victorian times and earlier, colored gemstones like sapphires and rubies were more common to be given as engagement rings. Currently the diamond engagement ring idea is spreading to other countries such as Japan and Taiwan although I'm unaware of how much marketing DeBeers may do in those countries.


About lab created diamonds - currently the technology is not good enough to produce colorless jewelry grade diamonds that can be sold for less than how much a natural diamond costs. Lab like Apollo diamonds, Takara diamonds and others are working on it, but thus far the diamonds are often tinged brown. The process of removing impurities which create the color in diamonds in manmade diamonds is very difficult and expensive. Colored diamonds are much easier to produce and represent a larger profit margin due to their inherent rarity and these have already been produced in quantity, often at very small carat sizes and used as accent stones in jewelry.

But one day soon I hope to see lab created colorless diamonds =) I doubt it will ever reach 1/2 the price of natural diamonds though. But hey, with the cost of a 1ct diamond ranging from $3.5K to 6K, 1.5 ct up to $10K and 2ct above that, who would like to save a few grand by buying a lab created diamond that is chemically identical, and may be even more flawless than a natural diamond?
DeBeers is already taking preemptive action by laser engraving their diamonds as natural stones.. only time will tell if that will make a difference. And the GIA has taken up issuing lab certificates on man-made diamonds as well.

Currently all known diamond enhancements can be detected. I can imagine once quality colorless man-made diamonds hit the market, it may mirror the sapphire/ruby market in that natural diamond will increase in price while man-made becomes very cheap and the de-facto standard.