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Why do we value diamonds?

JFrankA said:
your worth as boyfriend is measured not in how much you know your girlfriend and give her what she wants, but how shiny the rock is that you gave her.
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Yes, love starts with 2 hearts and a diamond and ends with you wishing for a club and a spade.

When will women stop faking orgasms?

When we stop giving them fake diamonds.

I am joking of course :D
 
Damien Evans said:
Don't forget Sapphire, which is any gem quality Corundum which isn't red, the red colour being called Ruby.
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Unless it's a poor quality red and then they call it a 'red sapphire' because it sounds more exotic and they can increase the price for what is a quite 'manky' item.:D
 
Actually you could argue that diamonds are worth less than other gem stones (to anyone other than the initial seller) because De Beers have all but shut down any second-hand market, so, by the old adage that something is only worth what you can sell it for, they're worthless. Most jewelers won't buy a diamond off you, or sell second-hand diamonds as De Beers have told them they'll cut off their supply of new ones if they do.

Obviously there are shops that deal in second-hand but not those that need a shiny new supply.

I love buying my wife jewellary (no special occasion required) but she (luckily for my pocket) dislikes diamonds (and gold) and loves semi-precious stones in silver (as do I). For us, it's not the cost of the piece, it's the beauty of it, the style of the setting etc. She's more delighted with the beauty of a (human enhanced) piece of mystic topaz, or a particularly lovely bit of jasper, or iron tiger's eye, or quartz with some rutile inclusions, or moonstone or whatever than some mass produced, all looks the same, over-priced, colourless, boring diamond.
 
Sceptic Tank said:
Whether that's true or not, it's still nonsense. At least, if you're buying a diamond set in, say, gold. The gold will damage very easily and will even lose you your diamond.
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No, not even close to nonsense. The difference being that people don't particularly care if the gold gets a bit scratched, since it doesn't affect the look much and can be polished anyway. But if you scratch the gem, it can have a big effect on how it looks and will be very difficult to ever fix. If you're beating it against things hard enough to rip it to pieces and break parts off entirely, then it really makes little difference what it's made of. But most people don't actually do that, and in a normal life where all you need to worry about is occasionally knocking it on your furniture, diamond has the advantage that it won't be affected at all by such knocks. Unless your furniture is made of diamond of course.

However, you do touch on a related point. We use gold for a very similar - it is far less reactive than most metals, so jewellery stays shiny and doesn't make funny marks on your skin. Even though it's softer and easier to damage than many other metals, it's the ability to last longer under the conditions that a normal person uses it in that make it valuable.
 
Cuddles said:
..... But if you scratch the gem, it can have a big effect on how it looks and will be very difficult to ever fix.
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Well yeah, but a gemstone of the second-hardest material would need to bash against a diamond to be damaged. And the third-hardest would need to clash with one of the higher-ranked. What are the odds? :D
 
I think emeralds are prettier, anyway.

But amber is surely more interesting than diamonds, given its origin. Also prettier, I think.

Pearls, though having an interesting origin and looking pretty, I can't like. I can't see them as anything other than oyster snot.
 
GlennB said:
Well yeah, but a gemstone of the second-hardest material would need to bash against a diamond to be damaged. And the third-hardest would need to clash with one of the higher-ranked. What are the odds? :D
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Indeed and, as pointed out above, my wife wears all sorts of gem stones and I don't recall a single piece ever being damaged. Diamonds as gem stones are one of the best con jobs of recent times - the small ones most people can (just about) afford are simply not rare. Large and / or coloured diamonds are a different story of course.
 
Cuddles said:
However, you do touch on a related point. We use gold for a very similar - it is far less reactive than most metals, so jewellery stays shiny and doesn't make funny marks on your skin. Even though it's softer and easier to damage than many other metals, it's the ability to last longer under the conditions that a normal person uses it in that make it valuable.
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The softness also allows for the metal to smear a bit, lessening the appearance of scratches and imperfections over time. Gold is basically yellow clay, and even the hard alloys are more maliable than, say, steel.

The problem I have with your argument about diamonds being durable is that while they're strong they're very brittle. The issue is the same as with gold/steel: You can be really hard or really strong, but not both. Add the cleavage planes diamonds have, and even knocking them against things like furnature can chip or crack them. It's the reason why there's a girdle on a round-brilliant cut; without it, even picking a diamond up with a pair of tweezers would risk shattering the gem. A six- or eight-prong setting (or even better a channel setting or similar) can offer some protection, but it cuts down on the sparcle because it limits light coming in. This is why I prefer opals--you can set them however you want, even wrap them in solid metal, and the exposed face is still beautiful.
 
Emeralds in particular are prone to breakage. My girl wears an emerald and I do think it's eventually going to get smacked hard enough to damage it.

I bought her a really nice watch for xmas but without the diamond bezel it typically comes with because she really doesn't like diamonds. Yet another reason she's great.
 
They're shiny and pretty, at least the cut and polished ones are. Uncut diamonds look like dull chunks of some kind of plastic-like stuff.

When I saw the British crown jewels, what impressed me most wasn't the Koh-i-Noor (too big for my tastes) but the piles of loose diamonds that had been used in someone's coronation robes. Just ostentation, like we all have handfuls of diamonds lying around that we don't know what to do with. Me, I have one tiny one in a ring that belonged to my grandmother and possibly to her mother: it's barely visible.

Three month's salary for a bauble? We had better things to spend money on, like rent.
 
I am female, and work in a mostly-male profession. Sometimes my colleagues ask me things like "why do women do this?" - and I have to admit, I'm as puzzled as they are.
I think it's absurd how much some people value expensive jewelry as a symbol of their significant other's affection. Sure, everyone likes shiny things, it seems inherent to our species for some reason - but it's been a sickening movement since De Beers really started it up on the '30s. And these days, both men and women are guilty of continuing to propagate this. I do think that it is beginning to lessen, particularly as women gain more equality. Maybe someday men won't be seen as the only possible instigator of engagement, and we'll see this kind of predatory marketing directed at women!
 
Dinwar said:
The problem I have with your argument about diamonds being durable is that while they're strong they're very brittle. The issue is the same as with gold/steel: You can be really hard or really strong, but not both. Add the cleavage planes diamonds have, and even knocking them against things like furnature can chip or crack them.
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Oh sure, diamonds are far from indestructible and certainly have their disadvantages as well. I'm not arguing that diamonds aren't overpriced or that everyone should go out and buy them, I was just countering the claim that there is absolutely no reason to buy them and that no regular people would care about any of the mechanical properties someone posted. Hardness is actually quite a relevant factor and one that most people likely know about since diamond is rather famous for being the hardest natural material.
 
Cuddles said:
I was just countering the claim that there is absolutely no reason to buy them and that no regular people would care about any of the mechanical properties someone posted.
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I've never been a normal person when it comes to minerals. When my wife and I were looking at engagement rings I spent my time looking for fluid inclusions, not because they show low quality in the diamonds but because they're really cool. :D

I can see your point to a certain extent. However, I'm curious as to whether or not glass would provide the same benefits. I mean, glass has a hardness of 7; there's not a whole lot that's harder than it. Steel certainly isn't (got a few scratches on my wedding band from quartzite), and that's typically the hardest stuff most of us come in contact with (well, you know, other than glass). Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I really haven't seen any evidence one way or the other on this topic.

NotTheOne said:
I think it's absurd how much some people value expensive jewelry as a symbol of their significant other's affection.
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Oh, it gets even more absurd. I make jewelry in my spare time. Took a class in college on it, and have been practicing on my own since. You'd be surprised at the number of people who reject it on those grounds alone--it's not a "professional" jeweler making it, and I'll sell it at-cost or give it away (it's a hobby, so I don't really care if I make money or not; it's just something to do with myself), so it must be inferior! Never mind that my maille jewelry is superior in pretty much every way to anything you'd get at a franchise jewelry store, and the people selling the jewelry have admited as much.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Pearls, though having an interesting origin and looking pretty, I can't like. I can't see them as anything other than oyster snot.
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Then I think you'll appreciate this:
beautydemotivationalposter.jpg
 
I have made diamond using vapor deposition method (5% CH4+95 % H2 plasma onto seeded diamond , in absence of O2, in a 10 to 20KW MW jar bell). If not for debeers , the diamond market would be swamped by artificial diamond by now, and not only in diamond form but in all sort of form. Wanna gift your S.O. he mask of her face in miniature out of diamond ? Would even be possible. All forms. And prolly 10 to 100 time cheaper than the "mined" diamond of the same weight.
 
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