Posted on 03/28/2017 7:12:59 PM PDT by Ol' Dan Tucker
WEB Griffin, Frederick Forsyth, the late Robert Jordan and Louis L’Amour.
I’ve purchased a stone from a company called Amora Gems. The company is on the west coast. It’s a lab grown stone made out of carbon and silicon. There are several companies making what is called moissanite but they have gotten the green tones out of it and they compare in color to a natural white diamond. They are also cutting them like a fine diamond with an ideal cut. For a fraction of the price.
If you put it into a real engagement semi mount setting no one will be able to tell the difference. I get more complements on this stone then I get on my real diamond.
https://betterthandiamond.com/amora-gem-search.php
Your mention of clarity and color reminded me of a TV show I saw many years ago. An undercover team had a diamond ring with a stone of remarkably good quality/clarity. They had an identifier laser etched onto one of the edges. They then had a “clueless” woman bring the ring in to various stores for a cleaning and to get the mounting worked on. In multiple instances, the diamond that was in the ring they picked up was not the same stone. It was of a lesser quality, sometimes by a significant margin. When called on it, all of them initially denied switching stones. When pressed and threatened with legal troubles, they agreed to switch it back.
Lots of shady dealings in the jewelry biz.
“Diamonds are Forever” they say.
I like my slogan “Diamonds, Rare as Dirt”
Love that book.
Do you want to hear my 11 Harrowhouse diamond story?
I was in Hawaii at the Kahala Hilton sometime in the 1980s, lovely hotel, not sure it’s there anymore.
My friend and I were out sunbathing outside at one of the pools when a really beautiful woman sat down on a lounge chair near us.
Now I’m not one to pay much attention to jewelry, and I especially don’t have much love of diamonds, but this woman had a rock on her hand that was simply the most beautiful diamond I’d ever seen.
I spontaneously exclaimed over her ring, remaking how lovely it was and actually gushing, it was just that spectacular. The lady was friendly and mentioned that her husband was in the diamond business.
Having read 11 Harrowhouse (twice actually) and learning about the diamond business somewhat from the book, and being my typical friendly self, I told her I’d read the book and since her husband was in the diamond business, was it true what the book said about the diamond business and she replied, and I will NEVER forget her exact words: “Let’s just say, they know what I had for breakfast this morning.”
She then turned away and refused to interact anymore.
My wife and I were lucky. I was working for a company owned by Jews with 95% of my fellow staff the same and we were sent to a specific shop in the NY Diamond District run by Orthodox dealers to buy her engagement ring. We had a local jeweler in Ohio remount it a few years ago and he raved about the cut but could not believe what we paid. He strongly suggested we triple the insurance coverage, which we’d based till then on what we’d paid. “It’s not what you know but who you know” and a fancy name like Tiffany or Cartier is just that. A name.
Retail jewelry markup up is insane. A typical diamond ring costing $2000 at the mall has about $400-500 face value for the stone and metal.
I worked in Fine Jewelry at one time...if people really knew the scam this is they’d be far more selective about what they choose as wedding and engagement rings.
They even sell under-graded discolored diamonds and call them ‘Chocolate Diamonds’ or give them some other appealing name for the consumer to consume...
It’s racket and always will be because Diamonds remain “traditional” regardless.
Heck I even had one customer who bought a $12. costume Jewelry Diamond for his fiance because it was big enough to impress her (he was wealthy rich) for the duration of what he considered the engagement would last. He wasn’t about to put the family heirloom rock on a gold digger’s hand.
Exactly!
When we were first married come up my husband bought me an emerald ring. I was wearing it and cleaning the bathroom tub. It it fell off my hand and I lost it down the drain.
So any jewelry he has given me ever since, I just don’t wear it. I also have jewelry from my mother.
I’ll give it all to my daughter every and son when they are older.hen she is older.
What Tiffany’s is selling is the cachet of having bought a diamond at Tiffany’s. The stone itself is incidental.
Years.
My fiancee told me to forget buying her an expensive ring and we did a nice honeymoon cruise instead.
Women with taste and knowledge wear emeralds, not diamonds.
I like sapphires. They are rarer than diamonds because the kind of atmosphere.. Hot and lots of pressure for diamonds, is relatively common. But sapphires need cool with lots of pressure which is much more difficult to find. Therefore, sapphires are more rare than diamonds.
I like gold dealings and I do like diamond accents with the sapphires.
I agree. I went browsing in a Tiffany’s store and the salespeople looked down their noses at me because I probably wasn’t “dressed well enough” to be seen shopping there. I refuse to buy anything from them no matter how much money I might have. We got a beautiful diamond solitaire men’s ring for my husband in the Cayman Islands and we saved a LOT of money going that route. He only wears it on very special occasions, though.
We have matching wedding bands with some channel-set diamonds in them. Ended up getting them both for less than what one was listed for. I didn’t want a separate engagement ring anyway. It’s been 26 years in April and they are still looking great!
Don't own a diamond.
Don't want a diamond.
I think they're artificially priced chunks of rock, whose sole purpose is to guilt trip some poor guy into buying one.
They do, however, make great sandpaper.
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