\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>magine a scenario. It\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day. You\u2019re contemplating popping the question to the partner of your dreams, and you want to do it traditionally, with all the bells and whistles.\u00a0<\/p>\n But you\u2019re also a very budget-conscious individual \u2013 note how diplomatically I avoided the word \u2018cheapskate\u2019 \u2013 and the prices of diamond rings in the windows of High Street jewellers make your knees go all wobbly.\u00a0<\/p>\n You\u2019re currently nursing a coffee in Greggs (Starbucks being too pricey) and ripping your paper napkin into shreds as you ponder the situation.<\/p>\n Is there a way to make your Significant Other feel valued while also getting value for money?<\/p>\n One option is to go vintage, buying a pre-loved (or pre-divorced) engagement ring from a pawn shop or a private seller.<\/p>\n Or if you\u2019re really lucky maybe there\u2019s an old family ring you could use.<\/p>\n Both are good options \u2013 but as with any second-hand purchases<\/a>, it\u2019s a \u2018caveat emptor\u2019 situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vintage rings may be difficult to resize. Typically you can only make a ring two sizes bigger without causing problems with the set of the stone. And people today have chunkier fingers than they did a hundred years ago. So usually you will have to resize an old ring.\u00a0<\/p>\n Older diamond rings may have cloudy stones, too. They tend to be less sparkly anyway because yesteryear\u2019s cuts had fewer facets. That doesn\u2019t always fit with modern tastes.<\/p>\n Also old diamonds rarely come with a certificate of authenticity. You have to know what you\u2019re doing \u2013 or have access to some pretty sound advice \u2013 so that you don\u2019t get sold an imitation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bear in mind, too, that your spouse-to-be may not actually like Great-Aunt Edna\u2019s 1970\u2019s bling. Check before you pass on that heirloom!<\/p>\n But what if you don\u2019t have a family safety deposit box stuffed with precious stones, and you don\u2019t fancy your chances on the second-hand market?<\/p>\n Well, leaping into that gap in the market with a grand \u201ctah-dah!\u201d<\/em> have come lab-grown diamonds.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t know about lab-grown diamonds (sometimes called \u2018created diamonds\u2019) then you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n Nobody in my little corner of the world seems to have come across them yet. But in other places they\u2019re already ubiquitous.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lab-grown diamonds offer an alternative to mined diamonds, and it\u2019s an alternative that has taken off<\/a> in recent years. The result has been an unprecedented shake-up<\/a> of the diamond industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n You see, a lab-grown diamond is literally indistinguishable from a traditional diamond by anyone but a jeweller with the specialist equipment needed to read the tiny \u2018LG\u2019 symbol inscribed on its base.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lab-grown diamonds are classified in the same way as mined diamonds. They\u2019re graded in the same way. They offer the same cuts and level of sparkle.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all because lab-grown diamonds are<\/em> diamonds.<\/p>\n As Sherwood<\/a> reports:<\/p>\n If you buy a knock-off Rolex on Canal Street in New York, it\u2019s not really a Rolex. It\u2019s lighter, the materials are cheap, and anyone with a Rolex can instantly tell it\u2019s fake.<\/p>\n But a lab-grown diamond has the same chemical composition, physical properties, and optical properties of \u2018natural\u2019 diamonds. The only difference is their source.<\/p>\n Basically, the only force keeping so-called natural diamonds\u2019 prices up is consumer perception\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Best of all \u2013 and crucially for our hypothetical cheapskate\u00a0\u2013 lab-grown diamonds are a lot less pricey.<\/p>\n Lab-grown diamonds are cheaper because they\u2019ve passed through fewer hands than mined diamonds \u2013 and perhaps because fewer people have been killed to get them out of the ground. Which is nice.\u00a0<\/p>\n Marketing materials sometimes refer to them as conflict-free diamonds or ethical diamonds. That\u2019s because unlike many mined diamonds, they don\u2019t come from a war zone and haven\u2019t been used to finance armed conflicts.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can therefore feel good about buying a lab-grown diamond, if that\u2019s the sort of thing that matters to you.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get carried away with the idealism, though. Lab-grown diamonds are made in factories which consume an awful lot of power. It doesn\u2019t always come from sustainable sources<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed that word \u2018ethical\u2019 starts to look a bit flimsy if you examine it too closely.<\/p>\n And now the money shot\u2026 lab diamonds typically cost less than a quarter of the retail price of mined diamonds (in the UK at least).\u00a0<\/p>\n Great! Where do you go to get one?<\/p>\n Well, try the Internet for starters.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been a boom over the last couple of years in online retailers selling the things. They\u2019ll enable you to custom make your diamond ring down to the style of setting, the type of metal, the shape of the stone, and lots of other elements. You can tinker around with an online ring designer tool, adjust carat size, diamond colour, width of band, and do all sorts of other fiddling until you have something that matches your budget and the style that you and your partner favour.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some of these retailers even have high street storefronts. There you can make an appointment to check out your chosen styles in person.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s worth checking in with these branches anyway \u2013\u00a0because sometimes they\u2019ll have a heavily discounted ring that someone ordered but then brought back.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually\u201d<\/em>, I was told by a salesperson in a hushed voice, looking round to make sure there were no fragile-looking chaps behind her, \u201cit\u2019s because she said \u2018no\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I found the lab-grown salespeople to be great, probably because they understand that their customers are working to a budget. They\u2019ll clue you in on all the corners you can legitimately cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n For instance, you\u2019ll pay more for a diamond with a colour graded towards the start of the alphabet\u00a0\u2013 but there are diminishing returns:<\/p>\n The same goes for clarity. There\u2019s no need to pay extra for the top level of clarity unless you\u2019re going to be looking at your ring under a microscope.<\/p>\n Be careful cutting corners on the metal though.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can save a lot by choosing a 9k gold band (rather than 18k or platinum) but be aware the white gold variants tend to be rhodium-plated to make the ring extra shiny. When the rhodium wears off \u2013 in blotches\u00a0\u2013 you\u2019ll have to send away the ring to be re-plated. That\u2019s likely to be at least once a year, at around \u00a350-\u00a370 a time.<\/p>\n Over a lifetime, it\u2019ll mount up. This is one saving that could prove to be false economy.<\/p>\n No. Please don\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n I come from a town<\/a> where \u2018investment jewellery\u2019 is alive and well as an asset class. Plenty of folks around here are still sporting sovereign rings \u2013 which, incidentally, offer both a portable investment and an edge in a fist fight.<\/p>\n So it goes against my upbringing to say this \u2013 but don\u2019t invest in diamonds unless you really know what you\u2019re doing. They are a notoriously tricky investment, for all kinds of reasons.<\/p>\n One reason is that diamonds are fundamentally non-fungible. Diamonds come in a bewildering variety of grades, colours, inclusions and shapes, and the labs which categorise them use different standards. Hence it\u2019s necessary to value every stone on its own merits.<\/p>\n Some people compare diamond buying to property buying, with similar risks and difficulties, rather than to investing in gold, say, which can be traded more easily.<\/p>\n An insider speaking to the Robb Report<\/a> <\/em>put it well:<\/p>\n \u201cGo buy a natural diamond engagement ring on 47th Street,\u201d<\/em> Ryan Shearman, of Aether Diamonds, says. <\/p>\n \u201cWalk across the street and try and sell it. Tell me how much value you recoup. It\u2019s not very far off from an automobile in that case. So if you\u2019re not looking at your car as an investment, you shouldn\u2019t look at your engagement ring as an investment. The value is what you make of it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Diamond rings lose value over time, unless you\u2019ve managed to get an outstanding deal. This has been true of mined diamonds for a long time and it\u2019s certainly true of lab-grown diamonds now. They\u2019re not a smart long-term investment.<\/p>\n The exception is extremely expensive or extremely rare stones. They are apparently a fairly decent place for the super-rich to park their money. But I don\u2019t know the ins and outs myself, since I haven\u2019t been able to find a billionaire willing to chat to me about his diamond stash.<\/p>\n For regular folks though, diamonds won\u2019t rattle the capital gains tax<\/a> cage anytime soon.<\/p>\n The diamond market is particularly unpredictable right now. Prices have dropped across the board, mostly thanks to the rise of the lab-grown diamond. Nobody knows<\/a> how it\u2019s going to shake out.<\/p>\n Maybe lab-grown will be a fad that fades? Perhaps the value of mined diamonds will plummet permanently? Or it could be that everything will stabilise and there\u2019ll be a comfortable co-existence.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know. And neither, it seems, does anybody else.<\/p>\n The manufacturing of diamonds opens up questions as to where the value of a diamond really lies. <\/p>\n Is it in the chemical composition? In the millions of years the diamond has spent beneath the ground, or in the labour involved in finding it? Is it in the rarity?<\/p>\n Or \u2013 my personal view\u00a0\u2013 is a diamond\u2019s value determined by its twinkliness?<\/p>\n Different people will give you different answers, depending on what they care about \u2013 and on how much they\u2019ve invested in the diamond industry. An unbiased viewpoint is even rarer than a real diamond.<\/p>\n The interesting thing is that customers are now getting to decide where they want to assign the value for themselves. And I think that\u2019s quite good fun.<\/p>\n But to answer the question \u2013 yes, diamonds are still valuable, for the time being anyway. That\u2019s because their value as jewellery isn\u2019t necessarily intrinsic to the actual properties of a given stone.<\/p>\n I mean, I\u2019ve known a few people who buy themselves diamonds \u2013\u00a0but not many.<\/p>\n Diamonds are far more often a special gift to a special person for a special occasion, usually tied to a major life event.<\/p>\n And I\u2019m not just talking about engagements. Diamonds are traditionally a milestone marker.\u00a0 Anniversaries, births, important birthdays, graduations \u2013 even deaths (don\u2019t look up \u2018cremation diamonds\u2019 unless you definitely want to know).<\/p>\n Sure, with my practical hat on there are more sensible things you could do with your money to celebrate a special occasion.<\/p>\n You could buy shares for your loved one or contribute to their pension. You could buy them a stack of premium bonds<\/a> and cross your fingers.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m not wearing my practical hat right now.<\/p>\n I\u2019m wearing an engagement ring.<\/p>\n And when my new fianc\u00e9 and I walked past the window of a traditional high street jeweller\u2019s shop yesterday, we saw an almost identical ring to mine going for an eye-watering 15-times the price.<\/p>\n So now we\u2019re smug as well as happy!<\/p>\nDiamonds are forever<\/h2>\n
What is a lab-grown diamond?<\/h2>\n
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No pressure, no lab-grown diamonds<\/h3>\n
(Affordable) diamonds are a girl\u2019s best friend<\/h4>\n
Diamond in the rough<\/h4>\n
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Should you become an investor in diamonds?<\/h2>\n
Diamond hard<\/h3>\n
Is diamond jewellery still valuable?<\/h4>\n
A lab-grown diamond in a rhinestone world<\/h3>\n