Imagine Pure Evil with a lisp. Special teams of blang festooned hit(men) wielding ivory handled revolvers (for their flopsy wrists tend to cause stovepipe jams when shooting semi-autos) to take out the faux-that-isn't-faux menace that so threatens their livelihoods.
Companies like Gemesis can manufacture diamonds which are bigger and better than natural ones.
Hogwash. I dislike DeBeers for my own reasons (I'm a colored stone guy) but I try not to let emotions rule my intellect. I get my gemology from real gemology sources, not "Wired Magazine."
Gemesis uses high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) technology pioneered by GE for diamond synthesis back in the 1950s. At present they market only yellow diamonds in sizes up to 2 carats. It's much more difficult to make large clear, white diamonds. They'll eventually do it but diamonds made by the HPHT process can readily be identified as synthetic. They're simply not "bigger and better" than naturals and Gemesis will probably never bother to create stones in the Cullinan and Koh-i-Noor size class even if it's possible which I doubt.
Diamond sellers' livelihoods are much more threatened by the new single-crystal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process used by Apollo Diamond Inc. of Boston. Theoretically (see my tag line) diamonds of large size can be grown that way. As of now rough CVD crystals weigh between 1 and 3 carats and stones cut for jewelry use can be a little over 1 carat. The technology will improve. The kicker is that stones grown this way probably can't be identified by the average retail jeweler and will have to be sent to a costly gem lab for ID.
Bottom line: eventually, CVD diamonds will probably destroy the gem diamond business but it won't happen soon, and don't expect $50-a-carat diamonds. It's not likely the CEO of Apollo will immediately flood the market with cheap product. Prices will be lower than naturals, of course, but with a very healthy mark-up without direct competition. Efforts will be made to distinguish CVDs from naturals but of course synthetics will be slipped into parcels of natural stones. Reports out of Hong Kong indicate the Chinese are working on CVD technology. Their usual strategy is to flood the market with cheap-labor product, lower profit margins, drive foreign producers out of business, then dominate the market. It'll probably happen with diamonds.
My question is: who'd want a mass-produced, mass-marketed "diamond"? By restricting supplies and using possibly the best marketing campaign in the history of advertising, DeBeers has been able to maintain at least the illusion of natural diamond rarity and exclusivity. "Diamonds Are Forever" advertising directly targets women with very powerful emotional appeals --DeBeers knows who to sell to. But what's the point of a woman wanting a cheapo synthetic stone like everyone else's? Since the game is to demand the biggest, best and most expensive status symbol around, something new, rare and expensive will replace diamond in engagement rings.