[Wurlitzer]

“This is off topic but, whatever became of the synthetic diamonds that began being made about 5-10 years ago that supposedly could not be distinguished from the real thing?”

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I’ve been wondering that myself! Low cost, ultra-high quality diamonds had been produced so it was not just in theory and diamond industry, well De Beers anyway were beside themselves demanding these perfect diamonds be engraved, etched, whatever so as to be identifiable as real but man made.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

[ArrogantBustard]

Gemesis

[drbuzzard]

The price of natural diamonds is purely an artifact of the cartel which controls production. They are really not that rare a gem (rubies and sapphires are appreciably more rare).

Fabrication of synthetic diamond is not cheap (as mentioned in the article). Hence if someone did decide to try to push into the cosmetic diamond industry with synthetic diamonds, the cartel could easily undercut them and drive them out of business.