I recently received an e-mail about cultured diamonds. I’d heard of
these, but the ones I’d heard of were only yellow. But apparently
they can now do colorless ones or other colors. Here’s the e-mail I
received, with URLs.
Janet Kofoed
What’s a diamond worth? Whatever you can get someone to pay for it.
Diamonds are valuable because they used to be rare. Now with
efficient mining operations they’re common, but the “gem-quality”
diamonds are still rare enough to be valuable. The price of diamonds
is supported by the De Beers cartel (http://www.debeers.com), who
controls the majority of the worldwide diamond production.
It’s been possible to synthesize diamonds for a long time, but now
they’ve gotten better and cheaper. Now you can get “flawless”
synthesized diamonds that cannot be distinguished from natural
diamonds by most gemologists and almost all retail diamond
purchasers. Two companies make diamonds like this so far, priced
about 1/3 less than traditional diamonds: Gemesis and Apollo.
http://gemesis.com/specs_1.htm
Some people prefer these diamonds because in Africa and some other
places, the diamond business causes war, slavery, and other bad
things
associated with money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40835-2004Feb13.html