How my husband seems to ferret odd tidbits about jewelry from Wired
Magazine of all places amazes me, yet, he has done it again.
This company will take your loved one’s ashes, discard the calcium,
compress the carbon under pressure for six months under 1.6 million
psi, and voila! Grandma is transformed into 6 one carat diamonds in
various colors.
Now gals, when you get married, you can wear grandma around your
neck and take care of the, something old, something new, something
borrowed, something blue in one shot.
If your diamond memorial ring is stolen, now you can file both theft
and a missing person report. Twice the police power on your precious
ring.
America, land of innovation and price points.
Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
50 Guinan St.
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph. 781/891-3854 Fax 3857 http://www.metalwerx.com/
Jewelry/Metalarts School & Cooperative Studio
This company will take your loved one's ashes, discard the
calcium, compress the carbon under pressure for six months under
1.6 million psi, and voila! Grandma is transformed into 6 one carat
diamonds in various colors.
And if you believe this, I’ve got a great deal on a bridge…
What a classic. Perhaps I could will this into my teenage daughter’s
inheritance so that unknowingly, I could be the weight around her
neck!
Just a thought
LOL. Kimmyg
And if you believe this, I've got a great deal on a bridge...
Actually you better have a great deal on a bridge because this
company does exist and is producing synthetic diamonds using the
ashes of your loved ones. It has been written up repeatedly in the
trade magazines.
Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140 @Daniel_R_Spirer
And if you believe this, I’ve got a great deal on a bridge…
Actually you better have a great deal on a bridge because this
company does exist and is producing synthetic diamonds using the
ashes of your loved ones. It has been written up repeatedly in the
trade magazines.
Maybe I’ve just become too skeptical/cynical over the years…
I don’t question whether the company exists. I just picture them
taking in the ashes, chucking them in the trash, lounging against
the dusty machinery while they munch their sandwiches, then buying
some diamonds and sending them to their clients. Much more
profitable. If customers don’t complain, enforcement agencies won’t
care.
Whatever the true feasibility of turning cremains into
synthetic diamonds, it might be best to view that question as a
bit of misdirection intended to distract attention from the
query that should be forefront in anyone's mind. As Mark
Gershburg, director of European Gemological Laboratory (an
independent laboratory that vouches for the quality of
diamonds), points out, it is impossible to distinguish LifeGem
synthetic diamonds from other synthetic diamonds. If that's the
case, what stops LifeGems from producing synthetic diamonds
from ordinary graphite, then passing them off as a bit of your
dear uncle Harry? Indeed, what stops them from buying synthetic
diamonds from other suppliers and reselling them to the
bereaved at large mark-ups? Given that LifeGem is offering its
"created diamonds" for prices ranging from $4,000 to $22,000
for a quarter-carat up to a full carat, such a question should
give any prospective buyer signficant pause.
If I have unfairly maligned a legitimate business, I apologize.
I can also vouch for LifeGem. I have tension set a couple diamonds
from there. They were a beautiful amber yellow color. In one case, a
gentleman flew to LifeGem from overseas with the ashes of his wife.
They were processed to diamonds, and the diamonds flown to me for a
setting. They were returned the next day and the gentleman flew home.
He didn’t want his wife to make the trip alone. That was some serious
lump in the throat factor. You tend to think of diamonds being just
rocks. Knowing that they came from the actual atoms of a living
person certainly changes your perspective.
They aren’t the only ones making diamonds, www.gemesis.com has been
doing it for years. Not sure about the ashes of a loved one. I bet
lifegem can’t even vouch for what becomes of the loved ones ashes.
They probably put the stuff in, and see what comes out… arguably if
there’s nothing left then it became the gem. Even if there is a
little left, most must have become the gem.
Basicly, you shouldn’t publicly bash or disparrage(sp?) a company
when you don’t have 100% proof. Not only could you get sued, but
you’re damaging someones reputation and business without a good
reason.
OK Daniel, so where do they get the carbon from? If a body has been
properly incinerated, all the carbon is burned away as carbon dioxide
leaving only the white bone ash which is mostly calcium. Certainly
the family ashes I have handled and scattered have had no hint of
black carbon in them. I suppose that, if this company is actually
making synthetic diamonds, they could put just the smallest pinch of
the ash into the mix to produce a colour (and inclusions) but it
would hardly be a diamond made out of Aunty Maisy would it?
This has to be a scam… There should be no carbon left in cremains.
They are mostly calcium and potassium oxide.
Elemental Analysis of Human Cremains Using Inductively-Coupled
Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) to Distinguish
between Legitimate and Contaminated Cremains (Abstract for the
American Academy of Forensic Sciences, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/7577b
When I commented on this before someone sent me copies of actual
analysis that showed no carbon remaining- mislaid these someplace.
Incomplete cremation may show some blacking but the ones I have seen
were grayish white,
I have a feeling that this is the kind of thing that might be
considered tacky or creepy, but I love it. I’d love a little diamond
made from my grandmother’s ashes, for example. There’s no accounting
for taste.
I saw either an article or an ad for Lifegems somewhere (I wish I
could remember where) and it showed photographs of two of their
diamonds. One was a greenish blue, and the other was a yellow-orange.
The accompanying text said that eight ounces of cremains were
required to produce one stone. I don’t know how the color is
achieved. Has anyone else seen this?
What happens if the departed has a metal or plastic replacement
part? (i.e. hip, knee, shoulder…made of chrome cobalt or titanium
or the metal du jour)Is it sifted out, or does it affect the
composition of the final product?
