Mass produced in unlimited quantities, they will make "diamonds" available to a much wider audience

It's time to shed some light on a question that could devalue jewelry owned by people around the world and harm the lives of millions of workers in Africa and other developing regions. This is a question of unannounced diamonds grown in the laboratory, and the risk that they will penetrate the natural diamonds pipeline.

Although the jewelry stones grown in the laboratory are still produced in relatively small quantities and it is estimated that their annual sales amount to $ 0.5 billion versus $ 23 billion from natural diamonds, steady progress in technology makes their mass production more and more possible. This, in turn, threatens their significant diversion into the natural diamond pipeline more and more - if governments, international organizations and industry do not take drastic measures, demanding that the stones grown in the laboratory be declared and tracked from the very beginning.

Why, can readers ask, should state institutions and industry players worry about protecting the natural diamond pipeline? In the end, it is claimed that grown in the laboratory stones can and should replace natural diamonds [1]. The stones produced in the laboratory not only do not differ from those of all people, but also the most complex equipment. In addition, they - or at least, it is stated - are environmentally cleaner, and they are not affected by any of those socio-political issues related to the work of mines in developing countries. And, since such stones can be mass produced in unlimited quantities, they will make "diamonds" available to a much wider audience.

At the same time, there is one fundamental gap in this argument: natural stones grown in the laboratory are completely different creatures, with completely different purposes and for completely different markets. Natural diamond is the rarest and purest part of nature: there are no two identical stones, and the age of each of them, as a rule, reaches from 1 to 3 billion years. In contrast, grown in the laboratory stones can be infinitely reproduced with the help of technology, quickly and scale. While natural diamonds are uniquely valued both in jewelry and as long-term means of preserving value, grown in the laboratory, stones do not have intrinsic value and are only an alternative material for making jewelry.

Just as there is a place in the jewelry market for lab-grown stones, it also has its place for natural diamonds - which have a dual purpose, representing unique and rare jewelry and a potential eternal means of preserving value.

The uniqueness of each natural diamond is a powerful engine of the rarities economy. Indeed, in recent years, natural diamonds have not only retained their value, but also increased in value. Diamonds of 5 carats or more purchased from 10% to 30% in value from 2009 (with peak values exceeding 60% during this time), while stones weighing 1 to 3 carats increased in price by 5% -20% during the considered period (with peaks exceeding 100%). Very rare colored diamonds increase their value even faster - their prices grew by 10% -20% per year during the specified period

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