Among rising prices for just about everything, the world’s hardest stone is bucking the trend. If you’re shopping for an engagement ring or other gem-adorned jewellery, you’ll find diamonds are delivering increasingly more bling for your buck.
That’s thanks to falling prices for lab-grown diamonds, which are baked in high-pressure or vacuum chambers rather than mined from deep inside the earth. Better technology and a growing supply mean synthetic diamonds are now selling for between 75 per cent and 90 per cent less than their natural equivalents, according to New York-based diamond industry analyst Paul Ziminsky. The discount was only around 10 per cent in 2016, he said.
To be sure, lab-grown diamonds aren’t ersatz gems. Unlike popular diamond imitations, like cubic zirconia or moissanite, they are the real thing – and just as durable.
In 2018, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission declared that synthetic diamonds are authentic diamonds. In some cases, even trained gemologists might not be able to tell a lab-grown version from a mined one without using special equipment, according to the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-diamonds-price-lab-grown/