WTF?!? "Woke diamonds" - Pandora, World's Biggest Jewelry Maker, Will Stop Using Mined Diamonds

Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
www.breitbart.com /environment/2021/05/04/pandora-worlds-biggest-jewelry-maker-will-stop-using-mined-diamonds/

Pandora, World's Biggest Jewelry Maker, Will Stop Using Mined Diamonds

Katherine Rodriguez2-2 minutes 5/4/2021

Pandora, the world’s biggest jewelry maker, announced Tuesday it would stop using mined diamonds in its jewelry.

The company said in its statement it partly came from consumer demand. Pandora Group, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, said it is launching its first collection of diamonds exclusively manufactured in laboratories.

The move, according to the company, is to make its jewelry more affordable, sustainable, and accessible to the general public.

“Pandora continues its quest to make incredible jewelry available for more people, and today I’m proud to announce the introduction of Pandora Brilliance. It’s a new collection of beautifully designed jewelry featuring lab-created diamonds,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said in a statement.

“They are as much a symbol of innovation and progress as they are of enduring beauty and stand as a testament to our ongoing and ambitious sustainability agenda. Diamonds are not only forever, but for everyone,” he continued.

The collection will make its debut in the United Kingdom and open up to the rest of the world in 2022.

Lacik told BBC News these synthetic diamonds can be manufactured for “a third of what it is for something that we’ve dug up from the ground.”

According to a recent research report from Bain & Company and the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, world diamond revenues fell by 15 percent to 33 percent last year during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
 
D

dvo

Veteran Member
Woke son got fiancé some gemstone other than a diamond for their engagement. This was something they both wanted, and not a financial consideration. Damned millennials. I won’t be around to see the world they will be in charge of in another 20 years. Not sure it will be anything at all like the world I grew up in.
 
20Gauge

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
Double_A said:
Those who's invested in diamonds may be a bit upset? For color gemstones prices are still solid even with a strong synthetic gemstone market, maybe this will be the same.
Click to expand...
This is because there is a supply of diamonds that makes the sand on the beach seem scarce. There are tons upon tons of diamonds in the vaults. Diamonds are considered valuable only due to perceived scarcity.

Colored gemstones are much scarcer.
 
D

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
People should do whateeever they want, but I like the old cuts better than modern ones. And they are cheaper per carat too as a rule, except for Aaschers etc.
=============

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

Diamond Stash Worth Billions Sold Off After Demand Roars Back
By Thomas Biesheuvel
April 23, 2021, 7:01 PM EDT

Top miners built big stocks during industry standstill in 2020
Demand has since recovered as gem polishers rush to restock
The diamond industry’s collapse last year left the biggest producers with billions of dollars of uncut gems stashed away in safes. Now, in a matter of months, they’ve suddenly found buyers.

The huge stockpile was built up when the diamond world came to a standstill during the height of the pandemic, stoking fears that gems amassed by the biggest miners could hurt the sector for years. But rampant demand from the middlemen who cut, polish and trade stones has all but wiped out the stash -- and remarkably as top producers De Beers and Alrosa PJSC raised prices.

It’s been a rapid turnaround as cutting centers in India and Antwerp rushed to replenish supplies they’d been unable to buy during the worst of the crisis. At the same time, demand jumped amid surprisingly good festive sales, with consumers unable to book vacations spending more on luxuries such as gems.

Shrinking Stocks
Alrosa's diamond inventory falls to the lowest in years

De Beers this week said it sold 13.5 million carats of diamonds in the first quarter, almost double the amount it mined in the period, signaling stock drawdowns. While the No. 1 miner doesn’t report inventories, it indicated to customers in recent weeks that stockpiles have returned to normal levels, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. The company declined to comment.

Russian miner Alrosa’s inventories tumbled about 60% in six months to 12.8 million carats by the end of March, the lowest in almost three years.

Managing supply has been a headache for the sector ever since De Beers ended its monopoly around the turn of the century. Inventories ballooned during the 2008-09 financial crisis and again in 2013, and each time subsequent stockpile sales saw polished gems build up, putting huge pressure on the industry’s midstream.

Yet the top miners have been able to raise prices this time round, after significantly cutting production last year and buoyed by renewed demand from manufacturers and traders. De Beers has been hiking prices since the end of last year, back to pre-coronavirus levels. It sold more than $1.6 billion in rough gems in its first three sales of 2021, the most since 2018.

“Alrosa and De Beers have managed to clear the excess inventories built over the course of 2020 and without hurting polished-diamond pricing that continues to advance,” Liberum Capital analyst Ben Davis said. “This bodes very well for the remainder of the year to clear that much stock in such a short space of time.”
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
20Gauge said:
This is because there is a supply of diamonds that makes the sand on the beach seem scarce. There are tons upon tons of diamonds in the vaults. Diamonds are considered valuable only due to perceived scarcity.

Colored gemstones are much scarcer.
Click to expand...

This^^^ Diamonds are a dime a dozen.
 
Jez

Jez

Veteran Member
20Gauge said:
This is because there is a supply of diamonds that makes the sand on the beach seem scarce. There are tons upon tons of diamonds in the vaults. Diamonds are considered valuable only due to perceived scarcity.

Colored gemstones are much scarcer.
Click to expand...
I've heard this as well. Debeers has the monopoly and keeps the market artificially scarce thus the high price.
 
N

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
PRECISELY!!!

Bumped into a guy here in town and he indicated he was a diamond cutter, HERE!!

He said his company os one of the biggest in the country in their niche.
SO I am an ass regularly and oi asked what was the NAME of his company.

Cleveland Black Oxide.

At which my brain kicked over, and started to run.

Ah HAH! sez I. INDUSTRIAL CUTTING diamonds!
His place ain't real BIG but the VISIBLE security system is DAMN impressive!

and on a side note, the biggest jewel vault in the world in in Akron, OH and it is for "Jerod's".
Used to know the facility mgr there.
 
S

summer-texan

Contributing Member
for someone in the diamond business, this is a dumb decision. yes, DeBeer's controls the market.
should people elect to buy lab diamonds, cubic zirconia in enough volume, DeBeer's will simply lower the cost of real diamonds thus forcing these morons out of business.
 
P

Profit of Doom

Dismember
summer-texan said:
for someone in the diamond business, this is a dumb decision. yes, DeBeer's controls the market.
should people elect to buy lab diamonds, cubic zirconia in enough volume, DeBeer's will simply lower the cost of real diamonds thus forcing these morons out of business.
Click to expand...
CZ are not lab diamonds. You may still have a point, though.
 
F

Faroe

Un-spun
Probably cheaper than mined. Quality control has to be easier - no more inclusions, and no more G and H shades!
I'll bet it was a business decision marketed as a progressive decision.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I'm wondering if all the mined diamonds will become rare in the future bringing with it a huge price increase for them? Wondering if those who have the real thing need to hang on to them as a future investment, or sell.
 
PghPanther

PghPanther

Has No Life - Lives on TB
cubic zirconia.........I like those better than real diamonds and/or lab diamonds.........the brilliance and clarity under any lighting condition is like a 0/0/0 stone and they are as cheap as can be for what they look like...........
 
Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
summer-texan said:
should people elect to buy lab diamonds, cubic zirconia in enough volume, DeBeer's will simply lower the cost of real diamonds thus forcing these morons out of business.
Click to expand...

True!

I only buy cubic zirconia or inexpensive gem stones. It's no great loss if I lose them, and I really do have better
uses for the money. If I wanted something real, I would go to a pawn shop or estate sale, buy whatever I wanted, and then
re-design it to suit my needs. It's not hard and tons cheaper than buying something new at mall.

Disclaimer: I designed and made pieces in high school.
 
H

Homestyle

Veteran Member
When lab diamonds were first available I bought five pair of one carat diamond stud earrings for stocking stuffers that Christmas. They were cheap, the cost was mostly for the gold posts. They were gorgeous, looked liked the real deal. My daughter wears her pair everyday. I saved one pair for me but I don't have pierced ears. I looked at the same pair a little while ago and almost fainted. The price was $1350 a pair with 14k gold.
 
Meadowlark

Meadowlark

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The funny thing is that diamonds are more common and actually less valuable than most people think. Honestly I could care less between synthetic and natural. Its all about needless vanity and greed.
 
D

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
Huge row in DW's family over her mother's engagement ring. About 1/3 carat, plain gold mount. DW was the only daughter but greedy little brother wanted big bucks for her to have it.

So we got appraisals. Biggest estimate/offer was $300. It was an old pre-Tiffany cut with the culet cut off. Fewer, larger facets, nice diamond but ...

DW wears it every day.
 
D

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment

It's about time!

I was interested to read that Pandora, the world's largest jewelry brand, will switch completely to artificial or synthetic diamonds inst...
bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com

Wednesday, May 5, 2021
It's about time!


I was interested to read that Pandora, the world's largest jewelry brand, will switch completely to artificial or synthetic diamonds instead of mined stones.




CEO Alexander Lacik said the move will make the gems 'accessible' to more people as well as further the company's efforts to make its supply chain more sustainable, ethical and traceable.

. . .

Lacik told the BBC the jewelry can be made and retailed at much lower costs than mined diamonds.

'We can essentially create the same outcome as nature has created, but at a very, very different price,' he said, adding that they are made for as little as 'a third of what it is for something that we've dug up from the ground.'

. . .

But the company said there is no compromise in the quality, with the lab-made jewels 'physically, chemically, and optically identical to their mined counterparts but they are created above ground'.




There's more at the link.

De Beers for decades tried to prevent the free trading of diamonds, instead trying to persuade producers to enter a monopolistic cartel-like arrangement where prices could be forced artificially high. Diamonds are basically very common; even gem-quality stones aren't all that rare, and artificial equivalents have been around for the past forty to fifty years. The cartel began to splinter in the early 2000's, as new producers broke away from the monopoly. Now that technology has reached the point where an artificially created diamond is literally indistinguishable from its natural equivalent, I expect the final elements of the cartel to collapse.

Diamonds should be far, far cheaper than they are, when one considers how relatively abundant they are in nature. Perhaps a step like this by a major jeweler will finally allow prices to find their own natural level, rather than see unfairly high prices being extorted from the consumer.

Peter
 
Macgyver

Macgyver

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I ordered the ring for the wife online. Company called blue Nile.
I was having some trouble with the site so I called, woman was like we only sell fair trade conflict free yada yada yada.
I stated I would gladly buy blood diamonds if they were cheeper. Total vapor lock she could not answer.
 
D

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
One of my jewelry business friends found DW's engagement ring for me. It's called a bouquet setting, a cluster of smaller stones around a slightly larger central stone. I believe it was Harry Winston who wrote the book on wedding rings in America where I saw the photo of one. The diamonds are from the Kimberly pipe, the original date in the ring was 1874.

My mom stole it, so I had to find another ring to propose with :D

I had left it in my old bedroom to get a trusted jeweler in Selma to reset one of the stones that was loose (14K yellow gold prongs), and mom found it and asked if she could have 'that ring she found' on my dresser. What was I gonna say? :D
 
Blastoff

Blastoff

Veteran Member
Wearing lab created stones right now in my wedding rings. Looks great, cheaper, couldn't be happier.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Dennis Olson said:
Actually, were it not for De Beers’ leg breakers, diamonds would be about 5 bux a carat.
Click to expand...

Quite possibly even less, from what I’ve read the have several million tons of the stuff in storage, that bit of info may have been from a 60 minutes episode back in the early 90s.
 
O

Orion Commander

Veteran Member
The local mall has a Pandora sign. That jewelry dealer wanted $10,000-13,000 for PW'S engagement ring with some song and dance about their exclusive cut. No way. This was in early 2001. I returned to the jeweler I bought from in 1976. Old family establishment. Got her a beautiful three diamond ring for a third of the price. Point is there is a lot of hype out there.
 
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