Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with diamonds

Canadian diamond wedding band in NYC/NJ?

exhilaration — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:21:18 -0800

Know of any jewelers that carry Canadian diamond wedding bands in North Jersey or Manhattan? I need a wedding band (getting married in 2 weeks!), and my fiancé doesn't want an African diamond after watching Blood Diamond. I'd like someone I can deal with in person rather than a website. I called like 15 local jewelers in New Jersey and none carry Canadian diamonds. What's up with that? I tried two local Ultras and they don't have wedding bands. Any other recommendations?

Diamond Heist Help Needed!

xz — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:01:02 -0800

Diamond Heist Filter: I'm writing a crime story and I could use some technical info so things sound realistic -- do you know gems or security systems or African languages? The first thing I'm trying to find out is how much the stolen diamonds in the story could be worth. I understand that the value would be affected by many variables, I'm just looking for a guide. If you were offered a million dollars worth of uncut diamonds of varying quality and size, how big a package would you expect that to be?

The second thing I'm looking for is a technical term for a device one would use to disable/crack a keypad alarm system. Do those thingys actually exist or are they just a figment of cinematic imagination?

And, uh, I don't suppose anyone speaks either Lingala, or Luganda, or any other Central/West African language? Obscure is fine. I'm looking for a translation for anything like the following dialogue:

"I don't remember. What did you want me to say?"
"Don't worry. Just pretend to kick him."
"Thanks for hiring us. I hope this was scary enough."

What's the best ring setting for a miner's cut diamond?

plinsky — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:20:42 -0800

I recently inherited a large diamond in a "miner's cut," which is somewhat square and has an old-fashioned look to it. I want to get it set into a ring, but am not sure what kind of setting would be best for this cut of diamond. Can anyone help?

Will acetone nail polish remover damage gold?

librarianamy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:44:37 -0800

Removing nail polish from a diamond & white gold engagement ring? Asking for a friend - she was painting her nails with a dark red Sephora brand nail polish, and got some on her engagement ring. The ring is 14K white gold, and the polish is dried and on the part where the little diamonds and metal meet. She's already tried store bought jewelry cleaner and it's just made the rest of the ring sparkly. Googling brings up information on removing nail polish in general, and using clear polish to prevent tarnish on cheap jewelry. Would using regular acetone polish remover damage the metal? If it would cause damage, are there other in-house options?

Thanks!

Diamonds: What cut is more desirable?

jwfree — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:31:44 -0800

Which do you prefer, round or princess cut diamonds? Why? What are the pros/cons to each? My girlfriend's birthday is coming up and so I think it's about time to buy her diamond earrings (studs) for the first time. Size wise I was not thinking anything too crazy, around 0.15 in size.

I am a guy and I am partial to princess cut myself but I have heard that with smaller diamonds that are round will shine more. Since I plan on getting around the 0.15 in size, the more shine the better!

Ladies, any suggestions or tips?

Gentlemen, any words of wisdom?

Engagement Ethics Optimization: Estate Jewelry / MYOR

lalochezia — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:41:11 -0800

Buying an engagement ring. Advice wanted on a) Estate Jewelry: recommendations on how to buy & not get ripped off. b) Make-your-own-ring workshops: how to get a good used diamond. c) recommendations for both of the above in the LA / SoCal area. My sweetie wants a diamond ring for her engagement. I want to give her one. I would like to avoid Tifffany, Big Box stores and even (gasp) Blue Nile. I'd either like to make my own ring or buy her an unusual used one.

I'd like to either

i) Buy her Estate Jewelry: it's more unique, doesn't contribute significantly to the demand for new diamonds, and considering the value of diamonds drops precipitously after being used, should provide a good deal.

How do I get a good deal? How do I avoid being ripped off? Does anyone have any good recommendations from PERSONAL experience in Southern California with used/estate jewelry?

Alternatively

ii) There are workshops (in SF and NYC) where you can craft your own engagement ring with your own hands: they provide eco-gold and tuition and you provide the stone.
Does anyone know whether there is a similar person/organization who runs a workshop like this in SoCal? (google fails me on this count)? How would I go about buying a used diamond for this process?

I have seen the many questions on AskMe before, but none address the points above. Please: no all diamonds are evil spiels. No non-diamond gems. No new natural diamonds. If anyone can show me white synthetic diamonds that are indistinguishable from the natural stuff, go right ahead. I know her ring size and I know her taste: we've looked at rings together & have pictures of ones she likes.

I've made my peace with buying some compressed carbon. I just want to perform an optimization on the nature of the transaction to maximize my ethics within the framework of buying a Rock.

Romantic symbolism: conflict-free and on the cheap

kyleg — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:32:18 -0800

Help me find a quality, non-diamond engagement ring that wont plunge me deeper into debt. My fiancee and I have been engaged for long enough that it's getting annoying and pretty ridiculous that she doesn't have a ring yet. We are both aware of the sins of the diamond industry, but she likes the look of diamonds or light-colored gemstones.

We've been to jewelers in person to find out what styles we like, but their prices range from too much to completely insane, and there's too much focus on the hard-sell of the diamond. Where can we go to find what we're looking for, either in Chicago, NE Indiana, or online?

What we're looking for: emerald-cut stone, plain or engraved white gold band, antique style, pave halo around the stone (without using diamonds, which is seemingly impossible). But nothing too fancy. Is a custom setting our best option? Is there any way to do this on a tight budget?

Jewelers and their ubiquitous calculator... why?

ab5000 — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:18:03 -0800

Why do jewelers always insist of giving prices read from a calculator screen and not from the price tag of the piece I'm looking at? Do they give different people different prices? Or is it a way of accounting for fluctuating prices of gold or gems from week to week?

Books on the 19th century South African diamond industry

stammer — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:36:39 -0800

What are the best books about the South African diamond industry during the mid-to-late 19th century? I am distantly related to Barney Barnato and would like to find out whether he was particularly evil, but I'm also just interested in the period generally.

How do blood diamonds and artificial diamonds not cancel eachother out?

Bugbread — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:51:15 -0800

How do blood diamonds and artificial diamonds not cancel eachother out? Sorry, I've googled this, but every hit either describes blood diamonds or artificial diamonds, and not the relationship between them.

My understanding, which may be wrong, is:

Artificial diamonds are cheap to make, and relatively easy.
To keep the prices of diamonds up, the diamond industry has invested heavily in convincing people that artificial diamonds are no good, and only natural diamonds, coming from the industry and properly certified, et al, are worth anything.
Blood diamonds are natural diamonds which haven't passed through industry channels, which are valuable, and used to finance wars.

What I don't understand is: if the blood diamonds don't get certified / pass through the industry, then they would be the equivalent of artificial diamonds, in terms of value. If that's the case, why are they so profitable? And why would a country use diamonds they had mined in order to finance a war, instead of just artificially creating those diamonds?

Selling our grandmother's jewelry

killerinsideme — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:54:17 -0800

Please help my sister and me liberate ourselves (in a wise way) from a bitter, albeit shiny, inheritance Our grandmother died years ago and we've finally admitted to ourselves and each other that we will never want to wear any of her jewelry. The memories it brings up aren't pleasant and, in the intervening years, my sister has had to factor its value into her homeowner's insurance, which totally sucks.

I'm moving out of Brooklyn in the next couple weeks and she is coming to help me. We plan that she'll bring the jewelry and we'll sell it here in NY somewhere (a friend of hers did that and was happy with the result).

It's mostly 18-24k yellow gold bangles and necklaces. There are also a couple of cocktail rings. The only advice we've had so far is to remove the gems from the rings, sell the metal by itself, keep the stones and get them reset. As my sister says, "No one in our family is ever going to buy a diamond again, right?" Right. Might as well keep these, then?

So...

Do you have some advice in a general way about selling old jewelry, or specific recommendations about where to take it in New York City? I should warn you that we are not at all hardnosed people and we're not good at bargaining. In addition, this grandmother was our beloved mother's mother, our mother died well before her time (and before her own mother) 15 years ago AND their relationship was.... tense. As you've no doubt gathered by now, these objects are extremely emotionally loaded. Both of us are quite fragile when dealing with them and I'd like this to be as painless as possible. We want to rid ourselves of these things, but we also want to be smart. There's not a lot of precious metal floating around in our family.

diamonds are forever..

petsounds — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:47:01 -0800

Are there any other companies that have fooled as many people as De Beers? I was fascinated with this article talking about the repulsive history of De Beers and how they have used incredibly clever mass psychology methods, like advertising, to invent the illusion of the scarcity and value of diamonds as well as create the assumption that every woman must have one. My question is what are some other examples of pyschological mass manipulation by industry that have worked this well? Are there other companies that have fooled as many people? Im also curious.. the article hints that De Beer's control over the market may be in danger due to newly discovered mines in Australia and other parts of the world, however the article is from 1982. I'm wondering how that battle played out. Are they still in control of all the mines? And how come the inevitable 'diamond crash' spelled out in the article never happened? Is it simply because most people still dont realize that the resale value of diamonds is a myth?

I have some nice waterfront property to sell you for cheap.

ashbury — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:37:54 -0800

I was wondering if anybody has any knowledge of Canadian Diamond Traders Inc. They advertise a scheme to join a group of traders for $100 and get an awesome return on your investment, plus a diamond. Is this a pyramid scheme? An Amway system? Some sort of scheme? Legal?
CDT Inc.
google query
CDT program

I ask because my parents are interested and I don't want them to get ripped off, even if it is by a small amount.

why diamonds are bad

gen — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:24:28 -0800

I need a bunch of evidence/information to educate a friend about the diamond industry; why it is a monopoly, how it has fueled civil wars in African nations, the current state of diamond mining, etc. I thought there was also a famous photojournalist (Salgado?) who took photos of a diamond mine in Africa as well. Can anyone help me gather information on why diamonds should not be purchased? Thank you in advance.

What makes certain jewelry good?

mikeh — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 09:04:06 -0800

Jewelry design? Suppose, for the sake of conversation, I'd like to know about key designers and what makes for "good" jewelry. I recently was in a conversation where someone mentioned his girlfriend's love of jewelry from Tiffany and I kind of threw out the default complaint about jewelry being a waste of money and how the materials often involve exploiting forced child labor, etc. I realized that I actually know very little about the jewelry industry.

Outside of the rarity/quality of gems and precious metals, what is prized? I know that custom jewelry is often designed for those who can afford it, but are there big name designers of mass produced jewelry or are different stores just known for styles? I've seen a lot of seemingly generic jewelry and for such an expensive item I would imagine there's more to the story.

Note that I'm more interested in higher-priced items that include precious materials, although craftier designer items may apply too.

Diamond hardness

askmatrix — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:13:12 -0800

If diamonds are the hardest substance known to man, how can you cut them? How do you cut the diamonds to get them on the cutting wheel? Can you crush a diamond with a hammer? PLease show me some examples of ways to cut a diamond. We are having a huge argument at work and my co-workers think I am nuts because I said there are many ways to cut a diamond or crush one.

Selling diamonds

agregoli — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:32:27 -0800

I have a diamond appraised at around $200 from a jeweler - and of course a pawn shop doesn't give a fair deal. How/where do you sell a diamond? I'm in Chicago if that helps.

Capital jewelry

thewittyname — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:18:10 -0800

I'm looking for recommendations for a reputable jeweler in the Washington DC area. I'm going to be buying an engagement ring, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want and how much I want to pay for it. I've looked around on-line, but I want to visit some real stores as well. I'd prefer to stay away from mall chains like Kay Jewelrs and the such, but I have no experience with buying jewelry of any kind. I'm worried about getting scammed, can anyone help?

Any recommendations (especially for shops in Montgomery County, Maryland) would be greatly appreciated.

Non-Diamond Engagement Ring

cleetus — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:20:29 -0800

I am fairly well resolved to do what must be done to turn my girlfriend into my fiance. One thing is delaying this: I'd like to get an engagement ring without enriching the diamond monopoly (she and I are both on the same page about this). What's to know about substitute/faux/synthetic gemstones? Are they worth it? What would make a good ring given this unorthodox constraint? Any and all suggestions much appreciated!

What could my friend do to avoid being bullied by his fiancee's family?

taumeson — Mon, 24 May 2004 13:25:09 -0800

There's already been a question on AskMe about engagement ring advice, but I'm looking for something a little different. My buddy just spent $10,000 on an engagement ring because his fiance is feeling the pressure of being a brand new attorney in NYC and wanting to look the part. He didn't want to, but he did it anyway, cause her family was giving her the "If he loves you, he'd spend the money" spiel and it was really getting to her.

What could he have done at that point? She's a great girl, just a little prone to doing what her family wants her to do, so "RUN" isn't an appropriate response. Also, what is an appropriate price? $10,000 is about two months salary, but it seems extreme.

Google's not really any help....strangers who I've interacted with (ala MeFites) are significantly better than strangers I have not (ala some random webpage).

Need engagement ring advice for best quality / value combination.

PrinceValium — Fri, 26 Dec 2003 09:57:43 -0800

Need engagement ring advice. [more inside]