Diamond appreciation thread

[Bloodysquirellls]

Who loves diamonds!!

Honestly I love them. They are SO beautiful.

My favourite type of diamond is a firey one.

My own is titchy. 0.2 carats. But my god it’s a firecracker. A sparky little rainbow on my finger 🧨

Besides my own children.. I do think good diamonds are the most beautiful thing on earth.

Tell me about your favourite diamonds?

FOUND IT!!!!

In the bookshelf - must have had wet hands post bath whilst vigorously tidying bedroom 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Brilliant! Im glad you found it! 😊

So pleased for you 😊

Great news!!!!

Oh, thank goodness, @Bloodysquirellls And what a beautiful ring, I love the intricacy of the infinity setting and you can see the radiance of the stone in the picture.

@Bloodysquirellls. I’ve never seen that setting before. I love that it’s unique.

Thanks everyone 😅 OVER THE MOON!

Did not think the thread would end up with this drama so it really is a nice ending 😂

Delighted you found it @Bloodysquirellls
It is very unusual.

Excellent news! So glad you found it ❤️

So glad to hear your found it!

You should work in the jewellery trade because most people even with years of experience find it nearly impossible to distinguish between lab grown and mined....because they are essentially the same thing one is naturally occurring, the other is manufactured.

I’m sorry but I know several people who have them and whilst they’re pretty, there is no rainbow fire or brilliance.
I see adverts for them all the time and they just look like pretty bits of cut glass.
I have loads of diamonds; all sizes and shapes. They all have that unmistakable sparkle.

So glad you found it op! This is why I don’t trust myself to wear an expensive ring! I have my mums old engagement ring, an Edwardian platinum ring with a 0.5 carat diamond and some smaller ones too. I would never forgive myself if I lost it or damaged it, so sadly it doesn’t get worn.

My DP recently proposed to me and chose a ‘placeholder ring’ so that I could choose one myself at a later date.

The one he chose is so beautiful and fits perfectly so I’ve said that I’d like to just keep that one. He says he feels guilty that people are complimenting the ring when it wasn’t expensive but I’ve said that I don’t want to know how much it cost or what it’s made of. It sparkles and looks the part so as far as I’m concerned that’s my ring.

I’ll maybe get a different stone in a more decorative setting than would usually be worn for a wedding ring.

@TheShoeLady That is such a shame! Your mum's ring is a lovely thing to have and I bet your Edwardian platinum ring is amazing.

Why is it that you worry about losing them - are they loose on your fingers? There should be some resistance as you put on and take off your rings - it depends on the shape of your fingers but if the knuckle is the widest part, you should have to push the ring gently over the knuckle so your knuckle holds it on. If your rings are in danger of slipping off, you could have them made smaller - even half a size can make a surprising difference.

Alternatively, could you compromise by only wearing them at home - at least then you could enjoy them?

This. My engagement ring is a mined diamond and my eternity ring is lab diamonds. They sit right next to each other and look exactly the same, certainly to the naked eye.

That’s the problem, my knuckle isn’t the widest part! I have quite ‘full’ fingers, so if it’s big enough to get into position there is a danger it slides off over the knuckle.

But tbh it’s more likely I will take it off when doing something (I work with my hands a lot, painting and baking, I work in industrial kitchens part time so can’t wear jewellery and I just know I’d end up forgetting to take it off at home and then put it somewhere ‘safe’ and lose it!). It’s safer in a box and maybe it can come out for special occasions.

In the meantime my engagement ring is just perfect, fit-wise and looks-wise for me, even though I can’t manage to take a good photo of it - do diamonds show up better in photos than other stones? Mine looks so pretty and sparkly in real life but in photos it does just look like a plain piece of glass 😂

Photo is to show fit for @TheCoatThatLaunched1000Emails not to try and show off the ring as I know it’s a terrible angle for that 😂

Yes, I see what you mean. Mine used to be like that when I was younger but after I passed 50, the finger either side of the knuckle seemed to shrink - it isn't that the knuckles are swollen, I actually take a smaller ring size now, but my knuckle holds them on.

Special occasions sounds a good compromise!

I think with any sparkly stone, you have to get the lighting just right for it to show in a photo. If you think about a jewellers, they always have spotlights so all the rings have maximum sparkle from different angles, but you don't get the same effect with a single-source artificial light at home. It's hard to see the stone in your picture but the textured band and setting looks very pretty!

Possibly your eternity ring might be less noticeably lab grown, as it’s likely to have much smaller stones than a typical lab grown engagement massive oval stone which seems to be the trend nowadays. (so obviously fake. The real thing would cost a bomb!)

I still maintain that only real diamonds have that rainbow brilliance and fire.
As I said, I have loads of diamonds from very small to really quite big and there is no mistaking that radiance.

I have never personally found that @CillianMurphyhasbeautifuleyes . I find it true of diamond-substitutes - Diamonique, Diamonflash etc. but not of lab grown diamonds.

'Tells' for lab diamonds in my experience are more simply, size, colour and clarity vs price and where they are sold. A 3 carat mined diamond of vs quality would not be sitting in Warren James's window priced at a couple of grand! Also, the setting can be a slight giveaway, the settings tend to be plainer than you'd get for mined diamonds.

I think they're great as an ethical and more affordable choice, and I don't think they take away at all from mined diamonds - mined diamonds are a different thing, they have a history, they're formed over billions of years; a vintage piece might have been someone's engagement ring in Victorian times - you're simply buying something totally different.

You’re right about the “tells!” Warren James etc. 🤣🤦‍♀️

I think they can be a great choice for someone on a budget but if I were going to buy one, I’d get a smaller, more “credible” size with a cut that gave as much sparkle as possible.

When I see a 25 year old flashing a 4ct diamond 💍 I just think, yeah, right!
I am NOT being snobby and I’d NEVER say a word to anyone in real life who had one.

A friend’s DD got engaged the other week with one of those massive rocks and I dutifully oohed and aged over it.

And as I said, I have a few cubic zirconia rings which are very pretty and sparkly. I’ve also bought a couple of rings from House of Carats so I can definitely see the attraction.

However, nothing will ever convince me that a massive lab grown diamond is much more than a pretty piece of glass, regardless of its adherence to a mined diamond’s characteristics.
(Not sure if I’m explaining that very well! I’ve got a really sore head!)

I get what you’re saying. I’ll stick with my stunning, radiant, rainbow fire, mined diamonds.

(A colleague has a HUGE diamond trilogy ring and it blasts out rainbow sparkles! It’s unmistakably a mined diamond and must have cost an absolute fortune 🤣
I do know for a fact that it’s real, btw.
Although I can tell by looking 😉)

I think with regard to very large stones, if you see one in passing rather than looking closely, you can't really tell what it is at all - it could be a cubic zirconia or white sapphire etc.

Personally, my jewellery is all for me, if that makes sense - I don't mind at what other people make of it. I don't have anything large or flashy - I've got various cubic zirconias in different shapes and sizes that are obvious fashion rings, and other than that I have a 1 carat lab diamond ring and some much smaller vintage and antique rings. I could not afford a 1 carat mined diamond 😆. I value pretty settings more than large stones.

With old jewellery I find it interesting to look up the hallmark if it's legible and find when and where it was assayed - I found one of my rings was assayed the year my sister was born and another, the year my husband was born, so that makes them extra special to me.

A tip if you want to do this is to photograph the inside of the ring under bright light resting on white paper on your phone and then enlarge the photo and if necessary mess about with the contrast etc. until you can make sense of the hallmark (there are charts online you can compare it to and hallmark finder wizards to make it easy).

ETA - if you keep the photo you've also then got it for insurance purposes!

@TheShoeLady You could try insuring it! It’s not the largest rock ever. It’s ridiculous to be so scared about wearing a lovely but modest ring. Right now you aren’t getting any pleasure from it so what real value to you if it’s never seen? Also make sure it fits. Don’t take it off. I’ve never lost a ring because I don’t remove them! When not being worn, mine are locked away but I’ve several and always wear something half decent without fear.

It insured . I know in the grand scheme of things it’s not massively expensive compared to some of yours, but this is my mum’s ring that was passed down from her mum. I remember my mum wearing it all the time and she absolutely loved it so insuring it to replace it isn’t really the issue here.

I did have it resized to fit my ring finger a few years back and wore it sometimes but I just felt almost unworthy of it because it hadn’t been given in proposal. A bit like I was just playing dress-up as my mum!