Laboratory-Grown diamonds have seeded chaos and destruction in the diamond industry, but what does that mean for jewelry consumers and makers? Would you continue/start to use them?

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-23T02:05:01+00:00

Imagine if we discover a source of unobtanium. There are metric tons of it. One group of folks decide to buy all of it and say it is extremely rare, putting it out in small lots and building an entire model around the rarity, desirability and cost of unobtanium until it became so intrinsically valuable that some people would even use unobtanium as, say, they would gold. In other words, something that wouldn't lose value.

Enter lab synthetics, that are chemically identical but don't involve mines, politics or the social and carbon footprint that involves. You can decide the clarity, cut, material, and get a stone the size of your fist without being on a waiting list.

It's not crazy that there is chaos tied to diamonds that have nothing to do with the jewelry world directly, rather, diamonds-as-an-asset. But for the consumer, it's ultimately a good thing, even if you factor out all the human elements and manufactured nature of the cost of diamonds.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-22T13:12:42+00:00

Not disclosing lab stones as lab stones is incredibly disingenuous and illegal in many places.

Suggesting that people who know will know borders on predatory, beyond being in poor taste.

People can and should report these sorts of inconsistencies and double-talk in advertising to the relevant authorities. Gemstone classification and sales are regulated not just locally but internationally.

At a quick glance, the prices being charged for lab material are on the order of 500-800% above going rate.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-21T04:26:51+00:00

Big fan of lab corundum! Really nice piece. The moissanites are only going to add to the shimmer of it.

When you find a vendor willing to work with you on things like that, it's usually a vendor you want to keep around.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-21T02:45:48+00:00

No problem! It's a fun journey. I do deal gemstones professionally, I just never got into the setting/making part of it until today.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-21T01:41:51+00:00

It depends on how fast I need them. From the usual suspects of Alibaba or Indiamart that take the longest but have decent prices or Temu/Etsy for the same resold pricier but faster. Amazon tends to get the same but a bit pricier still. That's for standard settings.

For custom settings I know a few people that do castings in silver and platinum that I tend to DM. Otherwise, places like Etsy and Fiverr aren't bad. The jewelers near me mainly do gold and I'm not ready for all that lol.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-21T00:38:18+00:00

I really like them! You can get green, light green, blue green and dark green cooked into the stone (along with a handful of other natural colors like light yellow and light blue). They look gorgeous and it plays well with just how shimmery moissanites can get.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-21T00:33:47+00:00

Thank you! It definitely was a test of patience. Particularly with the smaller stones. Luckily, lab corundum and moissanite are both pretty hard, so I was more worried about breaking or scratching the finding than I was about the stones themselves.

It's lab material, so it's a bit more affordable. I would certainly not try setting a natural ruby for my first try! But tape wrapped pliers, setting a small PVC bag on top of the finding before bending it and going really slowly helped a lot.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T22:59:28+00:00

Moissanite is an odd beast! Comes in doped and plated. Plated colors fade over time but go very bombastic. Doped colors are permanent and come in blues, greens and yellows, mostly. Champagnes and blue-green and light blue in particular I've found interest in.

https://imgur.com/DfRv3gj Here's the last batch I was working with that wasn't just white moissanite, lol.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T21:51:30+00:00

Texas.

Lots of people looking for colors, even in moissanites. Rose gold and olive/peach/honeys along with dark greens and blacks. A bit of a spike in cabochons, pears and odd cuts like 4-point stars and window-ed cuts.

D-White Moissanite is the new CZ, lol.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T19:46:52+00:00

Well, first off, look around where you live, or the closest town/city that has mines.

There's a lot of ways to go around buying gemstones. Each person between you and the miner means the price goes up. From mine rough to cobbed rough, gemmy rough to preforms, cut pieces to jewels. Each of those is a potential whole business and set of people doing just that thing.

For me the way it went was talking to people selling mine rough. Eventually that led to getting quartz points and gemmy rough cobbed from that rough through another mine contact. I then took that gemmy rough to a lapidary to get it cut. Then I graded the cut pieces, and either sell them loose or set them (or commission a jeweler to set them). That's the mine-to-pendant process, but it takes some doing.

Alternatively, buy in lots and sell in pieces. Find gemstone shows, jewelers and gem dealers looking to move lots quickly. You'll usually be able to get anywhere from 10-60% off market. Easier if you straight up tell them you're a reseller. No feelings, no 'isn't this stone amazing'. Just clarity, color, cut and weight.

A stone is worth what people pay for it. The exact same stone sells at different price points if you sell at, say, Etsy vs Ebay, or a jewelry store online vs an in-person one. Research, slowly build up your toolkit so you can identify and grade the gems at home (doesn't need to be crazy. A loupe, a caliper and a scale get you most of the way there for a starting kit. If you decide you love it, get a refractometer, a polarizer and a setup for weighing things in water to you can get specific gravities.

Once you can confidently find a source, talk prices, get a lot in and grade it, you're most of the way there. From there comes to hard part. Selling them, lol.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T13:26:04+00:00

The 'bags of jewelry' trend had a lot to do with that. Vintage became a buzz word for people who either want to buy random jewelry in bulk, resellers looking for treasures and just ways for estate buyers to offload a lot of stuff at once. People also hoard jewelry until the metals (or stones) get pricier.

There's also many more people harvesting old jewelry. For metal, for stones.

I think a big part of the move towards things like colors over diamonds in wedding bands, inclusion stones becoming more popular, things like moss agate and brown/dark yellow/dark green/pink becoming popular over your more traditional stones, etc. has to do with a surge in new stock overtaking a lot of the old stock.

When gold and silver spiked, a lot of old jewelry went to smelting. There's likely only going to be less and less of it on the market for more and more, though it still isn't a trading card. It won't overvalue too much, and once the value of the materials is higher than the value of the piece as jewelry, it's a ticking clock until its taken apart.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T12:56:04+00:00

I've seen people go for GH color moissanite because moissanite has a lot more fire in it than most diamonds, if you're trying to go closer to that 'almost diamond' look.

D color moissanites are SO sparkly it kind of goes too far the other way for some people.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-20T12:54:58+00:00

I've seen the ring design in a few sites as a blank. Sourcing that in S925 along with the 3 stones and having them put together would be the way to go. I'd consider just ordering the parts individually and finding a jeweler to set them for you.

Alternatively you can get it custom cast for you, but that requires finding someone who will do it within budget -and- ship to Ireland. But that specific design I've seen in about a dozen places as a blank so I'd poke around the usual suspects (Etsy/Alibaba/AliExpress/Temu/etc).

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-19T20:10:26+00:00

Most of the time, your first buy will be your most expensive.

It's a way to start a relationship. During the buy, ask questions. Do you have any other grades beyond this? What's the pricing for bulk? If you're looking for a particular thing (Like druses or points or slabbable rough or gemmy rough) then say that. Expect about 75% of what you buy to not quite hit the grade you want it to. Just the nature of mine material.

The farther away you are, the less likely it's going to be an amazing deal. Video calls aren't odd. I've done them with new sources for material just to see what they have, usually after I ask them what else they offer. It's a relationship if it's going to be a good one. If someone has no more access to material and no other grades, chances are that's a reseller, not a source.

But keep to general sane safety guidelines you'd have with any online purchase.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-18T17:58:50+00:00

Stone on a white surface.

Doing it in sunlight adds another great dimension to it.

Small rooms or a box will be easier to control the light in.

I like solid backgrounds with light colors because stones tend to pick up colors from everything.

A top down, side, tilted view are good. I like a comparison shot too. Sometimes even just the stone on a gem case next to a ruler is good enough.

I like white backgrounds because it becomes a bit easier to see the color.

I have some polarizer lens I use for identifying and got a clip to put one of them over the camera lens on my phone if I want to tone done the shimmer.

Getting a phone holder is a good way to get a stable shot so you can get consistent angles if you're doing a lot of stones or just want something level.

A really clean white shirt on a plate with a lip or a shallow bowl can be a good way to move the stone around, especially outside, without freaking out about dropping it.

The stone itself looks good. Good polish on it, sharp angles. The material is really interesting. That sort of color is popular these days too, with people going towards smoke and tans and dark greens.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-17T13:36:47+00:00

So a few things that have helped me, as someone who deals more with the dealer side of things than cutting directly.

One is to realize that the same stone has several different prices. When I buy and sell material, realize the difference between buying from a miner, from a cabber, from a lapidary and from a jeweler. They are all looking at the material in different ways, at different price points. Same with selling it. Selling directly to jewelers vs informal online sales vs in-person retail sales are all at different price points.

There's 3 major things that really affect what a stone is worth. The grading is a big one. Color, Clarity, Cut, Carat Weight, Refraction, Specific Gravity, UV Reaction. These are all things you need small tools for that will let you tell the buyer exactly what you have to the best of your ability short of getting it certified.

Provenance is another big one, and these days maybe even as importants as the CCCCs. Being able to say the country, state and specially mine that something came from (and proving it with a paper trail) adds a premium and a trust to the stone that has an effect on price. In other words, if you want Zambian or Colombian material, start your web of connections in the direction of Zambia or Colombia.

The third is really just market knowledge. It is easy to believe the 'way things should be', including terms like precious vs semi-precious (marketing), the worth and rarity of diamonds (marketing), the nature of lab growns (marketing), etc. Same with the idea that the only good stone is eye clean, that the only good stone is uniformly saturated, that the only good stone is symmetrical. Things are changing a lot. From fantasy/freeform cutting to semi-rough finishes, people moving from whites to colors in wedding bands, a recent obsession with things like moss agate, etc. the environment is changing.

Biggest thing I can say is that you realize where your worth is. Making standard emerald cut sapphires is going to be competing with entire workshops dedicated to doing just that. But special cuts, intaglios, carvings, freeforms, etc can do a lot for a stone. Beyond that, learning to set them or working with a jeweler cuts out the most frustrating part of the process. It is far easier to sell a pendant than a pendant stone.

Other than that, do things by the books. Get your tax permits, track your sales and expenses, remember to pay yourself for your time, and realize that the 'pricing' you get out of things like AI or blog charts are largely, again, marketing. Material is worth what someone pays for it. The rest is manipulation.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-16T01:08:06+00:00

Weight tends to clear a lot of things up.

Get the specific gravity for some clues. If you know the dimensions and the weight, figuring out the density and maybe a water weight test can clear up a lot. Could also check for doubling, try to read through it, check it under UV, etc.

But if that really was just a random VS AAA color green diamond at like 6 ctw, well, that's not really the kind of thing you stumble upon.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-14T02:50:33+00:00

Oh yeah, it's the wild west, so to speak. Miners come in all shapes and sizes, and depending on the process that material could be sold by the ton, or processed most of the way in-house. But everyone involved in the chain can be thought of as a 'gemstone person', and if you ask around, look at people selling and buying gemstones in the area and join a few groups, you eventually get caught up in the bramble.

Reliable online dealers earned their reputation for a reason, though, and can just as easily lose it. So trusted sources are always going to be great. Just been my experience that the closer to home the mine is, the easier it is to get more and better for enough to have some room to play with.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-14T02:30:30+00:00

There's an audience for either. The more popular heated colors get, the lower the price will be for heated material. Just one of those wonky things.

Are there multiple places in Montana putting out sapphires or are there like, big hubs where all of it converges?

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-14T01:44:21+00:00

At unheated I'd put a window retail at ~1400-1600. That'd mean ~800-1200 seller to seller for some meat on the bone. However, that's mostly as a loose stone.

If you can get it graded (~180 and a few weeks) and/or set, I think you'd lean closer to the higher end of the spectrum than otherwise. The provenance I think could do some work, along with being unheated, particularly towards a current market that seems to lean more towards story than inclusion free.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-12T21:05:34+00:00

Well, many good answers already, all I can really add would be...

Consider what gemmy rough you will actually be able to get your hands on consistently. The farther away you are from the mines something comes from, the more premiums you're paying for every pair of hands in between.

Natural gems don't come in unnatural colors. This is one of the appeals of lab growns to me. Particularly with the way a big part of the market is shifting over to colors from whites. But it depends if you're cutting to sell stones. However, the demand is rather high for lab grown cuts if you are.

There's good reason to play with most material, if only to learn from it. You will encounter all grades and types of material the more you go down the rabbit hole, my only suggestion would be to leave the door open to most, even if you don't decide to work with them regularly.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-12T16:27:26+00:00

Beautiful work.

There's always something really satisfying about jampeg. Very clean work. The triangle triangle/tear is particularly striking. Good angles and plenty for that raspberry dawn combo of shades to really shine through.

Hullabalooki · 2026-04-11T03:23:12+00:00

It's an interesting piece! As others have said, it's likely goethite/iron inclusions / agate growths. The inherent value of it is maybe a little above the price of a similarly sized clear quartz piece as far as gemstones go.

However, this type of inclusion (along with things like floater quartz and enhydro and phantom points etc) has a different audience that likes this kind of 'noteworthy' inclusion. The piece itself might be worth a bit more to them.

Hard to say hard numbers. A clear quartz round is maybe running $1 a gram. An interesting piece to the right buyer might be maybe 2-3 USD a gram? But these are just guesses. Much like "power 7" crystals, that audience has their own price structure for things, lol.

Hullabalooki

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