Diamond tip drill bits and saw blades

There never has been a shortage of diamonds. The "gem grade" are just price controlled by the company that sells 99.9% of them.

Plus, I believe, lot of industrial diamonds are man made.

I remember reading about the "modern history" of diamonds. Up until the Debeers family cornered control of the African diamond mines diamonds were considered just another semi-precious stone. This happened in the late 1920s. Also that is when the diamond engagement ring became a "tradition" because of intense marketing by Debeers in the media of the day. Debeers is also the one who created the rule on what the "proper" amount you needed to spend on a diamond engagement ring was.

Gem quality can be manufactured, cheaply, too. Their only "flaw" is that they're too perfect. It's scaring the crap out of DeBeers. They're trying to force manufacturers to mark the diamonds as such. DeBeers is about the sleaziest business on the planet. I've been boycotting them for decades. ;-)

You can buy a man made diamond up to =BD carat (with larger ones soon to be made available) that cannot be distinguished from a natural diamond unless you have an instrument called a DiamondSure or DiamondView tester which are apparently so expensive that the company that sells them doesn=92t even list their price on their web-site:

I wasn't sure of the quality but knew industrial grades were cheap to make. GE scientist told somebody I knew that they could make diamonds out of any carbon source, even peanut butter.

There's still a lot of cutting and faceting involved in jewelry so it will never be dirt cheap.

It would be funny if someone made diamonds out of carbon dioxide and touted them as good for the environment because they reduced pollution. DeBeers would have a s*it fit ;)

I thought of that today. You are right, most industrial diamonds are man made.

Anyway it is true that people are paying good money for brown and black diamonds that were only good for tools. What marketing can do to change a inexpensive black diamond into precious stone.

They're making them out of human remains.

That's done in sweatshops around the world, too. The only thing that keeps diamonds expensive is DeBeers.

I think you're onto something, but I think you've been beaten to the punch (see the end of the YouTube video above). ;-)